Representing Pakistan Through Folk Music and Dance
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University of Alberta Representing Pakistan through Folk Music and Dance by Shumaila Hemani A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology Department of Music © Shumaila Hemani Fall 2011 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Mein tā koī khayāl I am just a thought Hun milī sā nāl khayāl dey Let my thought become a reality (Sachal Sarmast) Dedicated to the three most inspiring women in my life: my mother, Regula and Veengas Abstract: Folk music is a site of contestation to define national culture and language amongst the cultural elites in Pakistan. The elites who established cultural institutions for the promotion of folk music represented Pakistan either as a cultural unit with Islam and the Urdu language as its unifying bond, or resisted this position by considering Pakistan as a culturally diverse unit, in which national culture could emerge only through a synthesis of regional cultures and not through the imposition of a single culture and language. I apply Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice to situate my informants within the policies of three institutions: national media, Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) and Lok Virsa, in the period between 1965 and 1985. This period covers three major political regimes, when my informants participated in establishing and maintain cultural institutions that were revived after 9/11 to showcase Pakistan in the international community. Acknowledgements The impulse for this project was a discussion with Dr. Regula Qureshi in April 2009, and Dr. Qureshi’s continuous intellectual and moral support through various stages of this work has been a very memorable and inspiring process. The thesis was submitted late due to health issues and without the sincere support of both my advisors Dr. Federico Spinetti and Dr. Regula Qureshi, this work would not have reached its completion. I am grateful to my committee members including Dr. Qureshi, Dr. Spinetti, Dr. Andriy Nahachewsky, Dr. Mary Ingram for their questions, and especially Dr. Spinetti for his comments and critique. One person without whom this research would have been impossible is my friend Veengas Yasmeen, who not only introduced me to prominent members from the Sindhi literati and accompanied me in my trip to Hyderabd, but also invested enormous time and energy in obtaining translations of songs and discussing the issues that stemmed from this work. I am very grateful to Dr. Ghulam Ali Allana for his discussions on Pakistani culture as well as arranging meetings with Mr. Naeem Tahir, Mr. Uxi Mufti and Mr. Khalid Saeed Butt alongside facilitating my stay in Islamabad at Allama Iqbal Open University. On similar lines, I am grateful to Mr. Shaukat Omari to generously arrangea meeting with Zia Moheyddin and Mr. Shams Jafrani for facilitating my stay in BhitShah twice in month of May and again in July. I would also like to thank all my interviewees for sharing information about their experiences of working in public institutions and their contribution to folklore, particularly Hameed Akhund who also arranged an interview with Abida Parveen, Uxi Mufti, Khalid Saeed Butt, Baidil Masroor, Sattar Syed, Naeem Tahir, Zia Mohyeddin, Ibrahim Joyo, Shaikh Aziz and several others. Although one does not expect public officials to reveal information, I found that all my informants in various institutions such as Radio, PTV, Lok Virsa, PNCA, Federal Ministry of Culture, and Ministry of Culture-Sindh were very encouraging about a project on music of Pakistan. I would like to acknowledge my friends and colleagues Zulfiqar Khimani, Javed Mian, Veengas Yasmeen, Karim Gillani, who have offered their time to discuss this work. I am sincerely grateful to Laryssa Whittaker for editing the work. Above all, I’m indebted to my mother for her relentless support throughout out this work as well as for independence of thought and vision, because of which I, despite being a woman in my family, could pursue my dreams and that too of studying the much socially maligned yet as beautiful an activity as ‘music!’ Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 3 Introduction........................................................................................................... 1 Methodology: A Political Ethnography.................................................................. 9 Spellings, Translation and Transliteration ............................................................ 16 Chapter 2: Folk Music as a Site of Contestation.............................................. 18 State as a Field of Contestation............................................................................. 19 A Brief History of Cultural-Politics in Pakistan............................................... 20 Contestations to Define National Culture............................................................. 28 Position 1: Pakistan as ‘Islamic Culture’.......................................................... 30 Position 2: Pakistan as 5000 year Old .............................................................. 31 Position 3: Pakistan as a Cultural Diversity or Guldastā (Bouquet)................. 32 Contestations to Form Cultural Institutions.......................................................... 36 Contestations Amongst Cultural Elites: Folk Music and Cultural Distinction..... 46 Chapter 3: Broadcasting ‘Islamic Culture’ through ‘Regional-Folk music’ 54 Constructing Regional-Folk in the Founding Years ............................................. 56 Regional-Folk as Quintessentially Muslim........................................................... 58 The Song Lāl Merī Pat ..................................................................................... 63 Contestations to define folk music by Ruling Heads: Bhutto Versus Zia ............ 67 The Song Hummā Hummā................................................................................ 70 Production of Regional-Folk Music ..................................................................... 76 The Process of Hunting New Musical Talent................................................... 77 Disciplining Rural Musicians ........................................................................... 80 Chapter 4: Representing Pakistan as ‘Unity in Diversity’ through ‘Pakistani Folk’ ..................................................................................................................... 88 Contestations to Promote Folklore and Formation of Lok Virsa.......................... 88 Folk Music as ‘National Heritage’ of Pakistan..................................................... 97 Smithsonian Festival in 1976............................................................................ 97 Virsa Museum As Shuttle Diplomacy ............................................................ 101 National Sound Archive.................................................................................. 106 Chapter 5: Representing Pakistan as ‘5000 Years Old’ through Folk Music and Dances......................................................................................................... 112 Formation of National Performing Arts Group .................................................. 114 Folk Dances for Cultural Diplomacy During Z.A. Bhutto’s Regime............. 117 Folk Dances for Cultural Diplomacy during General Zia’s Regime .............. 120 The Repertory of the National Performing Arts Group...................................... 127 Mohenjo-daro Dance ...................................................................................... 129 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 135 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 139 Appendices......................................................................................................... 143 List of Cultural Institutions and Date of Formation ........................................... 143 List of Interviews ................................................................................................ 144 Various Renditions of Lāl Merī Pat: .................................................................. 145 List of Figures and Illustrations Fig. 1: The ticket for Sindh Sargam music festival 2 Fig. 2: Interview with Dr. G.A Allana at his house in Hyderabad 35 Fig. 3: “Folklore is our Awareness:” Brochure of Lok Virsa 93 Fig. 4: Allan Faqīr at the Smithsonian Festival in 1976 98 Fig. 5: The “Virsa Museum” (Heritage Museum) in Islamabad 102 Fig. 6: A placard from Virsa Museum that ironically portrays photo of A.R. Chughtai amongst sketches of Muslim mystics 103 Fig. 7: