[Reader-list] cultural 'commons' - India and Pakistan

[ravikant]

I really enjoyed this lucid reading.

ravikant 

Exposure to alien cultures
By Anwar Syed
http://www.dawn.com/2003/03/23/op.htm#3


According to a report in this newspaper (February 17), the Muttahida 
Majlis-i-Amal condemned the PTV's projection of "obscene" materials. An 
assembly of the ulema on the same day called upon the government to stop the 
electronic media from exposing our people to Indian and western cultures, and 
instead promote Islamic values and traditions. No one will dispute the 
desirability of spreading Islamic values, but the exclusion of foreign 
influences may be a tall order.

Without becoming abstruse, let us say that culture encompasses much of what we 
call our way of life: rituals and customs relating to birth and death, and 
marriage; societal organization, class and caste distinctions; food, culinary 
styles, ways of eating; homes and furnishings; festivals and celebrations; 
notions and mores of romance, love and friendship; patterns of interaction 
with those who may be older or younger, superiors, inferiors, opponents, or 
strangers; humour, jokes; language and literary forms; music and dance; 
visual arts.

In the discussion that follows we will focus on India and defer consideration 
of the West to another time. Let us first take a quick look at how much our 
culture is already Indianized. There is no need to shy away from the fact 
that the regions which compose our country are forever situated on a land 
mass known as the Indian subcontinent and, for long stretches of time, were 
ruled by one or another king located somewhere in India.

Next, barring a small minority that claims descent from foreign gentry 
(invaders from the West), most of us are ethnically the same people as the 
folks in northern and north-western India. Inevitably, then, there are many 
elements of commonality between their way of living and ours.

The following similarities come readily to mind: At birth a boy is more 
welcome than a girl; parents have traditionally looked for their children's 
spouses within their own caste; parents of Punjabi girls on both sides of the 
border pay a dowry to the groom's family; when the girl's family can afford 
it (sometimes even if it has to borrow), celebrations connected with the 
wedding can extend to three or more days (oiling the bride's hair, covering 
her hands and feet with spots of henna, reception for the groom's party and 
others on the wedding day) with fine food served to the guests on each 
occasion; recording of gifts received from each guest. A woman's status takes 
a big fall if her husband dies, and she is expected to reduce her lifestyle 
accordingly; widow remarriage is not encouraged in either culture.

The majority of Hindus and Sikhs do not normally eat meat, but the spices used 
for cooking vegetables and lintels, recipes and the order in which the 
ingredients are mixed, preparation of rice and unleavened bread (chapati) are 
virtually the same on both sides..

Identification with one's caste has revived in the Pakistani Punjab. Last 
names signifying the bearer's caste abound. The two major groups among the 
native gentry (as distinguished from the descendants of foreign invaders) are 
the Rajputs and Jats. Rathores, Chauhans, Bhattys (Rajputs) and Noons, 
Tiwanas, Bajwas, Chatthas, Cheemas, Ghummans, Kahloons, Sandhus, Waraich, and 
others (Jats) will be found among Punjabi Muslims as well as among Sikhs and 
Hindus in the Indian Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.

Needless to say, the lower-caste Muslims in Punjab (carpenters, blacksmiths, 
potters, shoemakers, barbers, oilseed crushers, water carriers, etc.) are 
descended from lower caste Hindus who converted to Islam somewhere along the 
line. In other words, the great majority of our people in Punjab, and 
possibly also in Sindh, share common ancestry with groups in India.

A common language is a powerful incentive for people to come together. Punjabi 
spoken in Pakistan is the same as that spoken in India, and it is the same in 
popular entertainment programmes offered by radio and television. Urdu and 
Hindi spoken on the street, in homes, and in most movies are easily 
understood in both countries. There has been a great deal of mixing between 
Urdu and Hindi during the last couple of hundred years, and it goes on at the 
popular level.

Note also that Urdu is just about the only language in the world which has no 
verbs of its own. Almost all of its verbs come from Hindi without 
modification; only a few are taken from Farsi (for instance, "azmana" which 
derives from Farsi "azmudan"). Classical music in Pakistan is the same as the 
Indian. The fact that Muslim musicologists (Amir Khusro and others) 
contributed a great deal to its development does not change its origin.

There are Arab, Iranian, Central Asian, Bangladeshi, Malayam, and Indonesian 
cultures-all of them belonging to Muslim peoples - but is there such a thing 
as an Islamic culture? As the late Maulana Maududi would have had it, music, 
dance, romantic poetry, painting of human subjects, and sculpture cannot be 
Islamic any more than gambling or drinking can be. There is Muslim art, but 
Islamic art is a contradiction in terms for the most part. We have holidays 
and celebrations that may be called Islamic. Certain forms of greeting, and 
expressions of encouragement, praise, gratitude, regret common in Muslim 
usage may also be called Islamic. But on the larger scale, the import of the 
advice that we should stick with Islamic culture, to the exclusion of alien 
influences, is not clear.

It is likely that the ulema, and the conservatives generally, are agitating 
more against obscenity than against the cultural expressions referred to 
above. But, then, all of us - even Europeans and Indians-disfavour obscenity 
and have made laws to discourage it. It is moot whether, and to what extent, 
a book or a movie can corrupt its readers or viewers. But if obscene movies, 
books, periodicals, symbols, gestures, and actions press upon us wherever we 
look, their message is bound to influence the way we use our minds and 
imaginations. Thus they shape our character and personalities.

What is obscenity? We can probably agree that it is associated with the 
explicit and public display of sex-related acts or parts of the human body. 
But this agreement will not exhaust the subject, for that which looks obscene 
to a Pakistani may not appear the same to a French woman. According to the 
United States Supreme Court (Miller v. California, 1973), if the average 
person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that a publication 
or presentation is likely to arouse prurient interests or lascivious thoughts 
and desires in the viewer's mind, well, then the material in question is 
obscene.

The court's reference to the prevailing community standards is one way of 
identifying obscenity. Another is to consult the scriptures and act on the 
criteria they provide in making a determination. In actual practice, the 
likelihood is that prevailing standards, more than the scriptures, will 
influence attitudes and judgments.

As a point of departure, let us say that sexual activity in public view is 
indisputably obscene. On another plane, note that any number of American and 
European women will wear a "halter," in the summer that shows all of their 
backs, arms, and bellies, and shorts that show virtually all of their legs. 
Is that obscene? Americans and Europeans may think of such attire as a trifle 
provocative but not obscene.

But a Pakistani woman dressed in this fashion, and appearing in public, will 
probably be arrested. Many Muslim women in the Arab world wear skirts that 
show their legs, but a Pakistani Muslim woman doing the same will cause a 
stir. As in other countries, fashions in Pakistani women's dress come, go, 
and return. For the last ten years or so, tailors in Lahore and Islamabad, 
who stitch women's clothes, have cut the shirt's neck and back low enough to 
make the wearer look a bit like an exhibitionist.

The "shalwar" is cut short enough to show one's ankles. Is this obscene, 
improper, daring, or just attractive? Take your pick, but I wouldn't be 
surprised if the more conservative among us regarded it as obscene. More than 
the fashions in women's clothing, the obscenity which the critics want to 
shut out from our television screens is the one projected in western and 
Indian movies.

Those in love are shown as scantily dressed, using a lot of explicit body 
language. Wiggling of hips, tight hugs, and even rolling on top of each other 
were shown in the Indian, especially Punjabi, movies even before 
independence. But all of this is now being done much more blatantly; the 
gentle, sentimental kiss on the cheek has gone out of fashion.

What can be done to stop these trends? The Pakistan Telecommunications 
Authority has recently asked internet providers to block a hundred or so 
websites that show pornographic material. But it transpires not only that 
blocking even that many websites is technically very hard, but that there are 
countless other websites that do the same and of which no one can keep track. 
Banning cable or dish antennas has not worked in Iran and it will not work in 
Pakistan.

In other words, there is nothing that public authorities can do to keep out 
western or Indian influences. They can be excluded only if the internet users 
and movie viewers choose, of their own accord, not to look for them. That is 
a choice our young people will, or will not, make depending on how their 
families have raised them.

On their part, the ulema should temper their concern for our morals with a 
sympathetic understanding of our need for a bit of fun. They are much too 
stern for most of us to take as our models. Many of them will not let us have 
even a good laugh, not to speak of playing a few hands of bridge, listening 
to Iqbal Bano, or mixing soda with anything that might elevate one's spirit. 
If they do not step down from their high horse to the ground where we mortals 
stand, their audience will continue to diminish.

E-mail: syed.anwar at attbi.com