Pak schools will no longer resound with Indian tunes

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is Nawaz Sharif’s brother. While the latter has instructed that men and women newscasters should not be shown together on the television and that women newsreaders must cover their heads, his brother’s government in Punjab has ordered that students and teachers in girls schools and colleges must use the veil and abide by the teachings of Islam.

Late last month a notification was issued saying, “Teachers who do not observe purdah will face an official inquiry while students will face punishment,” the English daily News has reported. Also, no man can enter a girls school or college. These schools and colleges cannot hold cultural activities and play Indian film songs at fetes.

But it is not only Indian songs that seem to be worrying the Sharif government. Even pop music, that young Pakistanis love, is becoming taboo. The prime minister has appointed the former spy-master, Brigadier Imtiaz, as the managing director of the NTM channel to rid the electronic media of pop music and “jean-jacket” culture. Brig Imtiaz was the chief of the political wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and later he was made the head of the Intelligence Bureau.

An article in the News explains Sharif’s latest zeal thus: “When the present government started normalising relations with India, the sudden rise of religious fervour was witnessed again.

The government with the massive electoral mandate instead of focussing on the declining law and order situation and the deteriorating economy, took upon itself to comment on the hairstyles of the youth and their choice of music. The dress code for the media would now be decided by the government in the true tradition of the Zia regime.”

Sharif’s criticism of Pakistan TV’s programmes last month, particularly his remarks about pop music and what he called the race with international channels, is reviving the old debate about Pakistan’s own culture.

“What is Pakistan’s culture?” the question was hotly debated in the early 1970s when the then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto told country’s filmmakers to base their stories on Pakistan’s own culture instead of copying Indian films.