Alarming developments are beginning to creep upon us surreptitiously.
It began in Lahore a couple of months ago. Suddenly, someone began to tar the bright young faces of women on billboards advertising toothpaste, shampoo and cooking oil. Then we were stunned to read about a petition by a couple of men purporting to be the conscience of the nation’s morality. They had sought, and obtained, from a court of law an order banning the construction of a proposed “food street” in the city. Apparently the site of the proposed street to be transformed from a dirty, dung-ridden alley into a brightly lit, shop-lined walkway was found to be “objectionable”. The street is behind the perimeter wall of the great mosque near the “red-light” area of the old city. Now, in the latest of these moralistic stirrings by city “notables”, we hear of the frenzied response of the pious administration of Punjab University to censor allegedly “obscene” words, lines and passages in books of English literature prescribed as texts.
On the face of it, the act of spoiling billboards seemed like a spontaneous bout of vagrancy. No one seriously claimed responsibility or explained the motives behind it. Indeed, when the police nabbed a couple of youngsters red-handed, they were simply reprimanded and let off the hook. But now we learn that the “face” disease has broken out in the North West Frontier province. Alarmingly, offending billboards have been pulled down or wrecked, with scant regard for the financial losses to businessmen. Worse, the provincial Amir of the Jamaat i Islami, Mr Sabir Hussain Awan, an MNA, has not just taken responsibility for ordering this action via the zealots of the Shabab-i-Milli (the youth wing of the parent party) but seems downright self-righteous about it. “We asked the district administration to remove these billboards”, he thundered, “when it didn’t, we had to remove them forcibly ourselves”. It is understood that the Jamaat MNA considers such toothpaste posters “evil” and “un-Islamic”. Can we then presume that the same logic will now be surreptitiously applied to all product advertising in the print and electronic media so that in the bitter end the fundamentalists will force the hijab on every female in the country?
The fanatical behaviour in the matter of the “food street” in Lahore’s “red-light” area is equally disturbing. The petitioners argue that “the innocent youth” of the country would be attracted to the “food street” and fall into the erring ways of the area. This is a load of crap. The red-light area already boasts some of the finest eateries in the city, including one in the heart of the area run by an acclaimed artist. Nor would the red-light area have become a greater “den of sin” by the arrival of an upmarket food street in its vicinity. If anything, perhaps, it might have been nudged to clean up its act in keeping with the spirit of the times. It bears reminding, of course, that the red light area has braved the most tyrannical and hypocritical of regimes to retain its original character in an undying tribute to the great historic city of Lahore.
The Punjab University’s attempt to “purge the English syllabi of obscenity” is straight out of the middle ages when book burning rather than book reading was the accepted norm. Among the targeted texts are some celebrated classics of English literature like Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, and so on. According to university sources, “the orders have come right from the top”, implying the Presidency. The whisper goes that the wife of a former army general raised the matter with the President’s good wife, who referred it to the President himself. In due course, a call from the Presidency woke up the registrar and the vice-chancellor of the university, both retired army officers, who entrusted the job of cleaning up the English language to a certain Dr Shahbaz Arif. Dr Arif claims that the word “rape” in The Rape of the Lock evokes “a negative image”. He says he will try to change this image or recommend some other book. “There are so many vulgar words, concepts and thoughts in the current English curriculum that they can ‘induce’ our youngsters to erroneous thoughts and ways, and there are ideas and concepts that don’t jibe with the ideology of Pakistan”. Among the many objectionable words listed by the great scholar of Islam and defender of Pakistan are “vodka, wine, whiskey”. But for some strange reason, words and phrases like “ cock a gun” or “cock an ear”, or “crowing cocks” and even “cockpits” are also under scrutiny. (see The Rape of the English Language by Ejaz Haider on page 7 of TFT this week).
We are appalled. It is bad enough to be ruled by cocksure generals. Now we are to be taught English language and literature by the cocky wives of cocksure generals. May God have mercy on us all.