Who killed basant?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Ahmad Rafay Alam
It takes some skill to kill a cultural phenomenon. Last week, we were told that the District Kite Flying Association decided to cancel its plans for basant. They were in no mood to shoulder the blame for any casualties this year, and in no mood to be rounded up and hauled to the nearest thana because someone else breaks the law.
This will be first year the city of Lahore will not witness the kite-flying festival that heralds the arrival of spring. basant is, for all practical purposes, dead.
For the past decade, the city’s definitive festival event has been tarred, feathered and humiliated. It was only a matter of time before even something “wedded to the soil” gave way to relentless attack. That phrase isn’t mine; it belongs to Mr Justice Aqil Mirza who described basant in those terms in his decision in Ramzan Welfare Trust v. WAPDA (PLD 1997 Lah 235).
Who is responsible for this death? Who killed basant? Last year, I had written that the burden of delivering last year’s basant was immense; in that, if the efforts of the Planning and Development Department’s special committee “failed to deliver . . . basant might be snuffed out altogether.” This year’s cancellation would implicate solely this special committee.
It’s one year on from when I wrote those words and I’m not totally convinced that this implication is correct. I’ve been doing some detective work, and it seems there may have been more than one cause for this death. Just as in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, the suspects and their motives are aplenty.
For years now, the religious right have repeated a constant refrain: basant is a Hindu festival, its celebration is un-Islamic. They quote the 18th century incident of Hakeekat Rai, the Hindu teenager from Sialkot who refused an offer of clemency if he converted to Islam. This was after he blasphemed against the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and was convicted to death. His death was said to have been celebrated by flying kites, and hence basant.
This is patently untrue and just another example of how propaganda is used to wrongfully Islamise and distort a South Asian history shared by Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Jain alike. You can trace basant back to at least the 13th century — hundreds of years before Hakeekat Rai was even a glint in the milkman’s eye — when Amir Khusro sought to relieve his mentor, Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, who was mourning the loss of a close relative.
Khusro came across villagers dressed in yellow and flying kites. He learnt they were celebrating the arrival of spring and thought he would do the same to cheer up his ustad. Today, kites still fly in Delhi. Data Ganj Baksh, the patron Saint of Lahore, brought the seasonal festival to Lahore after observing it in Delhi.
Regardless of the historical origins of basant, the religious right has fed this Islamising historical propaganda into the many other strains of opposition to this festival. When kite-strings were blamed for causing frequent power outages — the allegation made in the Ramzan Welfare Trust case — it was the anti-Islamic sentiment that fuelled the case against kite flying. In fact, when Mr Justice Aqil Mirza made his “wedded to the soil” comment, he was referring to basant as a cultural festival and denying it had religious connotations. The same is true for the argument that basant is responsible for the deaths of hundred of hundreds of people; that the glass-coated metalled wire is responsible for the decapitation of innocents. So fierce is the pro-Islamist and anti-basant sentiment that it blocks from view what is really going on.
basant was essentially a festival celebrated in the Walled City and its immediate surroundings. Some time in the late 1990s, the Government of Punjab decided it would “nationalise” the event. It was a money-maker. Tens of thousands of families depended on it for seasonal income. It was great for tourism and it projected a modern and, dare I mention the phrase these days, “enlightened,” face of the country. All the government had to do was distance the festival from the Islamising propaganda. This they attempted to do with cosmetic alterations, like changing its name to Jashn-e-Baharan. It worked like a charm. For the first few years, basant grew in size and splendour. I even recall having written it had the potential to rival Rio de Janeiro’s Festival as a world-class cultural event.
Then, within the same 3-4 year period, three things happened. First, about 2000, a new, high-tensile strength metalled wire was introduced to the kite-flying market. Because of its strength, it soon took over the old cotton twine as one’s boo-kaataa kite-string of choice. Second, the Chaudhry juggernaut installed itself in the city with the election of City District Nazim Mian Amir Mahmood. The District Nazim’s connections with the religious right are well known, as are those of the Chaudhry family. Third, with post-9/11 remittances and foreign aid pouring into a country at war with terror, the city exploded in size and population.
The city now found itself run by an administration inherently opposed to the Hindu connotations of basant. Also, the city fathers were unable to manage the needs of a modern metropolis. They had allowed green belts and residential areas to be commercialised, depriving children of sufficient space to play near their homes. They had not enforced building byelaws or made sure they provided safety to home owners. They failed to take action against the manufacture of the dangerous glass-coated metalled kite-string. And when people were run over by automobiles, they didn’t take responsibility. They blamed basant. When children fell off rooftops, they didn’t take responsibility. They blamed basant. And they blamed basant when the kite-string began claiming lives.
It came as no surprise when the Supreme Court of Pakistan, taking suo motu notice of the loss of life caused by the festival, decided to ban basant in 2006. During this decade-long period, stakeholders have done next to nothing.
They must also shoulder the blame for the death of basant. Other than sit and watch other string manufacturers grow rich while breaking the law, the various kite-flying associations or string manufacturers have done nothing to bring anyone to book. Now, with Lahore stretching from Bedian to Raiwind, most new districts and developments are too far from the old city to absorb its cultural heritage. The new city now dominates, and basant also suffers the apathy of the citizens of Lahore. basant is now no longer something that belongs to the new Lahore. It is now part of a Lahore that is lost. And that is the story of the death of basant.
The writer is an advocate of the high court and a member of the adjunct faculty at LUMS. He has an interest in urban planning. Email: ralam@nexlinx .net.pk