**A matter of culture? **
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By Omar R. Quraishi
The whole controversy regarding Meera’s alleged onscreen kiss with Indian actor Ashmit Patel (of Murder fame) in a Mollywood film by the name of Nazar seems completely unwarranted and out of place. Not only that, it exposes the sanctimonious hypocrisy which seems to be becoming the hallmark among many sections of Pakistani society.
Triggered by a story let out by a Pakistani news agency quoting an unnamed official of the ministry of culture, who said that the ministry had decided to fine the actress for bringing her culture and religion into disrepute, the furore has snow balled into a situation where the actress, according to a report in the Times of India of March 3, has extended her stay in India and sought the help of the Pakistan government in providing security to her family in Lahore.
This she did after religious party activists went to her home in Lahore and threatened her family of dire consequences because of her role in the film.
Now there are several problems with this, not least the fact that since the film has yet to be released, what is all the fuss about. Second, what was the business of the culture ministry official passing judgment on an individual actress’s role in a yet-to-be-released foreign film?
Surely, the ministry has better things to do than to pass moral judgments on Lollywood heroines. Besides, if the scenes in the film were deemed “objectionable”, what has stopped the ministry from threatening similar action against those who act in Pakistani films since the latter are not exactly all that pristine either?
Once the story came in the media, the federal culture minister joined in saying that he was disappointed by the actress’s actions although he did not utter the threat of penalty mentioned earlier by the unnamed ministry official. Thankfully, the minister of state of the same ministry later said, and perhaps stung by the negative publicity the whole affair had generated overseas, clarified that the ministry had never contemplated any action against Meera. This was the first thing that came to some people’s minds since what law could the culture ministry have possibly used to fine the actress for working in a role in an overseas film.
The initial objection was that the actress’s onscreen conduct was unbecoming since she was supposed to be her country’s ambassador while abroad. Notwithstanding the fact that the film has not even been released yet, the same could easily be said of our ministers, members of parliament and senior government functionaries when they go overseas. But one did not find any senior ministry official (anonymous or otherwise) coming out in public and condemning the actions of the then (and now suspended) secretary of the National Assembly who, according to a report in the UK-based Daily Telegraph, was briefly arrested by London police on a rather juicy charge.
Clearly, it’s a lot easier for the retrogressive elements and assorted defenders/guardians of public morality in this country to pick on people like actors, models and musicians. In many instances, it is people in government who indulge in such reprehensible tactics, imposing their narrow definition and interpretation of Pakistani culture and values to impose their views on the rest of society. This takes the shape of misguided policies like those used by the MMA government in the NWFP where musicians and stage performers have been targeted and rendered jobless.
And sometimes it takes the shape of a mixture of personal zealousness and misuse of official authority as in Punjab where local officials have taken it upon themselves to rid society of such elements. In one recent case, one such official in Multan told theatre actresses that their profession was tarnishing the sanctity of their Islamic names and hence they would be better off adopting new ones.
The controversy has also shown just how riven and jealousy-ridden the Pakistani film industry is. Almost all the actresses and actors (barring Moammar Rana who told an Urdu newspaper that Meera had done nothing that merited such adverse reaction) said that they disapproved of what Meera had done. Most actresses said that Meera would “do anything for publicity” or that she “was only doing in India what she did in Pakistan”.
It seems that all of them, barring Meera of course, have never acted in roles which required them to bare their mid-riffs, dance around semi-naked in the rain or come within close range of a male colleague’s face or lips. Or, is it that a Pakistani actress should never have done what Meera did because the male acting colleague was an Indian, and a non-Muslim at that?
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/review3.htm
**10 March 2005 **
