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| Rural Punjab: land of jihadis and intolerance |
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Thursday, July 23, 2009
Rural Punjab seems to have gone through a subtle but certainly very conspicuous change during the last two decades. The 'new' Punjab doesn't resonate with its traditional and historical composition, as it used to be known for its friendliness, easygoing, open mindedness and secular attitudes of life. Though change is a compulsory human trait but the problem with this change is its unnatural progression and non-indigenousness. The new ways of life almost entirely are caused by the outside factors and alien forces whose thoughts remained foreign to the local mindset.
What is also unfortunate is the complicity of the state to allow and encourage the new values which are placed under the banner of puritanisation of faith. I must say that the Punjab we find in the pictures of Usatad Allah Bakhsh and the Punjabi movies of the 1970s is there no more. (Please don't mix the films of the 70s with the 'gandasa'-style movies of the 80s). The new culture and its values have completely replaced the old ones. It has overshadowed Punjab's traditional softness, its folklore and the message of the great Sufi poets. Now, the imaginative visualisation of the new Punjab doesn't hold any more traditional sweet melodies of the pipe (bansri not fiddle), rather it has been replaced with the echoes of boom and sensation caused by the passing Kalashnikov bullets. The sweet 'mahiya and tappa' culture is switched with the loud sectarian and jihadi sermons blasting from the powerful loud speakers of the newly and rapidly constructed mosques and madressahs.
These new realities are pointing towards the similar dangerous and emerging trends as the ones already set in motion in the tribal and settled areas of NWFP, whereby life has been confined to the 'my way or the highway'. The state of Pakistan seems powerless to undo new and painful realities of tribal mindset blended with religious orthodoxy despite its change of heart towards its erstwhile so-called 'strategic assets'.
Bahadar Ali Khan
Markham, ON, Canada
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ISSN 1563-9479 
