What happened to the so-called revival of cinema in Pakistan? Why are those cinema seats falling empty again and that box office looking so deserted? Why is a thriving production pipeline that had just started churning out content, of however questionable quality, already drying up?

Something which seemingly began more as a gesture and a rather tactical display of patriotism just before the traditionally low-business period of Muharram — the so-called ‘self-imposed’ ban on Indian movies — has not only come to haunt the nascent cinema industry, it is shaking the very foundations of filmmaking in Pakistan.

The grand national narrative has, this time, chosen our cinema theatres to play itself out. The silver screen is the new arena where the jagged relationship between India and Pakistan will manifest itself in all its ugliness.

The ban is not self-imposed, or more appropriately self-inflicted, anymore. Some exhibitors are already claiming they received ‘back-handed directions’ to stop screening Indian movies in October.

The silver screen is the new arena where the jagged relationship between India and Pakistan manifests itself in all its ugliness

But whether it was a knee-jerk reaction or well-thought-out plan, on both sides of the border those who had been waiting for such an opportunity for long have seized it and have already turned it into a battle of the narratives.

Cinema and the state

On this side, dubious yet unnervingly active social media accounts are at pains to explain the whole premise behind the move. In their binary universe of ‘us and them’, the ban is an opportunity to cleanse the minds polluted by the consumption of Hindi cinema over many decades.

Some have even given an estimate; that how it will take at least two decades to “un-Indianise the minds of innocent Pakistani audiences.” As if the earlier 45 years were not enough. The use of language in this discourse is very peculiar. While all other international films are just ‘content’, anything remotely connected to India is referred to as ‘foreign content’ — something alien that has the potential to pollute the purity of local culture.

Bizarrely, while all other kinds of trade between India and Pakistan goes on almost unaffected by the all the violent and non-violent events and is not questioned even by the hardliners, it is specifically creative goods which have become contraband items. For the social media evangelicals, Hindi movies are the most obvious, most visual and most powerful presence of the ‘other’ in our midst, and hence cannot be tolerated. The overwhelming popularity of Hindi movies belies their very ideology and that is why there is so much focus to keep the ban imposed.

While the preachers of hate are doing what they have always been doing, the situation has been further exacerbated by unprecedented steps being taken by a key state institution, Pakistan’s media regulatory authority or PEMRA. Though PEMRA has fortunately no jurisdiction over cinemas, its aggressive drive to wipe off Indian content from TV screens and airwaves have further upped the ante.

These actions by PEMRA being taken in the wake of the introduction of the new Direct to Home or DTH TV services, are seemingly unconnected to the ongoing ban on Indian films, but have somewhat added to an atmosphere of collective anxiety about the neighbour.

Events on both sides of the border reveal that while the state is silent and there is no official obligation or notification for a ban, it’s the self-styled patriots, the non-state activists who are clearly acting out an agenda on behalf of the state. Having raised the stakes so high, it will become increasingly difficult to restore the old order.

In the name of provision of new high-resolution digital TV services, the state has encroached our bedrooms. We will have HD TV services soon but the remote control is held quite strongly by the state.

The relationship between the Pakistani state and a nascent cinema is also quite similar. While both have developed a liking for each other they really do not know how to further this liaison.

While the state knows quite well how important cinema is as a vehicle for propaganda, and almost every third month we see a very persistent attempt at ‘correcting the narrative’, if you like, through the release of patriotic films, at the same time it fails to understand the very principle cinema works on.

It’s quite convenient to call up all the celebrities you can when a PR exercise is needed and a film festival is organised in New York just before the crucial elections of a UN body membership. But it is equally important to give cinema the space and environment at home to grow.

For a Pakistani cinema brand to develop, it should first be allowed to grow in a freer atmosphere with thriving cinema halls, for which we need content without restrictions.

Both Bollywood and Hollywood have projected so-called ‘soft power’ over a long period of time. And of course, all big film industries including Hollywood play their part in propagating a certain narrative about important regional and global events. But then it’s the same industry which has also produced films exposing atrocities during the Vietnam War or, more recently, Abu Gharaib in Iraq!

‘No Pakistani actor was used in the making of this film’

On the other side of the border, things are not all that different.

Extreme right wing groups have found this opportunity useful to flex their muscles too. Leading Bollywood stalwarts are forced to publicly apologise and assure that they will never cast a Pakistani actor in future. As if it were a plague and now needs to be cleansed forever.

That symbiotic relationship that so beautifully developed over the last decade and a half where a Bollywood flick was not complete without a Rahat Fateh Ali Khan or Shafqat Amanat Ali song, has given way to video confessions and apologies for even thinking about working with Pakistanis in the future. Some believe it’s a good way to punish the Pakistani masses for the alleged sins of their state.

Since the late 1990s, the film industry in India has become regularised in the sense that investment banks and big corporations are replacing the old individual maverick financiers, many of whom were, interestingly, Sindhis who had migrated from this side of the border. Despite their facade of standing up for human rights and ethics, we all know big corporates buckle under pressure very quickly. So here we are. It was a big corporate, namely Fox Star Studios, which refused to release Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil in November despite Pakistani exhibitors willing to screen it.

Since October, a series of events on both sides of the border reveal that while the state is silent and there is no official obligation or notification for a ban, it’s the self-styled patriots, the non-state activists who are clearly acting out an agenda on behalf of the state. Having raised the stakes so high, it will become increasingly difficult to restore the old order.

Even if business sense prevails and the ‘ban’ is lifted in the coming weeks, it has already given way to a dangerous discourse which can resurrect itself with the slightest change in regional politics, or yet another violent incident.

The very idea of linking cinema to the state’s narrative of geo-politics is fundamentally flawed in that it takes away the core ideal of any creative production.

Recently, while strolling in Karachi’s Zamzama Park close to the children’s joyride area, I heard Masoom’s famous song Lakri Ki Kathi being played on an old tape machine in a rickety train ride carrying loads of Pakhtun kids. Listening to it, I wondered how this ‘purge’ of Indian content would ever be successful.

The writer is the producer of the films Zinda Bhaag and Jeewan Hathi

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 18th, 2016