KARACHI: Former federal minister and retired senator Javed Jabbar gave an insightful talk on Performing Arts and Political Crafts — A Symbiosis: Pakistan’s Origins, Present and Future? at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) on Thursday evening.

Mr Jabbar began his presentation by saying that the question mark in the title of the lecture could have been placed in front of ‘origins’ because conventionally the future is thought of as uncertain and mysterious, but history is the greatest mystery. The more one explores alternative views of history the more mysterious it gets. “For 90000 years we have been hunter gatherers. Agriculture was invented only about 10000 years back.” Yet there are many unanswered questions, such as how did the heavy stones on Easter Island arrive. Therefore, history is a mystery and Pakistan’s history is still worth exploring.

Drawing comparisons or similarities between political crafts and performing arts, Mr Jabbar quoted from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It in which a character utters the following lines:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts

He pointed out as we develop a relationship with someone, we begin to play our part and become actors. From the days of yore, such as from the time when theatre became part of the lives of the Greeks 1600 years ago, symbiosis between theatre and political reality evolved. The historian Herodotus wrote about theatre in Persia. Even today, Iran’s films, despite the country not being in a cordial relationship with the US, win Oscar awards.

Mr Jabbar then broke down political crafts and performing arts’ salient features. He said the former has ideology, manifesto, party, leader(s), slogan, supporters and voters; and the latter has characters, conflict, plot, speech, rhetoric. Performing arts also has music and dance. The shared concerns for political crafts and performing arts are the human condition, the national condition and the local condition. Shared themes are: illusion, passion, ambition, power, hate, violence, assertion, love. Shared genres are: epic tragedy, tragi-comedy, pantomime and farce. “Both have the capacity to persuade people to believe or suspend belief, briefly or for long.”

Mr Jabbar, shedding light on Pakistan’s unique origins, remarked, it’s existence a like a “continuously improvised play”. This led him to go into the past claiming that it had 10 milestones — 1857, 1906, 1930, 1933, 1937, 1940, 1946, Feb-March 1947, June 3, 1947 and August 14, 1947. He described the milestones briefly and coming to the last few of them spoke about the hastiness that Lord Mountbatten showed in the division of the subcontinent.

One of the interesting aspects of the comparisons between the two subjects in focus was about the use of attires in both. He mentioned Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s change of attire from suit to sherwani enabling him to become synonymous with Muslims. He had an alluring vision, he was a magnetic hero, had a mass galvanization and was a box office super-hit. Remaining on the subject of Pakistan after its inception, he touched upon the 1971 epic tragedy and said that from 1972-1977-2024 it could be seen as a five act play with the following: reaffirmation, resolve, renewal, resurgence and regression. He also spoke about Z.A. Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto and their attires.

Mr Jabbar said religious forces strongly opposed the creation of Pakistan but since 1949 they claim the ideological custody of the state. However, in the 11 general elections held, religious forces have never received majority votes.

He said today performing arts are struggling to survive whereas political crafts are thriving. Performing arts need substantive increase in state funding and support by the private sector.

Concluding his talk, he said performing arts should not change and political crafts are also unlikely to change. The two will have a happy ever-after.

With reference to Pakistan’s tremendous potential, he added, Pakistan has produced the likes of Zia Mohyeddin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sharemeen Obaid-Chinoy and Arooj Aftab.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2024