MR Musharraf's last speech took the nation through a winding road and some very dark alleys of his nine-year rule till he finally said the 'R' word. He seemed to have brought us all to one conclusion that he had missed the point altogether.

He spoke of many brick-and-mortar achievements like bridges, roads and the National Art Gallery (NAG) in Islamabad like some modern-day Shah Jehan building monuments to his power. But somewhere in between he forgot to build institutions and in the end even tried to destroy established ones that stood between him and absolute control.

Speaking of NAG, that he claims to have given to the nation, the record must be put straight that it was not Mr Musharraf's brainchild. It was a project with a chequered history of three decades. Several governments put aside funds for it which for some mysterious reason were never enough so that the completion was repeatedly stalled. Surprisingly, one of the bigger contributions of Rs20m came from Ziaul Haq.

Legend has it that while surveying the fiefdom of Islamabad when he was still in his crisp khakis, Mr Musharraf noticed the eyesore of a half-constructed building on the raised land across Parliament House and sent his lackeys to investigate. When they informed him it was the incomplete building of NAG it appealed to his whims and soon Rs540m were made available from the national exchequer to complete the project.

A question that needs to be raised here is where was the debate that sets national priorities for such a large amount in a developing country? If initiated, the national debate on art and culture at every level of society through the media and various organisations at that point would have taken us closer to a consensus even if the liberals and conservatives agreed to disagree on the project. Today the liberals as they stand shoulder to shoulder at lawyers' rallies have begun to realise that it is better to engage in a dialogue among ourselves than to be divided by power agendas.

One would gladly give Mr Musharraf credit for his 'generosity' towards culture if the contradictions between action and stated intention were not so glaring. The first contradiction was revealed at the inauguration of NAG when it was delayed by several months. This showed a president who was keen enough on the visual arts to invest such a large sum but was suddenly not available for months to publicly launch the project.

Was it because once the edifice was completed he had lost interest in it? Maybe he found it easier to deal with the grand monument than the multiple dissenting voices within it that questioned tyrannies and championed the rights of the people.

The inauguration turned out to be a very frustrating time for hundreds of artists who had lent their works for the 16 inaugural shows and its curators whose life was on hold due to the constantly shifting deadline. Perhaps the most regrettable fallout of the delay was that the exhibitions, first of their kind in the country and a befitting tribute to its immense talent, had to be wrapped up in a short period due to the lapse of insurance cover for the displayed work, thus depriving a large audience of the opportunity to view them. This was an act that defeated the very purpose of a national gallery where the visually articulated collective memory of a nation is one of the building blocks of unity through shared pride.

If it had been the inauguration of a national gallery in any country seriously committed to the visual arts and driven by the larger national vision then the focus would have remained on contextualising the exhibitions through presentations and discussions with artists exploring the various trajectories in art that are linked to our evolving identity.

Such an initiative would communicate the true enlightened spirit of a nation that has refused to die despite repression and upheaval, and given the world a credible window on Pakistan. This was not to be, for Mr Musharraf, once in the galleries, hurriedly walked through making few stops and did not even bother to cover all the shows. Some curators found him visibly uncomfortable as they discussed works with obvious elements of protest.

The fact that roughly an hour was spent in the galleries (that comes down to barely five minutes per show for which artists and curators had invested over a year) does not reflect enthusiasm for the visual arts. The irony is that Mr Musharraf spent several hours listening to run-of-the-mill musical performances. We speak of the opiate of the masses. Here music it seemed was the opiate of the leader.

What does a nation make of the policies of a president who sets up the National Academy of Performing Arts, is known to host musical evenings regularly at his official residence, but does not heed the repeated requests of artists to revoke the draconian practice of obtaining a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the local magistrate to hold a dance or theatre performance?

Script censorship and NOC practices are the legacy of colonial laws for monitoring subjects by curtailing free expression and speech in the public realm. After six decades, Pakistani leaders apparently have few qualms about replicating the same methods to humiliate their artists and abuse the citizens' rights to select their own entertainment.

Any critique of the state of the arts in the last decade must take into account the opportunities missed as the superficial promotion of the arts did not even begin to touch the weighty issue of long-term reform. All the public funds spent to build a public perception of enlightened moderation focused on the personal preferences of the leadership with little regard to the serious and multifaceted uplift of the creative fields.

Historians may judge Mr Musharraf's use of culture to push his 'enlightened moderation' objectives as no different than Ziaul Haq's. They shared the same intentions with their selective promotion in order to meet anti-people goals. This time the face of culture got a cosmetic veneer of glamour but was further leached of substance.

asnaclay06@yahoo.com