Not an Activist any more

I wonder why the world sees ‘activism’ free of universal equity. Sure activism can be constructive, progressive or and often misleading, disruptive and destructive just like any other social or political theory. It is imperative for the activists to explain ‘activism’ across a moral and intellectual code that aligns with progressive and rational thinking instead of imposing their views using violence and destruction. The fair use of logic to substantiate a change in society is often rejected over an emotionally charged activist state of mind. As long as it doesn’t demonize all other practices of supporting an idea over rationality and reasoning, activism doesn’t seem to offer any other way of reforming its own fundamentals.

Where exactly does activism go out of hands or completely fail? Who decides the failure? Who will reform it if required, to be fair I think activists may only consider its own eligible enough to answer such questions. So far I doubt that activism may embark on answering these questions as it may go against them on social and moral grounds.

As soon as we acquire a college degree we begin to politically and socially define ourselves and others. We begin to use labels and supporting ideologies of our chosen influence/s to identify different roles in society. Thanks to our institutes this transformation of an unbiased student into a self proclaimed politically correct torch bearer of justice often takes pride in supporting activism. If the influence doesn’t stop there ‘Media’ steps in and shows us how glorified it is to become a peaceful or violent protestor over the many causes it can find to engage you. Our media and educational institutes often win the fight and they never really fail either since the failure always leaves more causes to turn you into an activist as it is prerequisite for survival for the activist notion.

Over the years activism has been gaining immense heroic attention without deploying any boundaries of social and moral values. Harbored by the media it is portrayed as a revolution every time that loses track of conclusion while our educational institutes continue to fuel it by turning more students into activists, who would not use any other means of proving a point besides protesting and wanting to over throw all other systems working in a society. Media and educational institutes are working side by side as counterparts without defining or following universal (social or moral) equity for activism.

While our institutes provide a limited exposure to carefully filtered ideologies, our media advertises it by showing us diverse activists as role models today. Preying on masses of self righteous freedom fighters the activist regime turns unbiased students into rigid extremists who don’t welcome a difference of opinion or rational thinking. With variable causes to offer there will always be one for every one from religion to animal rights, from political reforms to environment, from women rights to health care it seems as if the only solution is activism. The notion finds its way into using all forms of media from getting ‘likes’ on social media to viewership of television networks and newspapers and following the cool role models like Emma Watson and Beyonce.

                                   

Activists would use the same tactics of communication such as advertisement, propaganda, brand ambassadorship, PR campaigns, violence and man power to impose a narrative on masses. Yet when corporate sector, government, armed forces or any other institute uses the same tactics to perpetuate a political or social influence these activists demonize the act of using these tools. They would hold themselves superior to all other aspects by calling them authoritarian, white supremacists, fascists, capitalists, racists, and many other political slurs that fall out of context on rational grounds as set up by the international law that governs them. It’s funny since activists pretend they want to follow the law, you would often find them quoting the law but you may rarely find them obeying the law. The cherry picking of laws allow them to feed their denial that activism is working for the betterment of society and while treating the problem they often become the problem, that disrupts the harmony of many innocent people, which they never hold themselves responsible for.

Any act against these activists also lands you in trouble on social, political and emotional grounds of course and allows the self righteous ‘Media’ to have more juicy content to promote their act. Activism is never really held accountable for the horrors and intolerant acts of violence it promotes. Sure you may have seen some activists getting arrested and fined for their acts but that is only treating the ill and not the disease. The so-called whistle blowers or watch dogs chanting revolution and idealistic outcomes do everything to turn a rationally thinking person into a rigid activist who works in masses and loses the individuality.

Every system ever suggested or implemented in society needs exploration and reforms; there isn’t any society that has concluded a reason that could turn a city of men into a city of God. If more activists would be willing to take active rolls in rational discussions instead of being political pawns on a chess board we may have a shot and fueling our society with progressive outcomes.

Losing Urdu Fast

Years have passed our Urdu language has stopped creating words and expression of life. Urdu’s focus on adapting influence from foreign languages has been far greater than its native influences, which have been progressing towards a dying culture and expression of self for the speakers, writers or other representatives. This tragedy can be felt through numerous instances of lacking or lacking the use of words and expressions in Urdu even if they existed or not.

How many of us are able to express ourselves in Urdu? Knowing that only a handful of people associated with the language might only be the ones left with such expressions and would really know their language. According to the popular myth often taught in our institutes is that “Urdu is a camp language (زبان لشکری or lashkari zaban) because of its presumed origin in the army camps of the Mughal emperors. That is where Urdu met its ancestors such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, Sanskrit and Hindi. Historical evidence rejects this presumed origin of Urdu and we are left with another counter argument that the word ‘Urdu’ is of a Turkish decent and it literally means ‘lashkar’ or ‘army’ or ‘army camp’. But if we look deeper through cultural and social grounds we learn that cultural conflict and societal associations have been the basis of false historical grounds of Urdu and the loss of Urdu language till today.

Interestingly, there is hardly any language in the world that has not absorbed words from other languages but they have survived the cultural domination. English, being most ‘open’ of them all, has, according to David Crystal, borrowed from over 100 languages, but nobody has ever associated English as a subordinate to other languages, since it has retained its social, cultural and literary value.

Mir Amman (1750-1837) was among the first who presumed that Urdu is a camp language originated in Shah Jehan’s reign when he named a bazaar Urdu-e-Moalla, and that was never questioned in our textbooks till today and words stopped evolving ever since. The practice of enriching Urdu slowed down for the next few centuries, till the freedom movements of 1857 and 1947 drove the language into a cause. The overwhelming freedom movements established Urdu as what we know it today, the language was solely associated with Muslims of India only. Urdu was denied its cultural value by the people of subcontinent till it was run over by press. The dialect was largely under the influence of a political stance as socially empowering tool for the Muslims of India and not as a culturally evolving dialect.

This has been the basis of our lost interest in the language. The few existing literary grounds focused on an expression largely associated with the partition of India and the political turmoil it carried, the other influences existed as a dying poetic plea that generations refused to carry forward. The institutes of India and Pakistan also failed to establish the need for Urdu’s progression by touching the hearts of people. The obsolete curriculum was the final blow to the language, since other social influences like theatre, art, science, literature were never really taken up as a reforming element by the flag bearers of Urdu language. Deprived of historical accounts we still fail to rule out the political influence on the language almost entirely on our society. We still know Urdu as a camp language while ignoring poets like Ameer Khusrow who died in 1325 who had been composing poetry in Urdu, way before the Mughal era that began in 1526 after Babar’s success at Panipat. Khusrow’s life explained Urdu exactly like a chapter that was torn off from a book, he highlights the idea that only the interested students may take up as a conscious affiliation towards the language.

A language takes centuries, even more, to evolve. It is a slow, long, constant, complex and natural process. A language ‘invented’ to serve a specific purpose doesn’t last centuries. Only a cultural influence holds the strength to carry a language through centuries of evolution. Many such artificial attempts have failed among nations trying to communicate with each other. Esperanto, a language formed with the basic roots of some European languages, died despite its early success. That’s where British stepped in and did the job for us.

Muslims came to India as traders, conquerors/soldiers and as sufis/mystics. Out of these traders and conquerors learnt a handful of Urdu to communicate with the locals and being most dominating and authoritative leading power. The fate of the language rests in the historical account, the language needs to be treated like a language and not as a social cause. Associating a language with a socio-political cause takes away the prestige of any language. Urdu speaking people in Pakistan still lack that and fail to realize the product they have become.

The tragedy of losing a rich dialect is a loss of rich culture, if we replace مصنف with ‘authors’ people will not be reminded of Muhammad Hussain Azad, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi, Chiranji Lal, Imam Bakhsh Sehbai, Hakeem Shamsullah Qadri.

 

A Performer's Status

Status and statures determine how you would be treated within bordered subcontinent.

During the first week of 2017 social media was stormed by sad mourners on the tragic death of Mr. Om Prakesh Puri. Om Puri an Indian actor, performer and a household name, known for his long list of acting talents in films like Aakrosh, Arohan, Ard Satya, Machis and many more glorifies his journey to becoming a superstar. Puri’s iconic contributions had not just earned him a good financial status but also a global recognition. Puri’s work has earned him highest awards in India during the very recent years of his acting career that motivated him to become a global sensation appearing in multiple British, American and Art films.

While around the same time across the border there has been another artist not known for grand awards, but for some other reasons that her equally big in Pakistan. She never got any awards not because she didn’t deserve any but mostly because we as a society don’t know what to value and how to award it. It took us over 70 years and counting to appreciate art, something our neighbors learnt a long time ago and they even shared it with us, yet we somehow lost it or refused to accept it. She is Nusrat Aara an actress known for her iconic antagonistic role in the most famous children’s play ever called ‘Ainak wala Jin’.

I concluded that we are not just divided by a border but against an understanding that we lack as a society.

Nusrat Aara was known for her role as ‘Bil Batori’. Her acting gave children the worst nightmares back in 90s when she became a household name for retaining an iconic position on TV screens. It was next to impossible to imagine that an artist irrespective of a meek media industry would end up living a nightmare herself. Sure it’s common for artists to fail and just lag behind while the world sways away but her story goes beyond that failure that we can practically rationalise.

The same day when Puri passed away social media was mourning on his tragic demise, a newspaper in Pakistan published an article that Nusrat Aara was found paralysed and begging on the road near Data Sahab a shrine she was forced to call home.

Having met Puri twice on literary festivals in Lahore that he used to attend quite often, Puri cherished love and enjoyed stardom not just in India but also in Pakistan, where media industry is still struggling to exist. People in Pakistan adored him too. People used to wait in lines to meet him, demanded autographs and pictures with Puri. Something that Aara missed out on all her life and we grew up and forgot about her as a performer. A quarter of that appreciation might have changed her fate. Nusrat Aara was bigger than Om Puri back in 90s but lacked status because of a weaker media. Yet Puri was mourned and Aara was not even noticed while she struggled to feed her stomach. With that part I think I might say it was not just the media industry’s fault entirely who brought Nusrat to this shrine, it was us too, since we didn’t develop good enough heart to appreciate art without a status that everybody wants to have a link with.

Her story reminded me of ‘Andy’ from Toy Story who also grew up and left Woody and Buzz in the adeck, we could not forgive him for doing that and till the end of the movie we kept thinking that this boy didn’t deserve Woody and Buzz. Yet we left not a toy but a human being who made us laugh and who completed our childhood. She is not the first artist who is meeting a similar fate, Muna Lahori (Zakoota Jin), Babbu Baral (actor/comedian), Murtaza Hassan aka Mastana (actor/comedian), Muhammad Farooq aka Ladla (actor/comedian), Majid Jehangir (actor/comedian), Mahmood Khan (actor/comedian) all died crying for help and mercy, all of them ended up on the road while lived to making us laugh. These and many other artists who made us laugh were not even close to earning our concern and sympathy when they needed the most. Since appreciation is a lost cause eventually these performers were treated like disposable bags that carried valuables to home, but when it reached home valuables were locked and bags were discarded. Eventually even these artists stopped begging for work and ended up begging for food and we kept appreciating arts in bigger arenas.

But its not all dark we still love art and we love to laugh on shows like Fifty Fifty, Feeka In Amreeka, Ainak wala Jin and so on. They will remain in our access on Youtube but in real life we have nothing to appreciate or own as a society. May be it is because we have learnt to appreciate art through status and statures, that others define for us. If an artist from a renowned last name like ‘Sethi’ would be advertised we would instantly make it huge in Coke Studio. We would be updated with his Twitter posts and over glorified skills, but in a much bigger surrounding we may even mourn over a loss of an artist like Puri, and every other wall will be sharing his post and dialogues and their concerns about his epic journey.

But our love for art pretty much slaps us as a society who continues to ridicule their artists, performers, athletes that we have disposed over the years all in the name of status. If Nusrat Aara would have had a last name of Sethi, Jehangir, Hashmi, Maqsood, Chaudhry, she would have been hosting a morning show or organizing intellectual debates in public spheres. She would not have even been close to getting an actual nightmare of finding herself sitting on the stairs of the shrine of Data Ali Hajveri begging for food. This says a lot about us and our society that we will continue to live in. She has unfortunately made a mistake for choosing a life of a performer in Pakistan. 

Yet we love art and performances that adds up to our intellect, pride and our positivity.