Culture War

Playing into the hands of extremists

Relations between Pakistan and India have deteriorated almost on a daily basis since the Uri attack. The incident of cross border firing on the LOC is the latest event that has contributed to the escalating tensions between the two nuclear armed countries.

Whenever we reach a tipping point in the worsening of relations with India, the first casualty – on account of being easiest to implement – is the ban on sharing of arts and culture between the two countries. Cricket is the most obvious victim every time and it was not different this time around as the BCCI president who happens to be a BJP MP as well, said that there was no question of any series with Pakistan any time soon.

Next to go were our actors working in multiple films in Bollywood and singers who contribute to their industry as well. While the Indian nationalist party ‘MNS’ gave all Pakistan artists 48 hours to leave the country after the Uri attack it was BJP MLA Sangeet Som who took the threat one step further saying our artists should be “beaten with shoes”. India’s film producer association soon placed a ban on all Pakistani artists from working in their Industry until normalcy returns to the country.

We have of course responded in kind whereby PEMRA has urged television channels to refrain from airing excessive Indian content. Some private cinemas in Karachi and Lahore have also stopped showing Indian movies asking others to do the same.

The end result is a win for extremist elements on both sides of the border who want an all-out war. It suits terrorist elements here just fine as they rightly feel our security and intelligence forces will shift limited resources and their concentration towards India, allowing them to carry out attacks more easily.  It would therefore be in the interest of both countries to at least deescalate and resolve issues on the cultural front in order to eventually bring this whole episode to a peaceful close.