Folk is the Narrative

The question of narrative is the question of a nation’s identity, its culture and heritage. The reverent policy analysts and think tanks, in Islamabad, have been trying hard to convince the state, people and the institutions in Pakistan to believe that there is a need to ‘create’ a narrative that would counter terrorism and extremism in all its forms. Contrary to what policy makers and experts on policy matters say about narrative, the argument here is, that we already have it. It is there with the people.

Folk is the narrative. For Pakistan the answer to its ills is inward not outward. The issues that Pakistan is facing at the moment is not that we lack narrative. The issue is that the state of Pakistan has not been able to look at the right place. The people at the grass root level, the villagers, the down trodden, who still lack the basic facilities in life have the answer to the narrative that the policy makers in the capital are looking for to counter terrorism.

Think of United Kingdom, Germany and France. What is their narrative? The names that would emerge in one’s mind are Shakespeare, Goethe and Voltaire. If any one of the readers here belongs to the nations or countries that were once colonised would realise that the name like T.S Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Shakespeare, Churchill have been the names that have created image in people’s minds of what U.K is.

Goethe and Immanuel Kant goes for Germany, so on and so forth. The ‘educated’ lot have been obsessed with these names. We have them in our libraries, offices, homes and schools. These literary giants made the impression of what Europe is in our minds. Take out the names of Jean Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Carl Jung, Freud and what do you have? Intellectuals and sages like Goethe created the narrative. The intellectuals, universities, poets and writers created the institutional environment that projected their narrative.

Pakistan’s lost narrative is with the people of Pakistan who celebrate Melas (festivals), visit Sufi shrines, and produce literary giants like Bullay Shah, Rehman Baba, Shah Latif, Sultan Bahoo and many others. These sages and their works are the testaments and reservoirs of norms, culture and values of thousands years old civilisation. Modern literates like Quratul ain Tahira, Intizar Hussain, Manto, Ishfaq Ahmed and Zaheen Shah preserved the diversity, history and ideas of the land. People relate with Shah Hussain, Abida Parveen and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan because they share the heritage and culture–and that is their narrative. It is People who create, preserve and project narratives and the state supports it. Not the other way round.

Regrettably, it has been the opposite in Pakistan’s case; successive elected governments and fanatic dictators encroached on people’s right to establish narrative. The results of state’s encroachment were shocking. Annual commemorative festivals at Sufi Shrines in remote areas celebrated through centuries were dubbed as non-religious, impure. The local platforms for poets, writers and musicians were systematically shut by promoting alternatives state controlled platforms. The governments with their ever shifting ideas and confused policies overlooked to what people had to say about the narrative. A systematic study of political history shows how Pakistani ruling elite, with great effort, messed things up. Consequently, elite’s and State’s hegemonic designs, according to Antonio Gramsci, become the accepted values for the subjects.

The people, the poets and the writers have carried the narrative for several centuries. They are not just the ones who created it, they are the bearers and carriers of that heritage.

What is the solution then? It comes in two simple steps. One, the state should stop telling people what their narrative is, it should stop meddling in their affairs. Two, it should stop supporting the ideologies which counter the centuries old heritage and culture of the people.

The state needs to realise that the narrative is with the people who would fight extremism and terrorism in all its manifestations. It is their narrative that the terrorists fear and that is the reason they target the Sufi shrines of Data Ganj Baksh of Lahore and Shahbaz Qalandar of Sehwan. The terrorists fear the shared heritage and the spirit of peaceful co-existence that is at the heart of Pakistani culture. Taking a trip into the remote villages and sub-urban areas of Pakistan would make on realise that people are less confused in their fight against the terrorism as compared to the policy makers elsewhere in the country. Let people take the lead.