COMMENT:: Reasons behind the basant ban — I —Nasir Abbas Mirza

Basant is democratic and egalitarian in concept and practice. It is uniquely Lahori; no city in the world could imitate or import it. If only for a few delightful days, it removed boundaries and barriers between social classes

For decades the religious extremists in Punjab tried to ban basant but they just could not. They tried everything in the book: called it a Hindu festival, anti-Islam, waste of time, waste of money and what have you, but basant kept on growing in popularity and participation until such time that the tourist influx in Lahore reached a point that the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) started giving advertisements in the newspapers for people in Lahore to accommodate tourists as house guests.

The intense economic activity that went with basant (trade, travel, hotel, tourism, shopping, etc.) was touching the $ 250 million mark — not bad, for a week-long celebration. To top it off various other quality festivals started around the basant bonanza (notably the music conference and the international drama and puppet festival). Some say that the Carnival in Rio is the biggest party in the world. Only the Lahoris know that it is not true; basant is the biggest party in the world. A little more savvy marketing and it would have become a key date in the world’s calendar of premier festivals.

Why did basant become so big? There are many reasons for it. It evolved without any help, patronage or aid from the government. It is democratic and egalitarian in concept and practice. It is uniquely Lahori; no city in the world could imitate or import it. If only for a few delightful days, it removed boundaries and barriers between social classes. Age, gender, wealth, domicile, colour of skin, religion, sect or language, did not matter at all. During one of the last years of booming basant, I once met a street kid in the walled city who had cut General Pervez Musharraf’s kite — to the delight of both, I am sure.

Around the late 90s the government of Punjab started taking ownership of everything around basant. Since the government is forever trying to appease the religious extremists, it started to flex its muscle in getting rid of basant for good. In other words, what the extremists/jihadis/tableeghis could not do on their own, they got the government to do for them.

To start with, the PHA re-christened the festival an inelegant but religiously acceptable ‘Jashn-e-Baharan’. What followed was “the chronicle of a death foretold”. Today, basant and all other festivals and cultural activities have gone. This year we are celebrating a farce called ‘Jashn-e-Baharan’ with ugly synthetic flowers, styrofoam kites and plastic gates. What happened?

In the last quarter of a century or so we have lost a great deal. There is no sector or institution in the country that has not been infiltrated by people high on an overdose of ultra-conservative religion. The same people got rid of basant. The government did it; the judiciary endorsed it and the media rejoiced in it. RIP basant!

In the true spirit of all religious hatchet jobs, it was done with a good conscience. After all, no matter what even the Taliban do, it is always done with a good conscience. Loss of life was cited as the reason for banning basant. We will come to that in a moment but spend a minute on the last resort of all incompetent governments: a ban.

At times incompetence is imposed upon us and other times we elect incompetence. As a result we have only two forms of governance: free for all (as in a jungle), or bans. The civilised world lives between these two extremes. Between these two extremes is the realm of regulations, rights, freedoms, legislation, watchdogs, law and law enforcement and so on. Basant thrived when it was unregulated. The government banned it because it could not regulate it. The culprit here is the government, not basant.

In the entire world, adults are permitted to drink alcohol but they are not permitted to drink and drive. That is where law and law enforcement comes in. Yet many die in alcohol-related accidents. If the world were run by the government of Punjab, alcohol would have been banned after the first accident. The media would have run riot with headlines like ‘Sharaab pi kar khoon ki holi’; they would have shown blood-strewn images of wrecked cars, smashed bodies and drunk perpetrators handcuffed in custody. Prime time TV would have shown people carrying dead bodies of their loved ones to the chief minister’s house seeking redress. The chief secretary and the judiciary would have said, “No one would be allowed to play with innocent lives.” Finally, the CM’s diktat: Slam! Alcohol banned! After such an emotional and sensational build-up to a ban, who would have said that they did the wrong thing? Good for the world, it is lucky that it is not being run by the government of Punjab.

For the ultra-conservative leaders of Punjab, basant fell in the same category as alcohol, cinema, theatre and music. Depending upon your sectarian leanings you can add women to this list. If the extremists have their way, cricket and hockey would follow the fate of basant and these days it seems that they are well on their way to accomplishing that. Oh, I forgot Food Street and the half-finished fully-banned multiplex on M M Alam Road.

This, dear readers, is an ideological war. The loss of basant is just another battle won by the Deobandi/Wahabi/Salafi axis. It never was and it never will be about the loss of life — ideologues are notoriously careless about human life. Just take a look at the hundreds of millions of victims in the ideological wars of the last century. Or, closer to home, consider the Taliban’s love of human life. In reality the basant ban is about “vice eradication” and prevention of “moral decay”. Under siege in Punjab are happiness and joy and entertainment. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy calls it the ‘Arabisation’ of our society. The agenda is to turn this country into a cultural desert.

(To be continued)

The writer is a freelance columnist