Pashtuni — Music X Culture

Pashtun Music

“Music is the spice of life ... it has been a part of our culture from time immemorial,” says Farman Ali Shah, a village elder and Pashto poet in Warsak village near tribal areas.

Pashtun music is characterized by the rabab, played to the beat from tabla’s drums, with songs salted with florid lyrics describing the pain of unrequited love or calls for political revolution.

“For centuries we were a liberal society,” explains rabab player and member of the National Assembly Haider Ali Khan from Swat Valley. “We love our religion but at the same time we love our traditional music.”

Pashtuns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Number of Pashtun Tribal and religious men in Southern Afghanistan

Pashtun Traditional Music - Sounds of Pakistan - Discover Pakistan TV

Yet the slow creep of extremism had been threatening that tradition for decades. Beginning in the 1970s more hard-line movements started gaining influence in the Pashtun areas along the border with Afghanistan, promoting strict interpretations of the religion including dismissive takes towards music.

The shift towards violent extremism intensified with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the later Taliban regime of the 1990s.

After the US invasion of 2001 toppled the Taliban, militancy erupted across the border in Pakistan also. A Pakistani Taliban movement formed and took control of the country’s tribal areas and swathes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Rylan K. Albright U.S. armed forces - This image was released by the United States Air Force with the ID 100508-F07713A-064

“The extremists were killing artists and singers in the society to create fear,” explains singer Gulzar Alam, who was attacked three separate times and later left Pakistan. “If you remove the culture from a community, tribe, or ethnic group the community will be eliminated.”
Public performances were all but halted as waves of suicide bombers unleashed havoc.

CD markets were bombed, instrument shops destroyed, and musicians were intimidated or either outright targeted. Singers and musicians fled en masse, while others were gunned down.

A brave few continued to invite musicians to play in private shows at hujras and weddings, albeit without large sound systems that could possibly attract militants.

The Khattak Dance, a swift martial arts sword-dance performed by Pashtuns in Pakistan's Northern Areas

“They were asking people to stop music but villagers never accepted them,” says Noor Sher from village Sufaid Sang, where his family has been making rabab by hand for 25 years.

CHANGE

The artisans crafting traditional musical instruments in Mohalla Shah Burhan adjacent to Chitrali Bazaar have shown concern over lack of official patronage as their art had been fast fading away over the last few decades posing a threat to folk music.

Experts feared if the art of crafting musical instruments was not preserved and promoted, it would cause a serious threat to traditional folk music

Ahsan Murtaza, 28, one of the three artisans of his family told this scribe that business of selling hand crafted musical instruments had dwindled to a dismal 80 per cent due to several reasons, one being non-patronage of their art and others included switching over to computer music and a deep slump in the market for sale of handmade musical tools.

Mr Murtaza said he and his two uncles had inherited the art but had stopped to transfer it to their children as they saw no future and with it traditional folk music might face a final ciao, adding that if once the art of crafting faded away, how could folk music survive. He said he had learnt the basics of crafting rabab, tabla, dholak, daf, zerbaghli, harmonium and guitar from his late father, Ustad Rahim Murtaza.

Afghan men performing at the new Afghan Cultural Center on Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

The artisan said it ran in the 12th generation of Dhonkal family which had shifted from Punjab and settled in Peshawar to pioneer the crafting business of musical instruments in pre-Partition era and buyers used to come from parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, tribal districts and even Afghanistan. “My grandfather, ustad Rahim Bakhsh was a master in crafting tabla and could also make and repair other musical instruments. Repair of a tabla costs Rs1,500 to 2,000 while a new tabla may cost from Rs5,000 to 25,000. It requires hard work and skill,” he maintained.

Popular tabla player, Maas Khan, told that there were many players of traditional musical instruments but the number of craftsmen had been declining fast because steps were not being taken by the bodies concerned to support and preserve the art and it would ultimately lead to death of the traditional folk music.

“We have lost a number of musical instruments in less than a century because the art of crafting them was not promoted. If the trend continues, we would lose even the available instruments. The KP government had earlier planned an artisan village but then seemed to have dropped the idea,” he regretted.

When contacted, an official in the KP culture directorate told Dawn that the idea of setting up an artisan village and art gallery was floated in December, 2018, with the an aim to revive the dying art and an amount to the tune of Rs200 million was also announced but later it was cut down to an art gallery to be set up in Peshawar.

Qarar - Qarara Rasha -
Ismail and Junaid Pashto Song

“The KP government has no such plan on cards right now. We understand that all kinds of art should be revived, preserved and promoted. We should not let any art, language or culture die because all forms and expressions of our art make up our national identity,” the official remarked.

CONTINUITY

Pushed over by Pakistani pop, which is closely related to Indian pop music, as well as Bollywood music, Bangladeshi rock, and Western music, Pashtun music is now on the verge of disappearing. A minority in a country where Punjabi culture and language dominates life, Pashtuns language and culture are becoming minimized, and Pashtun youth are increasingly out of touch with them.

Ismail Khan, a young musician, relates: “We all know that change is the only constant. As the rest of the world becomes a global village, Pashto music is dying out among the modern Pashtun youth. Everything is changing and everyone uses all kinds of media these days to keep up with the pace. But Pashto music has not changed; in some ways you could even say it has gone back in time. For its revival, I had to mix folk elements of Pashto music with modern elements and it worked.”

Some youth, however, are seeking to revitalize their music. The following are excerpts from an interview with Ismail Khan.

As a Pashtun, can you describe what role music and poetry play in the traditional Pashtun lifestyle of Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan?

Khan: The region has an age-old tradition of both music and poetry. Since the 1950s, however, media has been used as a major propaganda tool and weapon of war. These days, it shapes the behaviour and the minds of people all around the globe. The same can be said of the Pashtuns in the tribal areas, which is where I come from. There, the result has been confusion: most people do not have Internet access. They have to settle for the base and destructive Pashto music and movies made solely for profit by commercial companies. These movies are not generally based on Pashtun culture or tradition. Instead, they use sex appeal to sell their banal storylines. This has led to considerable annoyance and frustration among the local population. Meanwhile, however, my music has also become established in these areas and, as far as I can tell, it seems to be having a positive impact.

You often say that politics have influenced your music-making. In what way?

Khan: I was always emotional and rebellious. As a child, I always wanted to know more about my people and culture because of my love for them. Seeing the region caught up in a war left me questioning. Where did it all go wrong? Why had this happened to the peace-loving and innocent people of our region? The answer was, in my eyes, a lack of awareness and opportunity. Music was the best resistance I could think of.

Unfortunately, these days, people mainly associate the region with murderous suicide attacks, drone strikes and other issues relating to war and bloodshed. In making and promoting Pashto music, are you also trying to combat this image?

Khan: Pashtuns are peace-loving people. What is going on in this region nowadays was imposed on them and there are various reasons why this happened. In my eyes, music is the best way to fight this and to promote a different view. Media, especially the Internet and social media, are hugely advantageous. They can be used by anyone to spread his or her views. And that′s just what I have done with my music.

Pakistani folk music band Khumariyaan is reinvigorating Pashtuni music to reach a generation of young Pashtun from their native Peshawar who are hungry for new, modern music that spoke to their cultural heritage.

Today, Khumariyaan are among a new creative generation of young Pashtun musicians resurrecting reverence for Pashto folk music in the Pakistani national consciousness.

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