Ban on screening of Indian films to continue

akistanis are unlikely to watch Indian movies legitimately anytime soon. Despite strong appeals from the film industry and cinema owners, the government has refused to lift the over forty-year-old ban on the screening of Indian movies in Pakistani cinemas. However, as one official told TFT, there are no restrictions on Pakistani artistes performing in Indian movies.

At a recent meeting with actors, directors, distributors and exhibitors from the Pakistan film industry, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz confirmed this and ruled out the possibility of the Indian epic, Mughal-e-Azam, being screened in Pakistani cinemas. Aziz’s confirmation that the ban will not be lifted in the near future stands in stark contrast to statements by information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who – just a few days before the prime minister’s meeting with members of the film industry – had announced that the government had officially informed K Asif’s son Akbar Asif that he could screen the coloured version of the classic Indian film, Mughal-e-Azam, in Pakistani theatres.

“The government has written a letter to Akbar Asif, the son of the writer and director of Mughal-e-Azam, and told him he has permission to show the film in Pakistan,” Rashid told the press. Sources say Akbar Asif had met General Pervez Musharraf in the United Kingdom last year and presented him a CD of the coloured version of Mughal-e-Azam with a request that he be allowed to screen the film in Pakistan. Musharraf assured Asif that he would consider his request. Aziz has now declared that the ban will remain in place.

Pakistani film exhibitors have been pushing for the lifting of the ban for several years now but have become excessively vocal in the last two years, holding protests, putting up banners outside cinema houses and repeatedly pestering the government to change its policy.

At the meeting with Aziz, exhibitors argued that lifting the ban was the only way to help revive theatres that are closing down all over the country because local films fail to attract audiences. However, other members of the delegation, distributors and producers in particular, opposed the demand.

On the exhibitors’ side, Zulfiqar Ali Ramzi, one of the oldest “film players” in the city, thinks that with the advent of cable TV and pirated CDs and DVDs, the only way to save theatres is to show Indian movies on the big screen. Zorez Lashari, another exhibitor, says that it is a pity that only 17 films were produced in Pakistan last year while up to 200 films were produced annually in previous years. According to Lashari, the low production is because of lack of popularity of Pakistani films and that is seriously affecting the cinema business. In the 1970s, more than 1,300 theatres were operating in Pakistan. Only 270 have survived.

Actor Nadeem says that too much is being made of the correlation between Indian and Pakistani films and the perceived effects of one industry on the other. Nadeem claims that “the Pakistani industry is, for all practical purposes, a bygone phenomenon without taking Indian films into consideration”. “If the question is of the screening of Indian films in Pakistan, I would say I favour the lifting of the ban,” he said at a function in Karachi. “The opening of cultural borders would help local actors and the technical staff and give the local industry some healthy competition.”

However, there are still those who are strongly opposed to the lifting of the ban, claiming that it will seriously undermine any attempt to revive the Pakistani film industry. Actor Ghulam Mohiyuddin believes that the last thing the struggling Pakistani film industry needs is “allowing Indian movies on our screens”.

Renowned producer and director Syed Noor shares this view: “Our industry is already battling for survival. I believe that Indian films will inflict more damage on the business. To revive Pakistani cinema, and until political issues between the two countries are resolved, there is no need to exchange films.”

According to Noor, Pakistan produces a maximum of 20 films a year now and direct competition with Indian films would eliminate that number too. “Until about ten years ago, we were producing more than a 100 films a year,” he said. “There has been a sharp quantitative and qualitative decline.”

However, Sheikh Zubair Ahmed, who has been the chairman of the Pakistan Film Distribution Association for the last 22 years, says Pakistani films do give cinema owners good business. “The only reason exhibitors want the ban on Indian films lifted is to increase their profits,” he said. “The information that exhibitors are out of business is a complete fabrication; while they may not be making the kind of money they used to make, that does not mean they are incurring losses.”

As far as the quality of local films is concerned, Ahmed says that while there is room for improvement, there is a need to take into account India’s superior pre- and post-production resources and religious and governmental patronisation of the film industry in India before any comparisons between the products of the two countries are made.

“Hinduism supports dance and music, Islam prohibits it,” Ahmed said. “You may call it compulsion but we just cannot make the kind of movies that are made in India.”

Riaz Malik, Chairman of the Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association (PFEA), says there was a time when Pakistani and Indian movies were shown in both countries. While the popular story is that Pakistan banned Indian films after the 1965 war, Malik has a different story. “Some Indian fanatics burnt down an Indian theatre where a Pakistani film ‘Dupatta’ was playing,” he told TFT. “This infuriated our filmmakers who asked the then military ruler Ayub Khan to ban all Indian movies here.”

Ayub complied and issued orders that all Indian movies already running in Pakistani theatres should complete their term, after which a ban would be implemented on screening Indian films. “Then came the 1965 war and things halted altogether,” said Malik.

There was hope last year that the ban would be lifted when culture minister Rais Munir Ahmed announced that he would take up the matter with the federal cabinet. However, the Jamali government under which Ahmed was serving was dissolved and the issue of Indian films being screened was left in the lurch. Now, following months of speculation in the media that the government planned to lift the ban because of appeals from the film industry, Aziz has confirmed that the ban shall remain in place indefinitely.