Postcard from Peshawar

By Carol Khan

Street view of Peshawar. All photographs courtesy: the author

Peshawar, in the north-west of Pakistan, remains relatively barren artistically, at least at the public level. Although the city is home to some skilled artists and musicians, they do not have the same support granted to their colleagues in the other provincial capitals in Pakistan of Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. The majority of Pakhtun artists, writers, singers and poets live in poverty. What’s more, physical threats to artists from religious militant groups throughout the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa persist as a reality despite the national government’s military initiative, Zarb-e-Azb, to oust militants in the region after the attack on the Karachi airport last year and, more recently, the brutal Peshawar Army Public School massacre in 2014, which resulted in the deaths of 145 people, 132 of whom were children. The Supreme Court has recently ruled the upholding of military courts, in which trials are held without public or journalist access, in an attempt to alleviate the terror-infused law and order difficulties that face Pakistan.

However, as result of a series of persistent public complaints, the provincial ruling political party, the Oxford-educated, ex-cricketer Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been making strides for the arts and struggling artists across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the last week of July, the Directorate of Culture, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mehmood Khan, announced a new financial initiative for struggling artists and signmakers. A monthly stipend of 30,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly £190) will be allocated to poets, singers and artists in the province. While this isn’t exactly a living wage, it demonstrates the PTI’s efforts to make Khyber Pakhtunkhwa more artist-friendly. Mehmood Khan reportedly stated that provincial security situation is not ideal for fostering an artistic community and the government must respond to this dire need. The proposed initiative will award 500 artists with the stipend according to a selection process that has yet to be finalized by the provincial culture committee.

This political move to support struggling artists, poets and musicians came shortly after the Cultural Journalist Forum demanded that the PTI government allocate funds for artists working in the community. The Cultural Journalist Forum also requested that Nishtar Hall, the cultural venue for performance in Peshawar, be once again opened to the public – it has only intermittently been open to the public for most of the 2000s due to security threats. One factor in the PTI’s initiative may be thanks to the new secretary of culture and tourism, Azam Khan. Since taking office, Khan has proven his value to the artistic community and has even overseen several initiatives promoting tourism to the war-ravaged region.

Prior to this major political gesture, most local artists – even those at the senior level – were (and still are) living in dire poverty. Without any entertainment venues or commercial or public art galleries, there is literally no opportunity for artists, writers and singers to make a living in Peshawar. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has also largely ignored the local Pashto language poets who have dedicated their lives to preserving their cultural heritage through the written word.

However, other improvements have been made at a municipal level, with painters being employed to decorate Peshawar city’s walls and, on this past Eid, seven Pashto films were released and screened in the city. In the recent past, cinemas have been the target of terrorist attacks and rarely open to the public due to security concerns. Preserving Pakhtun culture and heritage has and still persists to be of the utmost importance for culture-craving citizens who are otherwise left in the lurch when it comes to artistic or creative public entertainment. These low budget films are typically made for around 60,000 Pakistani rupees, or roughly £380. Young male audiences (women do not attend the cinema in Khyber Paktunkhwa) flocked to the cinemas this past Eid holiday and the city was adorned with film posters. Even some auto-rickshaws donned posters for these locally-made films.

The PTI has also been committed to beautifying the city in order to return it to its reputation during British rule as the ‘city of flowers’. The so-called ‘Peshawar Beautification Project’ has long been in the making, as the municipal mayor declared he would ‘green-ify’ the city last year. While the roadsides along GT Road, the city’s main thoroughfare, have been improved with potted plants, brickwork and colourful murals, the common male practice of urinating in the roadside drains still needs to be addressed, although, over the past few months, an anti-encroachment initiative has greatly improved many once-overcrowded areas of the city.

Over the past year, the city has improved aesthetically and artists are finally getting attention from the government in terms of financial aid promises. Unfortunately, however, despite the tourist attraction of the Peshawar Museum – which is a bastion of Gandaharan era artworks – and fine art displays at the University of Peshawar, artists here continue to struggle. Without proper exhibition or performance venues, the public continues to be deprived of much-needed cultural entertainment. What’s more, the majority of promised aid has yet to be seen in the hands of artists, as corruption still dictates local government finances. The only exception is the proliferation of food festivals, which are held most months at the posh (and heavily guarded) Pearl Continental hotel.