Pressurised by the right-wing political-religious parties, the Z A. Bhutto regime’s “socialism” (called ‘Islamic Socialism’) was presented by Bhutto and his party’s central think-tank as something closer to ‘true Islamic aspirations.’

However, rather ironically, the cultural tactics that his regime used to paint the regime’s socialist credentials as something nearer to Islam actually ended up contributing to the symbolism that in-turn became instrumental in the making and emergence of the 1976 right-wing anti-Bhutto “Nizam-e-Mustapha” movement.

For example, all that self-righteous mocking of liberal fads and fashions in many of the decade’s Pakistani films in which, for example, a liberated woman, a trendy man, or a guitar-wielding hippie were projected as immoral brats, left quite a mark on the so-called common man. These gaudy exaggerations actually started to be taken as ample truths.

So just when the government thought that it had a good chance of keeping in check petty-bourgeoisie inflammations against Bhutto’s “socialism” and against the time’s liberal fad by the apolitical usage of reactionary petty-bourgeoisie symbolism in popular cinema, parties opposed to the Bhutto regime started using almost the same distorted cultural symbolism to excite the so-called common man against the regime.

The opposition generated an 'Islamic movement' frighteningly constructed from the conservative petty-bourgeoisie mind-set and perceptions; the sort seen and ironically used by the Bhutto regime in the country’s popular cinema to actually safeguard Bhutto’s populist liberalism from reactionary accusations of being “unIslamic” and “obscene.” The plan clearly backfired.

Thus, on his arrival, General Zia-ul-Haq gained politically from what was initiated as a simple cultural safeguard by the Bhutto regime to soften the edgier sides of the time’s socialist-liberal trends.

Take for instance a popular 1974 Pakistani film, Miss Hippie. The overall message of the film suggests that a patriarchal society is superior and that when a patriarch fails, especially due to his liking for “decadent” western abominations such as alcohol and liberalism, the whole family/nation collapses.

That’s what happens to veteran actor Santosh in Miss Hippie. He is a rich man with a taste for whisky and partying at nightclubs. He is thus a bad example for his impressionable young daughter (played by Shabnam), who too becomes a drunkard and a frequent “keelub” visitor. Yes, such are the disastrous fall-outs of letting women make up their own minds and decisions.

Scolded by her helpless mother (played by Sabiha), Shabnam runs away from home, only to be picked up by a friendly “love guru.” The guru is the archetypal modern 1970s malang, leading a group of hash-smoking and dirty-dancing hippies. Of course, this constitutes an attack on the pure traditions of mashriqi mu’ashira (eastern culture) - a threat that gets worse when we find out that the guru also operates a drug smuggling ring that is smuggling in hashish from the West.

The film conveniently forgets the fact that much of the hashish was/is being smuggled out of Pakistan by Pakistanis and not the other way round. In fact, some of the best hashish was being produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time and then being smuggled into Europe.

Enter actor Nadeem, playing an undercover cop who infiltrates the junkie-hippie group to report on how hippies plan to “contaminate innocent young Pakistanis” with hashish and free sex (read: orgies).

Of course, true to form, the film passionately puts forth the breakthrough idea (read: xenophobic notion) that it is the adoption of alien culture that is harming Pakistan, whereas ‘local culture’ (as interpreted by the urban petty-bourgeois director of the film) is its saviour. In the end Nadeem (a weird cross between a modern Romeo and a 1970s version of Saladin) destroys the sinister hippie group and rescues Shabnam from the clutches of drugs, decadence and obscenity.

Miss Hippie came with a funky pop soundtrack, liberally laced with sonic allusions to the early 1970s’ ‘glam-rock’. The film also flaunted some of the most outrageous moments of the time’s ‘chic attire’ and overblown sense of gaudy fashion with Shabnam exhibiting a chunky metallic ‘Peace’ sign and bellbottoms with flares almost as wide as a communal camping tent!

Taking the 'don’t let women venture beyond the kitchen' warning and anti-hippie fanfare a step further was 1976’s mega-hit, Muhabbat Zindagi Hai. The film follows a modern young woman (actress Mumtaz) frequenting nightclubs and other such places of unparalleled wickedness, and having no respect for her own sacrosanct culture (whatever that was). In comes actor Waheed Murad, playing an England-returned Pakistani who is also the fiancé of the independent-minded (and thus sleazy) Mumtaz.

Murad, however, is the epitome of eastern virtue and is shocked to see what has become of his old sweetheart. He decides to enter club life to have a shot at slowly making Mumtaz realise the follies of western culture. But one does wonder what on earth was he doing in England? Popularising tang-pyjamas among the Pakistani community in London?

However, when he finally succeeds in making Mumtaz see the light, he himself falls prey to the manipulative ways of the club, as if it wasn’t a nightclub but a night-cult of brainwashed zombie alcoholics that he’d been visiting.

The reformed Mumtaz at once switches from wearing jeans to adorning shalwar-kameez, and from spouting free-for-all-English (“Eeeevverrrybaady, let’s enjeeaye!”), she suddenly starts speaking in top-notch rhetorical Urdu about God and country.

The message of the film reeks of the convoluted formula upon which most of Pakistan’s 'social films' were made in the 1970s; smugly suggesting that Pakistani culture is paak (sacred) whereas western culture is like quicksand, sucking you in towards addictive immoralities such as booze, drugs, dance and rape! Of course, booze, drugs, dance and rape are all what westerners did all day long.

Usually one expected to see such simplistic nonsense either playing in the cinemas or PTV during the peak years of the Zia regime, and a lot of it did. But by then what was played as silly moralistic petty-bourgeois fantasies in the 1970s, had boiled over as being perceived (by the masses), and propagated (by the religious right) as social truths when Zia took over.

Under Zia, such symbolism and ideas even started making their way into the construction of the country’s social and political policies, even though the Pakistani film industry began collapsing.

As a last ditch effort to engage with the changing tide of populism in urban Pakistan that had supposedly mutated from becoming populist in nature into becoming Islamist (Islam pasand), some Urdu filmmakers generated a number of films revolving around the Islamisation theme.

One such film was 1981’s Sangram. Starring famous actor Muhammad Ali, Sangaram sees Ali playing the role of an angst-stricken Hindu, searching for the “true meaning of life.” He then bumps into a wise old cleric, who through a 10-minute monologue that sounds like a dramatic rendition of a typical Ziaul Haq speech, convinces him that Islam is the only true religion and that Hinduism is a spiritual abomination out to destroy Muslims.

Fired by this sudden, enlightening discovery, Ali’s character wipes off his Hindu stripes from his forehead, grows a beard, (within a single scene!), and launches into a number of rather obnoxious tirades against Hinduism and how “dirty” (paleet), this religion is. He soon becomes a roaming preacher and starts to convert one Hindu village after another with his fiery speeches and violence against conspicuous Hindu holy men and their evil bosses.

Thankfully, very few people saw this piece of unapologetic fascist farce that died a much early and deserving death at the box office. The working classes were not interested in Urdu films anymore and the middle-classes were now busy watching Indian films on their VCRs. Thus ended any further attempt by a Pakistani regime to use cinema to forward (or pad) its ideological orientation.

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