With the growing popularity of Indian music, India has come across as a fine platform for many artistes from other countries to showcase their talent. Particularly, the artistes from Pakistan.
But even though music crosses boundaries, languages, castes or creeds it seems that we’re still stuck in the same old controversial story. Whether it is cricket, hockey, music, movies or Pakistani artistes, there has always been a tiff between India and neighbouring Pakistan.
In spite of all the talk of friendship, harmony and free-flowing cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan, artistes from the neighbouring nation seem to be finding it difficult to obtain permission to come to Mumbai to record songs. Even Lata Mangeshkar was once rejected a visa by Pakistani officials which irked her. And apparently, she didn’t sweep it under the carpet because later she refused the Pakistan Cricket Board’s invitation to perform.
Nevertheless, we have plenty of Pakistani artistes doing well in India such as Ali Haider, Ghulam Ali, Ali Zafar, Adnan Sami (of Pakistani origin), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Atif Aslam, the band Jal to name a few. Mahesh Bhatt who brought the Pakistani band Jal, actress Meera, rock singer Mustafa Zahid and many others to India has always encouraged artistes from across the border, which earned him a lot of criticism.
If we go deep into the history, we have artistes such as Noor Jehan in 1930s performing in India without much trouble. Salma Agha is yet another example - she is a popular singer from Pakistan who sang as well as acted in Indian films. Abida Parveen and Farida Khanum are also Pakistani stars that crossed the border and made a name for themselves in India.
However, at present, many Pakistani artistes find it difficult to make it into Bollywood for many reasons. For example, Mohammed Ali Shehki, the Pakistani pop singer of Iranian descent who was asked to sing in Bollywood, refused because of the security reasons. Bal Thackeray threatened Shehki and warned that if any Pakistani singer/actor comes to India, he will have them shot. Regardless of this, Shehki's song ‘Han pehli baar’ was included in one of the Indian movies. On the other hand, Bollywood composer Pritam Chakraborty even had to travel to Pakistan to record a song with Atif Aslam for Kismat Konnection because Atif couldn’t obtain a visa.
And lately, India has been flooded with talent from Pakistan but not everyone likes it. In fact, a few years ago artistes like Rajeshwari (daughter of Lakshmikant of the Lakshmikant-Pyarelal duo), Abhijeet Bhattacharya, film-maker Shakti Samant, Anup Jalota, Jagjeet Singh, Kumar Sanu, Jaspinder Narula, and Azad Kamal even requested the Indian government to ban Pakistani artistes from performing in India. Their reason was simple, if they were not allowed into Pakistan to perform, why should the Pakistanis be allowed to perform in India? They wanted Pakistan to treat them in the same way that India treats Pakistani artistes.
Abhijeet Bhattacharya is one of the singers from Bollywood who even lashed out at Pakistani singers and the Bhatts publicly. He verbally attacked Pakistani singers like Adnan Sami and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Whereas the Indian Music Industry claims that the sale of recordings of Pakistani singers is very small when compared to Indian figures. The reality is that Pakistani singers have certainly made a huge impact on Indian audience.
Despite the fact that this debate and controversy seems endless, the truth is that music knows no boundaries and as far as the artistes are concerned, all we have to say is let the music play… don’t let politics get in the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment