Some five years ago an obscure band called the Bayghairat Brigade (the Dishonorable Brigade) rose to sudden prominence when their song 'Aaloo Anday' appeared on the then still-not-banned YouTube.
The song immediately clicked with millions of Pakistanis who viewed it on YouTube, turning it into a quirky phenomenon of sorts, enough to also begin attracting the attention of the country’s mainstream TV news channels.
The timing of the song was just right. All the factors that have contributed the most to what today is being explained as ‘Pakistan’s existentialist crises’, had begun to hit the peak of their negative influence.
These factors spawned political and social maneuvers that in the next few years mutated into becoming exactly the kind of existential turmoil the state and government of Pakistan is now trying to resolve on a war footing.
The song, constructed over and around a light-weight but instantly melodic composition, took some clever witty potshots at many of the influences that were on their way to weighing down the country’s politics and society: Terrorism, extremism, intolerance and corruption, and how these were actually being uncannily aided by the anarchic and self-centered actions of the populist media, some sections of the intelligence agencies, and certain ‘messianic’ political personalities.
But that was then. Five years later a young Major in the Pakistan army has penned a song which, surprisingly, may as well have emitted from the playful minds of the guys who had penned and sung Aaloo Anday.
Though the song, ‘Aisi Tesi Hypocrisy’, was predominantly penned as a response to the Indian song, ‘Aisi Tesi Democracy’, its lyrics reflect a lot more than just that.
The Indian song that last week became an internet sensation mocks the state, politicians and military of Pakistan for failing to make peace with India. However, in the same breath it also pokes fun at some of India’s own political and social idiosyncrasies that have contributed to the eternal impasse between India and Pakistan. But, of course, the words of the song (though pretty funny), do present Pakistan as some war-mongering nation that ironically looks quite like its enemy (Indians).
Hassan Miraj, apparently a talented young Major in the Pakistan armed forces, was not amused. So he penned a lyrical response to the Indian song and offered it to a group of musicians to sing it.
‘Aisi Tesi Hypocrisy’ is a blow-by-blow reprisal of ‘Aisi Tesi Democracy’, but in addition to this, it is also a manifestation of the gradual change now taking place in the mindset of the Pakistan army.
For example, had this been 2010 (or the year Aaloo Anday appeared), the response would more likely have been penned by a completely humorless and annoying fellow to whom more than half the population of Pakistan was treacherous and on the payroll of one enemy country or the other.
But after experiencing the now year-old and intense operation against extreme outfits in the mountains and the cities, and regenerating itself through the dictates of what has come down to be called ‘The Raheel Sharif Doctrine’, a gradual but major paradigm shift is taking place in the country’s armed forces.
It’s quite there to be seen, but curiously, there are still many on both the liberal as well as the rightest sides of the divide who are stubbornly holding on to what may have been true before 2013.
The new scenario is not compatible with the outraging cynicism of yore that some liberals continue to carry. They are now dealing in repetitive clichés.
India seems to be stuck in an outmoded understanding of the state of Pakistan as well. This understanding needs to be drastically updated. But such a restructured understanding will not bode well with the kind of politics Indian PM and his party, the BJP, have been shaping.
On the other end, those on the rightest sides of the split who are failing to notice the change seem disorientated and bemused, even by the very thought of the mentioned paradigm shift.
After all, their whole ideological narrative and political existence was constructed on the pillars of the bygone paradigm, and the fear that it might come crashing down is making them pray that the ‘Raheel Doctrine’ ends up being just a flash in the pan. They too are dealing in repetitive clichés, the sort that now stand obsolete.
Interestingly, India seems to be stuck in an outmoded understanding of the state of Pakistan as well. This understanding needs to be drastically updated. But such a restructured understanding will not bode well with the kind of politics Indian PM and his party, the BJP, have been shaping and sharpening.
The song ‘Aisi Tesi Hypocrisy’ cleverly weaves all this in its lyrical narrative. Because it is not the song’s taunting of what the Indian song was suggesting about Pakistan, but rather, a striking observation that should tilt the balance in Pakistan’s favour (in the context of this little musical banter).
And it’s a damning observation, and entirely accurate. A weighty portion of the song suggests that indeed, both Pakistan and India have had volatile characters who have peddled militaristic and chauvinistic fantasies, but the fact now is, that whereas Pakistan is well on its way to phasing them out, India is plunging head-on into embracing them!
The observation is reinforced when the song suggests that whereas Pakistanis are sidelining the reactionaries, India has gone on to vote for them (BJP). In other words, India is now embracing what Pakistan played with a long time ago (and for a long time), but after finally realizing that it had begun to eat away the country’s very existence, the country has begun to shun it.
But India, instead of learning from Pakistan’s example, is creating its own monsters in the name of Hindu nationalism. The song reminds the Indians that we’ve been there, and done that, and are now changing. It’s just too bad India is refusing to see this. It seems Modi and his party’s raison d'etre remains to be to continue exhibiting Pakistan as a nation that is condemned by the world, when the truth is, in this pursuit, he is creating within India exactly the kind of monstrous nuisances he is blaming Pakistan for.