Street theater groups drive
social change in Pakistan

By Nadeem Iqbal

Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 5 (IPS)-- Once upon a time there was a tyrant king who wanted oil from an oil merchant. To win public support, he accused the oil merchant of possessing dangerous matches, which could be used to light the oil and destroy the king’s domain.

If that sounds oddly familiar, imagine the impact such a storyline has when enthusiastically acted out by a street theater group performing at a busy corner in Islamabad.

The group, a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Pattan Development Foundation, calls this entertaining and politically current skit Inside Story. The references to the United States and Iraq are plain, and the aim of the skit is to promote peace.

What makes Inside Story and its performers noteworthy is that the street theater group is one among dozens that have recently become popular in Pakistan.

"There is no room for public interest messages," said Atif Baluch, a broadcaster-turned-street theater artiste, referring to the mass media. In Pakistan, media like Pakistan Television are state-controlled but greatly depend on advertising for their funding.

So does private electronic media, and to attract advertising they are almost entirely based on entertainment. It is a state of affairs that led Baluch to comment: "It is difficult to retain the attention of people because they keep changing channels."

But when a hard-hitting message is coming to you from a spirited group of performers a few feet away, there is just no scope for channel surfing.

Take Nasreen Hussain, one such performer. She works with a non-government group called Dehi Samaji Tanzeem (Rural Social Work Organization), which is active in the underdeveloped western coastal belt of Makran in Balochistan province.

She spoke about her first performance -- held in a market and before an audience that included not a single woman, for the custom of the region is that women do not visit the "bazaar."

"Initially there was resistance," she recalled. "There was this man who was very angry, but once the performance was done he came to sit in the front and wanted to participate."

Hussain said that the most popular play concerns one of the most delicate social norms -- the tradition of not taking women to hospitals even in emergencies. "We took the risk and performed in front of an audience of both men and women. It felt uneasy at first, but once a mother came on stage and participated, everybody was involved and it clicked."

Politics is not the only topic. Issues like human rights, implementation of laws, rape, sexual harassment, women’s right to education and minority rights are also part of the theater groups’ agendas.

There are instances of street and interactive theater groups directly influencing community behavior. A theater trainer, Idrees Ali of the 20-year-old Punjab Lok Rahas (people’s theater), recalled a program his group did in 1997.

They had discovered that people in many villages in the eastern Punjab province were suffering from iodine deficiency. Iodine is cheap and made available in salt -- but few knew about it.

Lok Rahas held theater workshops for schoolchildren, who in turn formed their own groups and have developed plays, songs, and slogans to make people aware of the issue. Subsequently, the residents began buying iodized salt.

Abuzar Wasim, a Lok Rahas actor, pointed out that theater helps the audience identify what causes a problem and provides clues to resolve it.

The effort, he emphasized, has to come from the people -- the artists simply provide the signposts.

"It is a theater that has silently been making progress in the remotest of villages as well as in the peripheries of the urban city centers," said Muhammad Wasim, director and trainer of Interactive Resource Center (IRC), a group based in Lahore.

What is being noticed, by urban residents and the establishment, is The Network for Consumer Protection’s latest political broadside.

The group’s newest performance has as its theme a ditty which, translated, runs: "Whatever is said by Bush, is obeyed by Mush," with the "Mush" being Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf. The issue is plain -- Pakistan’s subservience to US policies.

The network took its message right into the heart of the establishment -- as part of a peace rally on Jan. 18 held in the army headquarters of Rawalpindi, twin city of capital Islamabad.

Mahar Arif, program officer in The Network, said of his group’s efforts: "For community mobilization, street theater is the most powerful means of communication. Elements like dance and music capture the audience’s mind and involves them."

Far removed from abstract geopolitics is the life of Rahat Bibi, who lives in a village in southern Sindh. At 35, she is married to Salim, whose sister Asiya is married to Rahat’s brother.

It is a region where the concept of "exchange marriages" is the norm -- one of Rahat’s five daughters was engaged to her husband’s brother’s son, the exchange being that his daughter was to marry her son.

But when the Naujawan Samaji Tanzeem (Youth Social Organization), a local group that works with Action Aid Pakistan, put up an interactive theater program about violence against women it spurred Rahat into action -- for she was in the audience and had suffered domestic violence herself.

She announced: "I break off my daughter’s exchange engagement with the son of my husband’s brother. I will not sacrifice any child of mine in exchange marriages."

A courageous statement, the inspiration for which came from an equally courageous group that is willing to tackle Pakistan’s social problems street corner by street corner.

back to top