‘Go Niazi Go’ - Inspired By Daler Mehndi - Aimed At the Imran Khan Niazi Government
By Naila Inayat
22 October
2020
Protest
season has begun in Pakistan and the streets are getting warm with the slogans
of ‘Go Niazi Go’, aimed at the Imran Khan government.
File
photo of PDM rally at Karachi, Oct 2020 | Twitter/@BBhuttoZardari
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The call is
not only for recycling prime ministers, but the rock concert-like atmosphere of
these political protests also recycles old and used slogans, songs, and even
DJs.
The
Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), is an opposition alliance of 11 parties led
by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. It is a mix of ideologies, ethnicities, and politics. The
spectrum may be wide, but the demand is concise: Imran Khan has to go, and his
‘selectors’ have to decide. And if Khan has to go, then the creative minds
behind the non-stop sloganeering have to be sharp and persistent. After all,
how did the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) come this far if it weren’t for
slogans to oust Nawaz Sharif?
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Some
slogans can even get you in trouble, for chanting them in the wrong place or at
the wrong time. As it happened in the case of Captain Safdar Awan (retired),
the husband of PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz. At the mausoleum of Mohammad Ali Jinnah
in Karachi, Awan recently cheered on a charged crowd by chanting ‘Vote ko izzat
do (Give respect to the vote)’ – it was almost like he was convincing Jinnah.
And some weren’t impressed. What followed was an FIR against Awan, his arrest
and a controversy in which more than 50 Sindh police officers applied to go on
leave over the coercion of the Inspector General by paramilitary forces to
arrest Awan. All this for chanting a slogan at the wrong place. The slogans
violated the sanctity of mausoleum, it was said. The Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar
Protection and Maintenance Ordinance, 1971 prohibited all kinds of
demonstrations and political activities within the premises. But still, some
get away with it, like PTI workers chanting slogans during the visit of chairman
Imran Khan to the Mazar in 2013.
The
opposition alliance’s favourite slogan for this protest season is ‘Go Niazi
Go’. Niazi rings a historical bell because it harks back to the much-despised
General A.A.K. Niazi who surrendered before the Indian Army with 90,000 troops
in East Pakistan in 1971. But it is also the last name of the current Prime
Minister – Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi. The PM dropped ‘Niazi’ from his official
name after coming to power in 2018.
However,
who can stop the rhyming sloganeers shouting these in every rally: ‘Aik takkay
ki du Niazi, Go Niazi Go Niazi’ or ‘Muk gaya tera show Niazi, Go Niazi Go
Niazi’. PM Khan was recently forced to leave the national assembly because of
the same set of slogans.
Leaders Go, Slogans Remain
Some
slogans remain constant, but the main figures change. ‘Go Niazi Go’ was once
‘Go Nawaz Go’, which was once ‘Go Musharraf Go’.
During the
2007 lawyers’ movement that eventually resulted in weakening the Pervez
Musharraf regime in Pakistan, several such slogans were made targeting the
mighty General. ‘Yeh jo deshatgardi hai, iske pichhay wardi hai (The ones
responsible for terrorism are the ones in uniform)’ was coined when terrorism
was at its peak in Pakistan. The slogan targeted the failed policies of the
military that made a genie out of jihadi outfits, which couldn’t be put back in
the bottle.
The same
slogan – ‘Yeh jo deshatgardi hai, iske pichhay wardi hai’ – was used years
later by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) when it raised its voice against
the killings, abductions and ethnic violence in erstwhile Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen faced backlash
for raising the wardi slogan and was booked for “anti-state slogans”. While
everyone preferred using terms such as ‘Selectors’, ‘Khalai Maklooq’ and
‘Farishtay’ to address those who can’t be named, Pashteen had to face flak.
The other
slogans that have struck a chord and remained a political reality for decades
include: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan, mang raha hai har
insan’, PPP’s ‘Tum kitne Bhutto maro gay, har ghar se Bhutto niklay ga’,
PML-N’s ‘Qadam barhao Nawaz Sharif, hum tumhare sath hain’, and from the 2014
PTI protests, ‘Tabdeeli aa nahin rahi, tabdeeli aa gayi hai’. What began as a
protest against America-centric politics with ‘Amerika ka jo yaar hai, ghaddar
hai ghaddar hai’during the 1980s has now become ‘Modi ka jo yaar hai, woh
ghaddar hai’.
Djs, Bollywood And Lead Singers
The
political protest rallies have now transformed into festivals, where slogans,
speeches, presentation is one element and protest music another. The idea is to
keep the audiences enthralled like in any musical concert. Entertainment of
those in your rally and those watching at home comes first.
The rules
changed with Imran Khan’s PTI using Asif Butt a.k.a. DJ Butt for its political
shows during the dharna days of 2014. The idea of mixing national songs with
rally speeches to amplify the message was unique and hooked everyone. However,
DJ Butt is now the DJ of the opposition alliance this protest season. Why?
Because the DJ says that the change ‘Kaptaan’ had promised never happened in
Pakistan, so his services are now dedicated to the rival team. It’s another
thing that the DJ had complained of unpaid bills earlier.
The protest
songs and political anthems are a way to reach not only the protesters, but
also your rivals. The PTI’s ‘Rok sako to rok lo tabdeeli ayi’, ‘Banega Naya
Pakistan’, the PML-N’s ‘Vote ko izzat do’,and the PPP’s ‘Dilla teer baja’ are
used by their loyalists. Sometimes one singer ends up singing the anthems of
two different parties for the same election. For example, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan,
in 2013, sang both PTI’s ‘Chalo, chalo Imran kay saath’ and Nawaz Sharif’s ‘Tum
sey apna ye wada hai’.
Some
political compositions have been ripped off Bollywood as well, such as ‘Leader
sadda Khan hai’ from the 2018 election campaign is from Daler Mehndi’s ‘Na na
na na na re’.
But there
is one political anthem that Bollywood has copied too: PPP’s ‘Dilla teer bija’,
a rendition of Baloch folk music that was released in 1987 during Benazir
Bhutto’s first elections and is the party’s anthem to date. The Bollywood
version is ‘Mai Na Jhoot Bolun’, which featured in Amitabh Bachchan’s film
Indrajeet (1991).
With the
Pakistan Democratic Movement gaining momentum, the show will go on with more
slogans and more songs that irk those sitting in glass houses.
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Naila Inayat is a
freelance journalist from Pakistan. Views are personal.
Original Headline: ‘Go Niazi go’ to ‘Go Nawaz
go’ – Pakistan protests are like a rock concert with songs, DJs
Source: The Print