Music spurs campaign ahead of Pakistan polls

LAHORE: A wall of flowers, ‘get well’ posters and small personal notes adorn the wall outside Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust Hospital here. A steady stream of Imran Khan supporters keep themselves busy putting up signs, waving his party flag and singing ‘Baneiga Naya Pakistan’. The song has become the flagship song of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) campaign.
“We didn’t even commission this song,” says Naeem-ul-Haque, the spokesman for the party. “Attaulla Niazi Essakhelvi composed the song and gave it to Imran and it’s become the most powerful song on our campaign.” Essakhelvi hails from Mianwali, one of the districts from which Khan is standing for elections, and where he has built a university.
While some of the mainstream parties have held less exuberant campaigns thanks in part to a volley of threats from the Taliban aimed at three parties, the previous government makers, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party.
On Thursday afternoon, former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son was kidnapped while speaking to supporters in the southern Punjabi city of Multan. This latest development makes happy, music driven rallies a greater challenge for parties directly confronting the Taliban.
Election songs were first introduced as a part of campaign strategy when General Zia ul Haq died in a plane crash, ushering in elections. The PPP launched its campaign with a catchy ditty ‘Dil Tera Bija’ (An Arrow through your Heart). The electorate was giddy for change and ‘Dil Tera Bija’ rang out from loudspeakers and speeding cars, their drivers high on the hope for change.
Change has been the mandate of Khan’s election campaign as well, and the songs played during his rallies and at party information booths across the country reflect the key words of his campaign message: change. The songs have also been part of a strategy to drawn in Pakistan’s unexplored youth electorate, 18 million of whom are eligible to vote.
“We coined the concept of a ‘Naya Pakistan,’” explains Shahvaar Ali Khan, a musician by profession whose advertising company, Farigh Four worked with the PTI campaign to design a strategy focused on the country’s large youth electorate.
“This target audience has been ignored in the past. No one talked to the youth but we suddenly have this reality, that 70% of our population is under the age of 35.”
Folks at Farigh Four explained the concept to lead musician Salman Ahmad of the popular band, Junoon, a long-timer supporter of Khan. “For PTI and Imran Khan music has been synonymous,” says Ahmad. “It was he who promoted Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and brought him to an international stage.”
Khan’s sisters sit inside the Shaukat Khanum hospital offering solace, guidance and campaign strategy. “All of our songs are deeply socially conscious,’’ says Aleema Khan, Khan’s younger sister and part of his campaign team. “They are meant to awaken your conscience.”
Khan has strong ties to musicians. When the Vital Signs, the first pop band to emerge in Pakistan in the late 1980s, first gained popularity, it was because of the support he had given them, according to Aleema. “I remember they all came to our house, and Imran told them ‘you can achieve anything you want if you put your mind to it’.”
It’s one reason why Ahmad, who started his music career in the Vital Signs, brought back half his band mates including Junaid Jamshed, the pop-singer turned religious leader, to sing with him and promote Khan’s cause.
Not to be left behind, PTI’s main competition, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League – expected to take most of the seats in the National Assembly – has also been hard at work in the music department. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan has composed songs for both parties. His song for Sharif – Tum Say Wada Hai (This is my promise to you) has become the campaigns’ main song, in addition to Sher Aya (The Tiger has come), a reference to Sharif’s feline election symbol.