Sound of a Nation? Coke Studio Pakistan and its Challenges

This paper was written in 2023

Upon the inception of Pakistan as an independent nation-state liberated from the restraints of colonial rule, its founder and leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah declared, ‘You are free, free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste, or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.’[1] Under the guise of this declaration Pakistan’s national identity was to promote homogeneity as enforced by media outlets such as Radio Pakistan, a practice which continues to persist today in the form of Coke Studio.

Following Partition, state-owned radio stations became the primary platform for classical musicians who were ordered by government officials to canonize the principles of Pakistan’s developing national identity. This canon was imagined in Jinnah’s ambitions of cultural and political hegemony, as seen in his address of the Constitutional Assembly on 11 August 1947, ‘… in the course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.’[2] Despite this, within a decade of Partition, Radio Pakistan’s classification of classical genres began distancing itself from dhrupad, thumrī and dhamar (which were closely associated with Hindu practices), and instead favoured ghazal, khayāl and qawwali (which adhered more closely to Islamic customs).

Radio Pakistan’s need to ‘erase the traces of a musical history shared with Hindus’[3], paved the way for a new national identity with Islamicate themes, ultimately leading to the birth of CS over 60 years later in 2008. The show, which has garnered millions of views, can be categorised as a TV program released on both televisual and digital platforms, known for relocating classical pieces of poetry and music into the 21st century. Branded as the ‘Sound of the Nation’, CS, at its genesis mirrored Radio Pakistan’s role in ‘reproducing and replaying a musical narrative of the nation.’[4] Readers need not look further than CS’s Season 8 premiere released on Pakistan’s Independence Day (14 August), which was commemorated with a rendition of Sohni Dharti (Shining land). Featuring an ensemble of classic and contemporary artists, this is one amongst many patriotic Radio Pakistan classics covered by the Studio.

The show confronts oppositions of tradition/modernity, provincial/national, and East/West through a fusion of genres that cross and combine the listed properties. This attempts to demonstrate how Pakistan’s subcultures exist within regional borders, whilst remaining in conversation with not only its national, but additionally its international audience of both diasporic and non-Pakistani communities. Because of this vast reach extending the nation’s borders, CS’s conception of nationhood resembles that of a melting pot, whereby citizens exist harmoniously for the sole purpose of honouring the sanctity of the nation before being permitted to commit to their subcultures that predate Pakistan’s inception. The decision to promote this despite ‘the history of contestations between different communities in the making of Pakistan’s cultural identity’[5], thereby moves from prioritising the individual to asking the individual to prioritise the state.

Many critics have credited Sufi music for advancing CS’s popularity, including Najia Mukhtar, who writes, ‘CS’s primarily elite, liberal producers deploy Sufi poetry in order to reclaim a ‘softer’ Islam and reinvent a Muslim and Pakistani identity that they ‘can be proud of.’[6] She calculates that by Season 5, 40% of the studio’s 117 songs included lyrics from Sufi poetry (Mukhtar, 2015, p. 33), which leads me to Atif Aslam’s Tajdar-E-Haram (King of the Holy Sanctuary). Originally popularized by the Sabri brothers in 1975, Tajdar-E-Haram expresses blessings to the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and his final resting place of Medina. Their version is revered for its interactions with ‘many other pieces of not only centuries-long established historical accounts, but also other poems that were uniquely South Asian in tone and spirit.’[7] Although Aslam’s CS version secured international appeal due to its use of modern instrumentation to rework Qawwali conventions, Aslam remained significantly critiqued for omitting and mispronouncing many key phrases. Seeking to soften Pakistan’s image and overlooking such nuances are an additional testament to the disconnect between what is projected and what is actualised within the country’s sense of identity.

Does this therefore not expose the paradoxical quality of CS’s operation? On the one hand attempting to unify a nation with a shared identity, whilst on the other erasing relevant cultural histories, generalising subcultures, and reducing religious and cultural traditions. Despite attempting to be the vessel through which Pakistanis can exercise their allegiance to nationalism, CS inadvertently uncovers how it may not fully represent the complexities and diversities of Pakistan’s identity. This is an example of how questions of identity are intricately connected to the scholarly discipline of Area Studies. It demonstrates the importance of recognizing and addressing the complexities and limitations of a national identity construction in any diverse and multifaceted area.

[1] Jinnah, Mahomed Ali and Khurshid Ahmed Khan Yusufi. 1996. "Speeches, Statements & Messages of the Quaid-E-Azam.": 2601-5

[2] Yusufi. 1996: 2601-5

[3] Williams. 2019: 117

[4] Williams. 2019: 118

[5] Williams. 2019: 118

[6] Mukhtar, Najia. 2015. "Using Love to Fathom Religious Difference – Contemporary Formats of Sufi Poetry in Pakistan." Contemporary South Asia 23 (1): 27

[7] Irfan, Bilal. 2021. "Reunderstanding Tajdar-E-Haram: An Intersectional Urdu Lens.": 4 

Bibliography:

Irfan, Bilal. 2021. "Reunderstanding Tajdar-E-Haram: An Intersectional Urdu Lens." Available at SSRN 4431224.

Jinnah, Mahomed Ali and Khurshid Ahmed Khan Yusufi. 1996. "Speeches, Statements & Messages of the Quaid-E-Azam.".

Mukhtar, Najia. 2015. "Using Love to Fathom Religious Difference – Contemporary Formats of Sufi Poetry in Pakistan." Contemporary South Asia 23 (1): 26-44. doi:10.1080/09584935.2014.1000824. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2014.1000824.

Williams, Richard David and Rafay Mahmood. 2019. "A Soundtrack for Reimagining Pakistan? Coke Studio, Memory and the Music Video." BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 10 (2): 111-128.