Musicians fear misery if they return to Afghanistan

KARACHI: Ustad Nadeem Baksh, a classical singer from Afghanistan, paid Pakistani police a bribe to avoid deportation after law-enforcement personnel raided his home in Rawalpindi.

But he worries the bribe of 50,000 rupees, or about $175, has only bought the family of 14 a limited amount of time. “I don’t know how long we will be safe here before we are forced to move to another city or back to Afghanistan,” Baksh told this scribe by phone from his rented two-room home in Peshawar, near the Afghan border, where his family relocated after the raid last month.

Baksh is one of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan who have gone into hiding or are preparing to leave after the Pakistani government on March 7 ordered Afghans without official permission to stay to leave the country by the end of the month. Afghan musicians have faced the ire of the Taliban who follow a hardline interpretation of Islam, since it seized power in 2021. Music has been banned, and authorities have destroyed instruments, closed music schools and assaulted musicians. They now fear imprisonment or violence if sent back.

Since the start of this year, more than 1,000 Afghans have been detained and more than 20,000 forced to leave Pakistan, according to Moniza Kakar, a Karachi-based human rights lawyer and head of the Joint Action Committee on Afghan Refugees. Pakistan treats Afghan refugees like a “political football” to pressure the Afghan government, Kakar said. “Their stay in Pakistan depends on the political climate,” she said. “When relations are good, Pakistan extends kindness, even allowing refugees to open bank accounts, regardless of documentation. But when tensions rise between the two countries, they’re mercilessly used as pawns.”

The Interior Ministry and the Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the repatriation programme.

For Baksh, 52, returning home would mean quitting a generations-old tradition of music. He belongs to the Patiala Gharana style of Hindustani singing that was founded by one of his forebears, Ali Baksh Khan, in the 19th century. “Music is in our blood,” he said. In 2022, the Taliban raided Baksh’s home and destroyed his instruments, then jailed and beat him and his sons. “It was humiliating,” Baksh said. “We were told to abandon music and sell vegetables on a pushcart instead.”

After fleeing Afghanistan, Baksh and his family lived without visas, which would have cost the family more than $1,000, including the fees demanded by agents, said Nazim Baksh, Nadeem’s 24-year-old son and a tabla player. “We don’t even have enough for our rent and food, let alone money for our visas,” said Nazim. Since the crackdown on Afghan refugees, Nadeem Baksh said he no longer is able to make music. “I need peace to do that,” he said.

Mohammad Yaser Howayda, 26, and his family of four fled to Pakistan in 2022 after he was jailed and assaulted for being at a party where friends were playing music. His family’s sole breadwinner, Howayda had already lost his income as a teacher at his small music school when the Taliban destroyed its instruments in 2021. Howayda fears he could be killed if he returns to Afghanistan. “They despise me because I’m Hazara, a Shia minority known for our art, music and dance everything the Taliban consider Haraam or forbidden,” he said.

Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban, said Hazaras had no reason to fear the administration. Hazaras “can live normal lives like other Afghans,” he told this scribe. But he reiterated the Taliban position that “music is prohibited in Islam” and suggested musicians “pursue other occupations to contribute to the country”.

Once in Islamabad, Howayda began teaching lessons in guitar and dombra, the long-necked stringed instrument played by Hazaras. That has all but come to end, save for a few online classes he continues to give. His students, most of them fellow Afghans, have abandoned their lessons since Pakistan began its crackdown on migrants, with many either deported or detained or afraid to come out of hiding, Howayda said, adding that he has also struggled to secure the paperwork necessary to remain in Pakistan, but in the current climate in Pakistan, he questioned if a visa is still a guarantee of protection. “You cannot even imagine what it’s like to be living in constant fear of being deported,” he said. “If you take away music from me, it will be like taking my soul away.”