Daily Times

February is the month when the season transitions from a chilling winter to a beautiful spring. It is a month of love and transformation that is celebrated by cultures around the world. A western festival associated with love — Valentine’s Day, also takes place on February 14. It is an event which creates controversy every February.

In a verdict passed on February 13, 2017, the Islamabad High Court prohibited the celebration of Valentine’s Day in public spaces and government offices across the country. The court had also warned the print and electronic media to stop all promotion of the event immediately.Although the directives were followed by PEMRA, it was probably unlikely to stop the event from being celebrated by those who wanted to. A Peshawar University student told me that his University had cancelled classes on February 14 to hold a workshop. He said that since there wouldn’t be any classes — he’d just stay home. When I shared this with a colleague she told me that the university had pretty much given students license to celebrate Valentine’s Day on their own.

Our own local spring festival — Basant, has also been banned for several years. This was because of all the deaths associated with kite flying. Regardless, kites could still be seen flying even after the announcement of the ban in Punjab.

This phenomenon is quite common when it comes to the authorities in this country. Instead of identifying root causes — they look for short-term control mechanisms which only offer cosmetic solutions.Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a celebration of love — not lust. Islam is a religion of care, love and kindness — like every other religion in the world. It places no restriction on expressing love to anyone dear to you — within certain limits that is.

This country has a multicultural society, and hence the authorities should not ban events that don’t fit in with their own perceptions of morality

Regardless — if you visited any mainstream social media platform on February 14,you could easily see that Valentine’s Day was still celebrated by anyone who wanted to. The only people who the ban really affected were poor flower and card vendors for who this day is an opportunity to make some extra money. And while the media wasn’t able to give any coverage of Valentine’s Day — it is still free to air gory footage of terrorist incidents, as well as hate speech. This became amply clear during the Faizabad sit-in last year. And while the festival may have originated in the West — so is our form of government. In the modern world, the lines between the East and West are not as distinguishable as they once were.

Coming back to Basant, let us observe the core issues related to kite flying that got it banned. Flying kites with tough, sharp threads that were augmented with metallic wires were resulting in fatal injuries and damaging the electricity grid.Instead of dealing with this issue, the authorities banned Basant outright. It is as if the government takes sadistic pleasure in ruining festivities.

Festivals and celebrations are a means of bringing people together. This country has a multicultural society, and hence the authorities should not ban events that don’t fit in with their own perceptions of morality.

The writer has experience in the field of education and is currently working as a resource person in the development sector

Published in Daily Times, February 22^nd 2018.