I am sharing this review in the context of the ongoing discussion on women’s rights in Pakistan. Though Afzal-Khan’s book is specifically about women singers, it is relevant to this discussion since it makes broader points about “respectability politics”.
Afzal-Khan’s book is wide-ranging and covers a time period from the years preceding Pakistan’s creation in 1947 to the present. It includes many genres, from khayal to Sufi-Pop. The central theme of the book is articulated in the first two chapters entitled “The Respectable Courtesan” (focusing on Malka Pukhraj) and “Roshan Ara Begum: Performing Classical Music, Gender, and Muslim Nationalism in Pakistan.” In these initial chapters, Afzal-Khan develops her notion of “respectability politics.” This refers to the ways in which these artists had to negotiate their public image in order to align themselves with the norms of ashraf Muslim families, which hold that a woman’s primary place is in the home. Though they were both great artists, Malka Pukhraj and Roshan Ara Begum identified themselves primarily as “good” wives and (in Pukhraj’s case) mothers. This allowed them to distance themselves from their alleged “courtesan” backgrounds, considered dubious by mainstream society. In Pukhraj’s case, she was a court singer in the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, ruled at the time by Maharaja Hari Singh. It is telling that, according to her daughter Tahira Syed (1958-) – herself an accomplished singer – Pukhraj’s children didn’t learn about this aspect of their mother’s background until she wrote her autobiography in her eighties (Afzal-Khan 2020: 5). It is also important to note that Pukhraj dedicated her memoirs to two men: first her husband and then her patron (Maharaja Hari Singh). Afzal-Khan deems this another “normative gesture of respectability” (2020: 3).
The rest of the review can be read on Substack.
