Kamil Khan Mumtaz presents a proposal for revitalizing culture in Lahore, Pakistan through "The Lahore Project". The proposal defines culture broadly and analyzes Lahore's cultural history and current issues. It proposes establishing centers to research, document, and promote traditional arts. It also recommends integrating cultural awareness into education, raising professional standards, and developing traditional designs for contemporary needs. A key part of the proposal is compiling an inventory of Lahore's cultural heritage assets through citizen submissions to create an interactive online database mapped through GIS. The overall goal is to build a sustainable economy that conserves humanity and the environment by strengthening Lahore's cultural traditions and skills.

1. Culture
‘The Lahore Project’
Discussion Forum Meeting
By Kamil Khan Mumtaz
Dated: Nov.14th 2012

2. Culture
 Definition & scope
 Cultural Heritage
 Sub-sectors
 Analysis
 History
 Present conditions, issues: assets, deficiencies
 Proposals
 Objectives/Goals
 Policies
 Strategies
 Plans

3. Culture
Definition &
Scope
“Culture is the whole complex of
distinctive spiritual, material,
intellectual and emotional features
that characterize a society or group.
It includes not only arts and letters,
but also modes of life, the
fundamental rights of the human
being, value systems, traditions and
beliefs”
World Conference on Cultural
Policies (MONDIACULT), Mexico,
1982

4. Cultural Heritage
o Heritage is everything received from the past. But
everything received from the past is a pile of junk,
a treasure trove; a historic document or a symbol
with which we identify ourselves and the ‘other’.
o What we decide to conserve will depend on what
we value and why.

5. Cultural Heritage
 Traditionally: “the whole complex of distinctive spiritual,
material, intellectual and emotional features that
characterize a society”
 For Modernism: document validating its own evolution,
progress and development. But the destruction of value
systems, traditions and beliefs is collateral damage, the
inevitable price of progress and development.
 For Post-Modernism: investment opportunity and
economic potential.
 For Supremacists: signifier of the enemy. It must
therefore be destroyed to make way for their own triumphal
march.

6. Sub-sectors
o History • Governance
o Geography • Architecture
o Demography • Arts
• Food
o Flora
• Apparel
o Fauna • Entertainment
o Environment/ecology • Religions
o Economy • festivals
o Transport

7. Analysis
 History
o Hierarchic society presided over by a normative spiritual order.
o Villains, rogues and scoundrels do raid and plunder the territories
and properties of others, and do scheme and conspire for power.
But these are aberrations.
o The norm is “socio-economic peace, cultural diversity, interfaith
harmony” premised on a shared world view.
o A diversity of artifacts in the homes and in the bazaars: beautiful
buildings, exquisite metal ware, ornaments, armaments and
astrolabes, illuminated manuscripts, carpets.
o But there is no “Art”. There are artisans and artificers, but no
“artists”, no one who claims to be creative and original.

8. Present conditions, issues:
assets, deficiencies
 Things Fall Apart
o British pull down outer walls of the city, moat filled up and
made into a garden. Southern wall of Fort replaced by
esplanade opening onto the city. Eastern wall of Badshahi
Mosque dismantled.
o Census found the diversity of its Muslim, Hindu and Sikh
population reflected in the diversity of its educational
institutions including schools, colleges and “universities”,
and a literacy rate of 70 to 90 percent.
o By the time they left the diversity had been reduced to a
single religious community and the literacy rate to less than
15 per cent.

9. the production of
Art
o But they left behind a School of Art where none
had existed before. The school produced a special
kind of person – the artist – who arrogated to
himself the prerogative of “creativity” and
indulged in a special kind of activity called Art
whose sole function was the production of Art.
But something vital had deserted the streets and
bazaars of the city.

10. transition from
Tradition to Modernity.
o The encounter with the British Raj was not just
another in the series of imperialist conquests. It
was the replacement of one world view by
another, a paradigm change, the transition from
tradition to modernity.

11. “Post-colonial cultural
discontinuity”
o In the resulting encounter between modernity
and tradition in colonial and post-colonial
societies, art was identified with the west, with
modernity, progress, and development, while the
crafts and tradition were associated with the
past, the orient, primitiveness and backwardness.

12. civilizing mission of
Colonialism
o Art and art writing were used to justify and give a
moral gloss to the civilizing mission of colonialism, and
continue to serve global capital’s neo-imperialist
mission of bringing civilization, freedom and
liberalism, to the people living under the tyranny of
cruel, suffocating, barbaric traditions.
o This mission was adopted by the post-colonial
state, for whom modernization was the route to
economic prosperity, and by the ruling elites who were
quick to align themselves with the colonial masters.

13. Icons of
Domination & Resistance
 The European bourgeoisie’s struggle against the
established power of the feudal aristocracy and the
church was a confrontation between modernity and
tradition. Thus in the European context, the elitist
icons signified tradition. But in the context of “post-
colonial cultural discontinuity”, it is the trappings and
accoutrements of modernism, along with western
dress, western languages, western education, and
values etc. that have become the elitist icons of
wealth, power, domination and control, while tradition
has become an icon of resistance to domination and
control.

14. Proposals
 Objectives/Goals
o Conservation of our humanity and our environment
 Policies
o Any policy on culture must be related to the objectives of human
development as defined by a given society.
o The modern and traditional definitions of development and what it
means to be human reflect two different world views. While the
traditional world view has defined our humanity and sustained our
environment for millennia past, the modern development paradigm has
brought all mankind and life on this planet as we know it to the brink of
disaster.
o We propose a cultural policy that is rooted in our traditions, is an
integral part of a strategy for sustainable economy that takes into
account our natural and human resources and the present global
realities.

15. A National Strategy
 “Cheap and Dirty” Economy
o For the last sixty five years in Pakistan we have pursued the goals of
modernization, that is, economic prosperity through industrialization.
o The result has been economic and social collapse.
o In the technologically advanced countries industry has moved on to very
high levels of technology. At the same time, the green lobbies in these
countries have prevailed upon their governments and industries to clean up
their acts. One of the results of these developments has been that these
economies are looking for markets /buyers/takers on whom they can dump
their obsolete technologies. Another aspect of the “globalization” of capital
has been that the rich are becoming richer, raking in super profits, by
exploiting the vast pools of cheep labor in the less developed poor
economies of the Third World.
o For countries like Pakistan this is the road to a “cheap and dirty” future.

16. A National Strategy
 Devastated Social Infrastructure
o The modernization of the past sixty years has devastated our
social infrastructure to the point that “catching up with the
west” on their terms is simply out of the question. We do
not have the necessary infrastructure of education, power,
communications, efficient state institutions and systems of
justice, law enforcement, revenue collection, and
governance. Even if we decide seriously today to put things
right, it would require three or four generations just to
rehabilitate our health and education sectors. Neither do we
have the cash. Continuing to chase after capital from
international funding agencies and investors will only drag
us further into the debt quagmire.

17. A National Strategy
 Sustainable Economy
o Get real. Look to our real strengths, and the realities
of the global marketplace.
o What has really sustained this country over these
past fifty years has been our agriculture and small
and medium sized enterprises based largely on
skilled labor and low-tech processes of
manufacture.
o Our strength is our land and its people. This is what
we have to build on.

18. A National Strategy
 Sustainable Economy
o as life in the technologically advanced countries becomes more and more
industrialized, and mechanized, there is, and will continue to be a growing
market niche for hand-crafted products and organic agriculture.
o This is a niche we are well placed to exploit. We have the basic resources:
land, sun, water and the traditional agricultural and craft skills. But
ultimately, our greatest asset may be our “under-development”.
o Despite our best efforts we have not been thoroughly “developed” or
“modernized”. As a result, we have retained vast reservoirs of traditional
knowledge, practices and skills. These are the threads that link us with the
deep wellsprings of traditional wisdom that have survived, interwoven into
the tattered fabric of our “collective sub-conscious”, informing every aspect
of our cultures, especially the arts -
poetry, literature, music, dance, calligraphy, popular graphic arts, popular
architecture and the decorative crafts.

19. A National Strategy
 Sustainable Economy
o Traditional manufacture of consumer products relies on
natural, indigenous materials and human resources, and simple
technologies that employ animate and other renewable sources of
energy. These technologies are therefore environment friendly and
low cost (in the less developed economies of the Third World). But
to capitalize on these advantages in the global marketplace our
agronomists and framers will have to improve quality while re-
introducing traditional methods of fertilizers, pest control and seed
selection etc. Better animal husbandry, livestock and forestry will
also be necessary to improve the quality of raw materials required
for manufacturing hand crafted consumer products. Our scientists
and materials technologists will need to improve the quality of raw
materials such as cotton, wool, and wood, and standards of
traditional skills, by tapping the wealth of traditional wisdom and
re-introducing traditional materials and techniques.

20. A National Strategy
 Intangible Heritage
o It can be argued that while tangible heritage – the visual
arts, architecture and consumer products – represents the
outer manifestation, the body of a given culture, but it is the
intangible heritage – the performing arts, literature
(including oral histories, myths and folk lore) and philosophy
– that represents the core, the fountainhead from which
flow the waters that nurture and nourish the body, while the
water itself is the wisdom, the knowledge, the “science of
the Real” that provides answers to the big questions (What
is real? What is man essentially? What does it mean to be
human? What is the relationship of Man to the Real? What
is Man's function in this universe?).

21. A Plan of Action
 Critical Discourse
o the prerequisite for any cultural renaissance is a
climate of free and open intellectual discourse,
critical debate and spirit of enquiry. This may be
initiated by a program of, symposia, seminars,
debates, research projects, publications etc at the
highest academic and professional levels through
think tanks and universities;

22. A Plan of Action
 Linkage of policies
 on culture, education and economy within a common framework at
the national and provincial levels;
 Network of centers
 to provide supports for the promotion of traditional arts at the
town level;
o research, documentation, analyses and conservation of indigenous
cultures, including initial compilation of inventories;
o Provision of spaces and fora for intellectual discourse and critical
debate with the participation of local institutions of higher learning;
o Dissemination of discourse through print and electronic media
including establishment of culture (TV) channel;
o Maintenance of database inventories on master artistes and
craftspeople

23. A Plan of Action
 Raising of standards
at the professional level;
o workshops with practicing professionals;
o recognition and monitory rewards for excellence;
o Development and re-orientation of art education
curricula for professional colleges based on theoretical
principles and practice of traditional arts;

24. A Plan of Action
 Critical awareness
at the popular level;
o Integration of cultural awareness and practices into
educational programs and curricula at all levels from
primary to post-graduate;
o Promotion through print and electronic media, including
a culture channel;
o Promotion of live performances and participatory events
such as festivals, fairs and special audiences;
o Exhibitions
o Seminars and lectures for specific audiences: e.g.
schools, designers, users and consumers etc.

25. A Plan of Action
 Utilitarian/applied Arts:
 Develop appropriate designs based on traditional
principles but applicable to contemporary needs of
users and consumers;
o Scientific research and development to improve quality of
relevant materials and appropriate technologies
o Marketing of consumer products: assist in connecting
producers with consumers, traders, wholesalers, retailers,
and end users, and advising on appropriate packaging and
presentation;

26. A Plan of Action
 Inventory of Cultural Heritage
 The basic inventories of cultural heritage should be
compiled at the town level;
o Entries may be submitted by any citizen/resident of
Lahore
o The aggregate of Town Inventories will form the Lahore
Inventory
o Inventories should be digitized and posted on an
interactive net portal or site
o Data should be linked to geographic location through GIS
mapping

27. „The Lahore Project‟
Discussion Forum Meeting
Presented
By Kamil Khan Mumtaz
Dated: Nov.14th 2012