Faith no more
Theatre artistes have little faith in government which has failed to assist them in their hour of need.
LAHORE:
A factory worker is entitled to facilities like that of health-care and old age benefits. To make this possible, an amount is deducted from his salary ... a stage artiste, however, is not that fortunate. This is what the theatre artistes said when asked about their welfare services.
There are a few examples of artistes’ financial assistance by the government but a mechanism or a dedicated fund to help the artiste in need is not available, say artistes. Contrary to which, the government functionaries claim to have special funds for the artistes; yet they fail to provide any substantive data.
Veteran stage artiste Babu Baral had to face a lot of difficulties when he fell ill and had no one to pay for his treatment. This stirred individual efforts from many artistes who supported him financially. Baral has now recovered but the question of establishing a funding body to help the artistes still remains unanswered.
According to senior stage artistes and the culture department officials, a funding body was established in the 1980s, the Artist Welfare Fund under the banner of Lahore Arts Council (LAC). At that time, a commercial play would run for a spell of 15 days at the Alhamra. The LAC decided to extend it an additional day so that the income from the final day’s show was transferred to the Artist Welfare Fund without deducting entertainment tax.
“The producers at the time started to show losses in the last show. If they earned Rs 25,000 from the last show, on paper it was recorded as Rs 10,000. LAC later fixed an amount to be deposited after the last performance. This further worsened the situation, ultimately the fund in its entirety disappeared.” an LAC official, who requested anonymity, told The Express Tribune. He did not reveal where the money went or when it was last deposited by any producer. “I can confirm that the fund no longer exists. The rest of the details should be available with the administration department,” he added.
When asked about the amount, LAC Deputy Director (Administration) Aftab Ansari said, “There is a committee that looks into funding matters. We still give financial assistance to artistes. These affairs are being looked after by the programming department now and they know its exact details”.
Deputy Director (Programming) Najeebullah said, “The committee that looks after the Artist Welfare Account exists but the money in that fund is deposited by the artistes and the government [and not generated from the last show].”
LAC officials did not provide a record of the artistes who have benefited from the financial assistance programme. “It isn’t appropriate to reveal the names of the artistes who have received financial assistance,” said an official who wished to remain anonymous.
Chairman of Commercial Theatre Producers Association, Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ahmad however, had a very different version of the account. “There is just one single organisation that helps theatre artistes when they are in trouble. That organisation is privately run. It has about 200 artistes on its panel who contribute money to provide assistance to artistes in need. A mechanism could have been introduced to run Artist Welfare Fund smoothly instead of stopping the practice of depositing the last show’s money.”
Lahore alone has around 10 commercial theatres yet, none of them have any funds allocated for the artistes’ welfare. “There are about 500 theatre artistes in Lahore and they have no association [with any funding body]. Who will speak about their rights and how when there isn’t even a single body to represent them,” Ahmad maintained.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2011.
A factory worker is entitled to facilities like that of health-care and old age benefits. To make this possible, an amount is deducted from his salary ... a stage artiste, however, is not that fortunate. This is what the theatre artistes said when asked about their welfare services.
There are a few examples of artistes’ financial assistance by the government but a mechanism or a dedicated fund to help the artiste in need is not available, say artistes. Contrary to which, the government functionaries claim to have special funds for the artistes; yet they fail to provide any substantive data.
Veteran stage artiste Babu Baral had to face a lot of difficulties when he fell ill and had no one to pay for his treatment. This stirred individual efforts from many artistes who supported him financially. Baral has now recovered but the question of establishing a funding body to help the artistes still remains unanswered.
According to senior stage artistes and the culture department officials, a funding body was established in the 1980s, the Artist Welfare Fund under the banner of Lahore Arts Council (LAC). At that time, a commercial play would run for a spell of 15 days at the Alhamra. The LAC decided to extend it an additional day so that the income from the final day’s show was transferred to the Artist Welfare Fund without deducting entertainment tax.
“The producers at the time started to show losses in the last show. If they earned Rs 25,000 from the last show, on paper it was recorded as Rs 10,000. LAC later fixed an amount to be deposited after the last performance. This further worsened the situation, ultimately the fund in its entirety disappeared.” an LAC official, who requested anonymity, told The Express Tribune. He did not reveal where the money went or when it was last deposited by any producer. “I can confirm that the fund no longer exists. The rest of the details should be available with the administration department,” he added.
When asked about the amount, LAC Deputy Director (Administration) Aftab Ansari said, “There is a committee that looks into funding matters. We still give financial assistance to artistes. These affairs are being looked after by the programming department now and they know its exact details”.
Deputy Director (Programming) Najeebullah said, “The committee that looks after the Artist Welfare Account exists but the money in that fund is deposited by the artistes and the government [and not generated from the last show].”
LAC officials did not provide a record of the artistes who have benefited from the financial assistance programme. “It isn’t appropriate to reveal the names of the artistes who have received financial assistance,” said an official who wished to remain anonymous.
Chairman of Commercial Theatre Producers Association, Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ahmad however, had a very different version of the account. “There is just one single organisation that helps theatre artistes when they are in trouble. That organisation is privately run. It has about 200 artistes on its panel who contribute money to provide assistance to artistes in need. A mechanism could have been introduced to run Artist Welfare Fund smoothly instead of stopping the practice of depositing the last show’s money.”
Lahore alone has around 10 commercial theatres yet, none of them have any funds allocated for the artistes’ welfare. “There are about 500 theatre artistes in Lahore and they have no association [with any funding body]. Who will speak about their rights and how when there isn’t even a single body to represent them,” Ahmad maintained.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2011.