This piece is not about great singers and grand concerts. Nor is it about corporate events and capitalist advertising companies. It is also not about those singers who, after becoming brands, have forgotten their past. Nor is it about enlightened police or bureaucracy.

This story belongs to dark streets, small towns, and villages and settlements spread across broken, unpaved roads. It is a glimpse into the daily lives of those folk singers who earn only a few thousand. It is a tragic tale of those singers who walk barefoot and wear unironed clothes.

When these so-called “rowdy” folk singers set up a musical gathering at a poor person’s wedding, the dark-minded police personnel crack down on them. The excuse is the 2016 Sound Act, according to which if you preach loudly or sing, it is a cognizable offense. But these folk artists are the wretched of the earth, upon whom anyone can raise a hand.

In small villages and narrow streets, where poverty, hardship, and misery prevail, if people arrange music for a few moments of joy, the local police, with their hefty personnel, arrive and not only shut down the function under the Sound Act but also beat, thrash, and arrest the folk singer. In reality, this law has become a source of their income and a display of power.

If the elite, the rich, and the middle class listen to music, the state neither stops them nor can stop them. But if a poor person appears intoxicated with joy, he is arrested as a drunkard. If they sit on the roadside and play cards, they are accused of gambling. At night, motorcyclists and pedestrians are stopped at every checkpoint, but no one dares to stop those in big cars, lest the police officer himself be suspended or dismissed.

The attitude of the powerful, the police, the bureaucracy, and even citizens toward the poor is hypocritical. Like the teacher in the famous English story Doll’s House, we look at the poor one way and the rich another. Our tone becomes submissive before the powerful and arrogant before the weak.

In the West, democratic countries have ensured that in the eyes of the state, the rich and the poor are equal; law and justice are the same for all. But in the East, there are separate standards of law and justice for the rich and the poor. We decide a person’s worth based on their clothing, social status, and language.

Whereas respect for humanity and religions have brought a message of special love for the poor. In Christianity, there is great emphasis on love for the poor, the weak, and the helpless. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), the Mercy to the worlds, showed special kindness and compassion toward slaves, the poor, and the helpless. Yet here, even bearded, outwardly pious believers are seen looking down upon the poor.

The current governments of Punjab and Sindh give priority to the promotion of the arts. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has taken special initiatives for the development and promotion of film and drama. Billions of rupees are being given annually to poor artists of film, drama, theater, music, and calligraphy.

Despite this generous governmental attitude toward art and literature, the crackdown on folk artists in streets, neighborhoods, and villages continues, with the 2016 Sound Act as the excuse. The Punjab government immediately needs to review this act. If musical gatherings must end before midnight, then why is official permission even required?

Limits can be set on loudspeaker volume, but this crackdown and giving authority to police officers unfamiliar with art is not only a cause of embarrassment for the government but is also making it difficult for poor artists to earn their daily bread. Information Minister Uzma Bukhari’s political and cultural background proves that she also strongly believes in the promotion of arts and culture. It is hoped that the injustices committed under this act will be ended immediately.

A good state is one that interferes as little as possible in people’s personal and social customs. But in third-world countries, state interference in personal and social traditions is considered justified. Former Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in his own way, made “one-dish” and timing rules mandatory for weddings, supposedly for the benefit of the poor.

This has severely damaged the most important social tradition of wedding feasts. At rich weddings, millions are spent on decoration and lighting, but serving only one dish has become a legal compulsion. Before this law, weddings were remembered for their excellent food; now people do not even eat at weddings.

Previously, the poor would serve according to their means, and the rich according to theirs. Another consequence of this law is that weddings have shifted to farmhouses, where neither the one-dish rule nor timing restrictions apply. Wedding halls, where the law is enforced, are now deserted.

Five-star hotels in Lahore had built multiple wedding halls and once bustled with crowds, but now people prefer farmhouses, leaving those grand halls empty and desolate. This is what happens when social traditions are replaced by state laws—people find new ways to preserve their customs.

Since governments are based in cities, they effectively belong to cities. They neither hear the voices from outside urban centers nor do those voices reach them. In Punjab, farmers of wheat, oranges, and potatoes have been devastated, yet their cries have not reached the corridors of power in Lahore.

In small towns and rural areas, due to the absence of a local government system, powers lie with the bureaucracy, increasing grievances in the peripheries. However, initiatives like “Clean Punjab” and electric transport have indeed reached villages and towns.

This same urban-rural divide is evident in the enforcement of law: in cities, police do not arrest people for organizing musical gatherings, but if poor villagers commit this “crime,” they are detained under the pretext of breach of peace.

In Pakistan, religious intolerance and social suffocation are already high, fueling extremism. The easiest and cheapest remedy for this rigidity and suffocation is to promote social traditions, not suppress them.

Weddings, drumbeats, fairs, festivals, and music are part of the cultural and historical heritage of this region. If any flawed law was made in the past, it should be abolished immediately to help establish a balanced society.