Exiled Afghan musicians fear expulsion from Pakistan, future in Taliban-led homeland

Afghan musicians perform during an interview with Arab News at their studio in Rawalpindi. (AN Photo)

• Afghan artists and musicians fled after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021
• As Pakistan expels illegal migrants, musicians fear they may be next in line to be deported

RAWALPINDI: Syed Ashraf recalled sitting in tears by the charred wreckage of his music studio after a band of Taliban fighters vandalized the facility days after the hard-line group swept to power in Kabul following the withdrawal of US-led forces in August 2021.
Afghanistan has a strong musical tradition, and a pop music scene had flourished there over the past two decades. But many musicians, fearing for their futures under the Taliban which governs according to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, fled the country to neighboring Pakistan as Taliban fighters started harassing artists and attacking music venues.
Last week, at a small music school he has opened in Rawalpindi for Afghan refugee students as well as Pakistanis, Ashraf remembered looking at the smoldering remains of the musical instruments at his school on that August day two years ago and deciding he would leave his homeland for Pakistan to build a new life with music and hope.
Today, however, Ashraf, like other exiled Afghan artists, is facing uncertainty again amid Islamabad’s deportation drive against illegal migrants that has disproportionately hit Afghans, who form the largest number of migrants to Pakistan.
While Ashraf and his family members have visas and the government says it will not deport those with valid documents, he still fears Pakistani authorities might ask him to leave in the next phase of the expulsion program.
“Afghan artists who returned to Afghanistan from Iran faced a lot of trouble from the Taliban,” he told Arab News. “They were beaten, thrown into jails … Therefore, we appeal to Pakistan not to send Afghan artists back.”
The last time the Taliban had ruled the country, in the late 1990s, they outright banned music. Soon after taking over again, instruments at the famed Afghanistan National Institute of Music, founded in 2010 as a rare coeducational institute, were destroyed and its administrators and students relocated to Lisbon, Portugal. Renowned for its inclusiveness as a symbol of a new Afghanistan — with boys and girls studying together and performing to full houses in the United States and Europe — the school’s campus was occupied by a Taliban faction and its bank accounts were frozen and its offices ransacked.
Smaller music studios like Ashraf’s never stood a chance. 
“I was an engineer by profession, but I learned music out of passion,” Ashraf said. “After teaching myself music, I taught it to children in Afghanistan. However, everything came to an end after the arrival of the Taliban.”
The 62-year-old musician who now lives in Rawalpindi with his family came armed with the firm belief that the best “revenge” against the Taliban would be to ignite the love of music among refugees in Pakistan. He partnered up with 42-year-old Afghan painter, Sayed Ibrahim, whose art gallery in Kabul was also destroyed by the Taliban.
“With the assistance of Sayed [Ibrahim], I established a music academy here [in Rawalpindi] and bought some instruments so I could cultivate a love for music among the youth,” Ashraf said.
“My goal was to teach them, enabling them to express their inner pain and show their love for their homeland by playing music.”
Initially, Ashraf and Ibrahim were not optimistic about the success of their venture but the response was “overwhelming.”
“It has been two to three months since we launched the music academy, and there are 10 to 12 students already enrolled,” Ibrahim told Arab News.
“Music is a necessity for everyone and in my experience, every Afghan, even common people, love music,” an Afghan student at the academy who identified himself only by his first name Fareed said.
“People sing everywhere, in every village, and it’s common to hear music while people are working. It was a very good thing there but unfortunately, it’s now banned.”
Like most other Afghan nationals in Pakistan, he too was worried about his future as well as the future of the teachers and students at the academy, many of whom are refugees.
“COMBAT SADNESS THROUGH MUSIC”
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), out of 3.7 million Afghans in Pakistan, only 1.4 million are registered. As per a joint report issued by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), over 450,000 Afghan nationals had returned to their homeland until Dec. 9. Afghan community leaders say even those with Afghan Citizenship Cards and Proof of Proof of Registration documents, both of which entitle staying in Pakistan legally, have been deported.
The wave of expulsions has worried Ahmed Baraham, a 19-year-old student at Ashraf’s music academy, whose family left Afghanistan and entered Pakistan on visas in 2022 after the Taliban banned girls’ education.
He said that he joined the academy after he slipped into a state of depression.
“I want to combat sadness through music as it draws people toward humanity,” Baraham told Arab News. “It’s a soft thing. A person feels a sense of peace by immersing himself in music.”
But there are new fears as Pakistani law enforcement agencies carry out search operations and raids in a bid to round up illegal migrants. Baraham said he too was questioned by the police some weeks ago but allowed to go free after a brief interrogation.
The experience left him in distress for days.
“People have gone into depression due to police raids,” Baraham said. “No one knows what will happen. There were rumors that even those with visas and passports will be deported. We, too, find ourselves in great distress.”
In an op-ed published in The Telegraph on Sunday, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said the country would not deport at-risk groups such as musicians, journalists, and human rights activists.
But the young music student was not convinced and feared his fate in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
“If we can study there and pursue our passion for music, there is no issue for us to go back to Afghanistan,” Baraham said. “But, they [Taliban] consider these things to be forbidden.”