Power manifests in three distinct ways: hard power, exercised through the machinery of state security, the police and the armed forces; control of information, through censorship and systems of dissemination; and the shaping of perception, the construction of narrative through the stories a state endorses and circulates.

In this piece, we shall focus on the third dimension of power, the manner in which storytelling, through cinema, television drama, literature and other artistic media, contributes to the production, projection and consolidation of power.

Those who understand cultural discourse will immediately recognise the notion of the grand narrative, often constructed upon the official story of the state, or upon a narrative that aligns with the purposes of any centre of power, local or global. For example, Pakistan’s grand narrative has historically been structured around the very idea of separation from Hindu nationalism, the Two-Nation Theory.

This compels Pakistan to adopt an Islamic hue and, consequently, to align itself with the broader Islamic world. The stories approved for school textbooks, as well as the films and literature supported or funded for national consumption, have therefore tended to align with this foundational idea.

Here, the word idea is crucial and deserves examination before we proceed further.

An idea is not a fixed entity; it evolves. Conceptions of the origin of life, of the world, and of humanity’s relationship with God have shifted across generations. It is therefore unlikely that the idea of a state would remain static indefinitely. It changes as circumstances and transitions demand. It evolves as new generations assume positions of authority.

It shifts more decisively when a generation adopts its own preferred lens through which to interpret history, assess present realities and imagine the future, when they begin to write their own stories. Documentary theorist Bill Nichols observed in his landmark 1983 essay, The........

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