Pakistan is abuzz—not over the economic crisis or dissolution of the Shehbaz Sharif government or even the prospect of elections. It’s singer Ali Sethi’s rumoured marriage to Pakistani-American painter Salman Toor that has got everyone in a frenzy. The announcement has opened a floodgate of love and hate, commendations and criticism — and memes.
While mainstream media organisations like Dawn remain stoically silent, others like The Namal are weighing in on what could well be Pakistan’s first high-profile gay marriage. If there is truth to the Pasoori singer’s decision to wed his long-term partner, it is a brave move, given that homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan.
An X (formerly Twitter) user with the handle ‘Thinking Kitty’ apparently broke the news. “Yesterday Ali Sethi got married to Salman Toor,” she announced on 9 August. When other users started asking her for photos, she said she had “connections with the family”, and later went on to add that the union took place in New York where Toor lives.
Neither Toor nor Sethi have commented on the issue. The singer’s father, former Caretaker of Chief Minister of Punjab Najam Sethi, and his sister, actor Mira, were also asked to make a comment. But so far, there has been none.
‘Try love’
The reaction to the rumoured marriage has exposed how divided Pakistan is on the rights of its LGBTQIA+ community.
A former Ali Sethi fan even called for his songs to be boycotted while questioning where Pakistan was heading. “You can’t change what’s declared haram in Islam,” she tweeted.
Pakistani TV actor Mishi Khan too condemned the rumoured marriage and asked Sethi to “Go and do whatever in your closets but don’t dare to influence the children and youth with this crap”.
In an amusing turn of events, a few fans thought that Sethi had married Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor and went on to ask him if it was a love marriage or an arranged one.
But, in the larger picture, love rose over hate. Many social media users congratulated the couple. “Those fulminating over his marriage must be so weak that they’re threatened that he married someone he loves. To them, I say: Try love. It will make you human,” tweeted Salil Tripathi, a writer.
Congratulations, Ali Sethi.
Those fulminating over his marriage must be so weak that they're threatened that he married someone he loves.
To them, I say: Try love. It will make you human.
— saliltripathi (@saliltripathi) August 11, 2023
Being queer and visible
Sethi is one of the few Pakistani artists to openly identify as queer. In a 2022 interview, he said he “feels the responsibility to be visible” in a bid to counter the rise of homophobia in the country.” His song Rung depicted queer forms of love too.
And Toor also creates art based on queer identities, often featuring related themes in his painting. In an interview with The New Yorker, he said that “the pools of dark liquid in 9PM, the News” represented “something about guilt spreading like slime in a culture of shame.” In Reunion and The Green Bar, men embrace openly and publicly, which he did “deliberately and articulately”.