IN keeping with our general apathy towards the social sciences, history is a largely orphaned discipline in Pakistan, with either scant interest amongst the public into the events of our collective past, or a mostly manufactured narrative dominating our textbooks. And perhaps that is why, as the much-quoted dictum that ‘those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’ goes, we are perpetually caught in a cycle of doom and gloom.
However, some intrepid souls and institutions have made attempts along the way to document history as it should be documented, in order to learn about and from the past. Pakistan: Dimensions of History is one such attempt. The book is a richly-referenced compendium that brings together 23 papers presented at the 20th Pakistan History Conference, held in Karachi in 2005 and organised by the Pakistan Historical Society and the University of Karachi’s Pakistan Study Centre (the book was published in 2013).
Edited by Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, the book contains a variety of topics, ranging from essays about the subcontinent’s distant past to ana-lyses dissecting the factors that have resulted in our muddled present, penned by mostly local scholars, but including a few foreign voices as well. The volume is of value because often excellent papers presented at conferences are either soon forgotten, or are only available to a limited audience within academia. Publishing a selection of essays in book form makes the work accessible to the general public.
Professor Sharif Al Mujahid sets the tone with his paper on the state of the discipline of history. On the relevance of history, he points out that “whatever exists has roots in the past.”
Syed M. Ashfaque offers fascinating details about Quetta’s prehistoric past while writing on the funerary treasures found at the site of the Serena Hotel during the construction phase. However, one feels a few photographs of the treasures along with the article would have been nice.
Altaf Ahmed Azmi writes on the development of Unani medicine in 16th-century India, offering snippets into the lives of physicians who served the early Mughal kings, including medicine men such as Hakim Yusufi, who wrote his medical advice in verse.
Arshad Islam gives details of trade links between Arabia, India and South-East Asia, both in the pre-Islamic and Islamic age, highlighting the interconnectedness of the ancient world. It is interesting to know that the name of the Yemeni island of Socotra has a Sanskrit origin.
The chapter by Abdus Subhan is dedicated to the life of Nawab Abdul Latif, the 19th-century “benefactor of Mahomedans [sic] of Bengal.” Though he worked for the education and uplift of Muslims, Nawab Sahib was well-respected amongst the Hindu elite of colonial Bengal. In his piece on the use of Hindus as the ‘other’ in Pakistani textbooks, Tahir Kamran writes that Hindus, and not the British colonialists, were the key factor in Pakistan’s process of identity formation. History writing centred around “the Hindu,” he says, adding that the phrase “ideology of Pakistan” was never used by Quaid-i-Azam and was first mentioned in 1962. Unlike depictions in our textbooks painting Muslims as a monolithic community in India, the writer points out that there were ethnic, class and sectarian differences among the Muslims.
An insightful, thorough analysis by Lubna Saif on the emergence of “institutional imbalance” in Pakistan can be considered the heart of the compendium. She posits that in the early years after independence, the Muslim League, parliament, the bureaucracy and military were all trying to find their feet in the new country. However, institutional imbalance was caused when some of the Cold War principals “allied with the domestic actors to continue the colonial legacy of ‘controlling the democratic institutions’ through an authoritarian administrative structure.”
The writer also mentions that if Muhammad Ali Jinnah had chosen to be “leader of the parliament [instead of governor general] the parliamentary history of Pakistan would have been different.”
Her observation that “members of the ICS [Indian Civil Service, from which was born the Civil Service of Pakistan] were trained to protect the colonial interests and were anathema to any form of nationalism” proves that not much has changed.
Saif states that “Liaquat [Ali Khan’s] death paved the way for the bureaucracy-military-feudal alliance to dominate the state policies” and that anti-communist propaganda was planted in the Pakistani press. What is amusing is the writer’s revelation that the US State Department had proposed to organise an Islamic economic conference in Karachi and wanted to set up an Islamic university in Pakistan; it appears as if early attempts to forge an ‘Islamic’ identity for Pakistan were actually being inspired by some in Washington D.C. From this write-up one can safely arrive at the conclusion that Cold War exigencies were key in derailing democracy in Pakistan early on and empowering the bureaucracy \ military \ mullah combine, better known as the Establishment.
In his piece on Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, Professor Moonis Ahmar offers a precise analysis detailing the factors that led to the end of united Pakistan. He observes that “although much of the agonising memory of the cataclysmic event [the 1971 war] has subsided, the bitterness lingers.” Developments in Bangladesh in the very recent past, with the Awami League-led government hanging some of those it accused of war crimes during 1971, bear testimony to this.
The academic observes that “Bangladeshi history textbooks also fail to mention the suffering of non-Bengalese [sic] during the events of 1971” while “textbooks in Pakistan conceal facts about the real causes of the separation of East Pakistan.” His comment that the “absence of democratic and social justice results in discontent among people” rings very true, especially if Pakistan’s present predicament is considered.
What is also food for thought is Ahmar’s statement that “the movement for the emancipation of Bengalese [sic] from the exploitation of West Pakistan didn’t result into social justice in that country.”
The deplorable, fanciful accounts of medieval European travellers in Emperor Jahangir’s India as collected by Faraz Anjum in the essay ‘Encounter with Mughal Orient,’ paints the subcontinent as a backward, barbarous realm, and paved the way for colonisation. From these accounts, it seems as if India’s varied peoples needed European conquistadors on horseback to save them from their own wretched selves.
The only gripe one has about the volume is the varying quality of editing. Some pieces are edited superbly for language and syntax, while others leave a lot to be desired.
The reviewer is a Dawn staffer
Pakistan: Dimensions of History
(HISTORY)
Edited by Syed Jaffar Ahmed
Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi
ISBN 978-969-8791-42-1
393pp.
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