Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan: (In)Audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts

by Kamran Asdar Ali (Editor), Janaki Nair (Editor), Asad Ali (Editor), Mrinalini Sinha (Editor), Shabnum Tejani (Editor)

Overview

After seventy-five years of independence, the history of Pakistan remains centered on the state, its ideology and the two-nation theory. Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan seeks to shift that focus away from histories of an imagined nation, to the history of its peoples.

Based on the premise that the historiographical tradition in Pakistan has ignored the existence of people who actually make history, this book brings together historians, anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists to shed light on the diverse histories of the people themselves.

Assembling histories of events and peoples missing from grand narratives of national history, the essays in this collection incorporate a diversity of approaches to the past as it opens the possibilities of multiple histories, the archives through which they are registered, and the various temporalities in which they persist.

The volume highlights and recuperates the entangled nature of history and memory within Pakistan's social and cultural life. By critically examining both leftist and nationalist thought, Towards People's Histories in Pakistan explores competing visions of what is meant by 'the people', and charts new ground in developing the promise of people's histories both within Pakistan and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350261228
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/28/2024
Series:	Critical Perspectives in South Asian History
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kamran Asdar Ali is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (UT Press, 2002) and Communism in Pakistan: Politics and Class Activism 1947-1972 (I.B Tauris 2015). Ali has been the President of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS: 2011-2017), the Director of the South Asia Institute, UT, Austin (2010-2017) and the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Asad Ali is an independent scholar based in the UK. He is the co-editor of Love, War and Other Longings: Essays on cinema in Pakistan (OUP 2020) and has taught at North American Institutions including New York University, Rutgers and Harvard. He is currently completing a manuscript entitled Languages of the Law: Islam, Liberalism and Moral Community in Pakistan.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Contributors

Introduction, Asad Ali (Independent Scholar, UK) & Kamran Asdar Ali (University of Texas, USA)

Part I: Recalling “Progressive” Histories
Chapter 1: The Left and its Legacies: The Long 1960s in Pakistan, Kamran Asdar Ali (University of Texas, USA)
Chapter 2: 'South Asia's Partitions and the Limiting of Progressive Possibilities in Pakistan.', Anushay Malik (Simon Fraser University, Canada) & Hassan Javid (University of Fraser Valley, Canada)
Chapter 3: On Progressive Papers in Pakistan, Mahvish Ahmad (London School of Economics, UK), Hashim bin Rashid (SOAS University of London, UK) & Ahmad Salim (South Asian Resource and Research Centre, Pakistan)

Part II: : Nationalism's Many Violences
Chapter 4: 1971: Pakistan's Past and Knowing What Not to Narrate, Nayanika Mookherjee (University of Durham, UK)
Chapter 5: Left Behind by the Nation: 'Urdu Speakers' in Bangladesh, Dina Mahnaz Siddiqi (New York University, USA)
Chapter 6: Invisible Borderlines, Naila Mahmood (Independent Scholar, Pakistan)

Part III: Alternate Registers, Other Histories
Chapter7: Un-archiving Baloch History, Adeem Suhail (Franklin and Marshall College, USA)
Chapter 8: Queer in the Way of History, Omar Kasmani (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Chapter 9: Gatherings of Commemoration: Performing Other Histories in Pakistan's Sufi Shrines, Amen Jaffer (Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan)
Chapter 10: Beyond “Forgotten Histories”: Teesri Dhun (The Third Tune) as Collaborative Performance Research, Claire Pamment (The College of William and Mary, USA)

Part IV: Politics and 'the People'
Chapter 11: Tulba, Mazdoor aur Kissan (Students, Labourers and Peasants): The Revolution made Easy, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan)
Chapter 12: The people in their difference, Humeira Iqtidar (King's College London, UK)
Chapter 13: Countering the production of cultural hegemony: Reflections on women's activism under Zia, Farida Shaheed (Shirkat Gah-Women's Resource Centre, Pakistan)
Chapter 14: Political Emotion and Bodily Politics: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and 'The People', Asad Ali (Independent Scholar, UK)

Index

Editorial Reviews

Histories can legitimize political power, just as they can be used to challenge power, sometimes in revolutionary ways. In Pakistan, state power has long been deployed to control national narratives, even amidst territorial fragmentation and deep inequality. The agenda of this exciting collection of essays is to show us the multiplicity and vitality of other popular narratives of the past, whether engaged with the nation and its temporalities or not.” —David Gilmartin, Professor of modern South Asian history, NC State University, USA

“Comprising 14 essays divided into four parts, the book makes for a taste-arousing read, touching upon multiple historical facets while taking into account peoples' experiences … An anthology of academic essays seeks to shift the focus away from the history of an imagined and unitary Pakistan, to the diverse and sometimes conflicting histories of its peoples” —Dawn

From the Publisher