History Matters!

Why the study of Pakistan’s history is in crisis – a conversation with Dr Mubarak Ali

In Pakistan’s current whirlwind state of existence – in the midst of an energy crisis, economic uncertainty and the steady breakdown of law and order – the new government is naturally talking a lot about hopeful claims for the future. But looking forward, in any situation, naturally compels us to also take a look back. And when we look into Pakistan’s past, opening up whatever books or articles or distant memories we might have, what do we find? Historical writing in Pakistan is, in itself, a whole other set of questions and contradictions that we, as a nation hurtling forward into a very unknown tomorrow, can no longer ignore.

I had the privilege of sitting down with Dr Mubarak Ali, the eminent historian and scholar, to discuss some of these very questions recently. Dr Ali has published over 25 books over the course of a long and prolific career, and is also the editor of the quarterly journal of history, Tarikh. He received his MA in History from Sindh University, Jamshoro, in 1963. “We all like to look back and say that in the beginning, things were so much better. But if I really think about it, when I joined the history department at Jamoshoro – although there were some good professors – I can’t say I really learned anything from them.”

The department at his university, Ali said, and indeed at all similar institutions in Pakistan at the time, had a very simplistic curriculum that had hardly changed from the colonial period. Entirely dynastic and political, it did not touch on social or cultural histories and didn’t encourage students to think critically or engage in new research. Although Ali topped his class, he said that it was practically a waste of time – when he arrived in England to do his Ph.D, he remembered, “I didn’t even know how to prepare a bibliography.” Half a century has passed since those days, but although universities have grown and developed throughout the country, history departments remain shockingly behind. Out of about 130 or so universities in Pakistan, hardly 20 have a history department at all.

For those who persevere on, however, and try to do any original research on Pakistan or, more generally, South Asian history, there is a whole other set of problems awaiting them. Dr Ali, who specialized in Medieval India (the Mughal period), remembered the difficulties of trying to work in archives here. “The people who work in and run these places are so uncooperative,” he said. “There are nearly 80 staff members at the Punjab Public Library, but if you ask them for a book that is listed in the catalog, they’ll often say it isn’t available.” The raw material is here, he said – “no question about it.” Getting your hands on it, however, is another matter. I remember running into similar difficulties myself a year ago, while working on a historical research project in Karachi. Archives, where they exist,  are not properly maintained or organized, and I imagine innumerable, priceless records – pieces of our history we won’t find anywhere else – lost in neglected file cabinets or under dusty shelves where no one is allowed to go.

Even when I was granted access to the material I needed, requests to see old documents – newspaper and magazine articles, meeting minutes, and so on – were often met with genuine puzzlement. “Why do you want to see these old papers?” people would say. What they were really asking, however, rang strong and clear through their words: ‘Who cares, anyway?’ It was this question, present under the surface no matter where I went, that disturbed me much more than dilapidated archives and stubborn librarians. The problem of history writing in Pakistan is much deeper than institutional obstacles, its a problem of an entire mindset, a way of looking at our past and our own national identity that leaves no room for even the slightest bit of questioning, let alone improvement. It is a problem, as Dr Ali put it, of ideology.

Every nation, arguably, has its own national narrative that serves to legitimize the state and its interests. But in Pakistan, this ideology has become bent on deeply problematic notions of Muslim separatism and India-antagonism to justify the existence of the state. Moreover, it has been so systematically ingrained into the national consciousness that it has become almost impossible to criticize it or even point out one of its many factual distortions and flaws. The most obvious and also perhaps the most important example of this is the presentation of Pakistan’s history in school textbooks. No secondary school textbook will mention the Mughal Emperor Akbar, for example, because, as Dr Ali put it, “he represents a secular, liberal Muslim ruler.” The 1971 war and creation of Bangladesh, furthermore, often gets only two lines in the whole text. These books are often a child’s only source of historical knowledge, and instead of aiming to bring about a measure of true and un-biased understanding they have become a means of imparting a very particular kind of national identity.

Many people have commented on this identity and the ideology behind it, and discussed the problems it both contains and creates. What concerns me, however – as a student of history in particular- is the way it has debilitated the enterprise of genuine, original research and writing. Anything that goes against the state-approved version of things is seen as dangerous, and the opposition doesn’t just come from the state. “Everywhere in society, the majority of people won’t appreciate it, they are influenced by the media and textbooks and the whole environment. They are only familiar with the history or the knowledge which is prevalent, and they resist anything that goes against that,” said Ali.

Even the work being done on Pakistan by scholars abroad, commented Ali, is hindered by political agendas. Now Pakistan is in international focus,” he said, “And many are writing with a political purpose. Everything you read, you have to add Islam – that’s often the only way to get funding. There isn’t serious research work.” When asked what serious research work might entail, Ali emphasized the dearth of social and cultural histories of the country, saying that so far, all the work has been concentrated on political history. “Historians should also try to study history from the local point of view,” he said. “And the field of oral histories is vacant. You could  interview villagers in a particular area about their lives – their diet, customs, hobbies, etc. You could write an excellent social history of village life – it would be a very significant contribution. But people aren’t interested in taking these topics for research,” he said.

So I ask myself again: who cares, anyway? Who cares about the organization of old articles in an archive when bombs are going off and there’s no electricity for hours every day? But the truth is that until we start caring – until we create an educational system and a society that questions and criticizes and investigates – we won’t get very far in any other matter, either. If we hope to fix the problems of the past, we need to first understand that past. We need a variety of perspectives, not only one, state sanctioned viewpoint, and the only way this can happen in Pakistan is if learning and research – from second-grade textbooks to research in universities – is undertaken with the attention it deserves.