Conference discusses art of historiography

The first day of the International History Conference on historiography began at Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad. During the event organised at the Department of History, 10 papers were presented in three sessions by eminent and renowned historians of national and international standing.
The papers ventured into new domains and unexplored avenues of the history of South Asia. Session one focused on Historiography of Ancient and Medieval South Asia. The papers included: ‘Taxila under the Kushan Rule’ by Dr Ghaniur Rehman from Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisations, ‘Frontier Archaeology: Items for Colonial and Post Colonial Stereography’ by Dr Luca Maria Olivieri, ‘Female Slaves in the Historical Sources of the Delhi Sultanate’ by Fouzia Farooq Ahmed and ‘Persian Language and Literature during the Reign of Akbar’ by Dr M Ziauddin.
The second session focused on Historiography of Colonial India and was chaired by Dr M Naeem Qureshi. The topics discussed were: ‘Formation of Muslim Identity in the Colonial Punjab’ by M Abrar Zahoor Bhatti, ‘Palestinian Pakistanis: Arab and Indian Muslim Views on Partition in South Asia and the Palestine Mandate’ by Dr Lucy P Chester and ‘Mountbatten’s Response to the Communal Riots in the Punjab, 20th March- 15 : An Overview, Qayyum Khan , Tribesmen and the War of Kashmir, 1947-48’ by Prof Dr. Minhaj ul Hasan. The papers presented in the third session, chaired by Dr Zareena Salamat, were: ‘Stasiology and Response of Social Scientists in Pakistan’ by M Javed Salyana and ‘Varying Perspectives of Writings on the Politics of Pakistan’ by Sajid Hussain.
These papers were about the history of history writing and diverse social, as political, economic and cultural themes were explained in all three sessions. Rigorous question and answer sessions followed the papers. Serious debates and arguments were extended to resolve basic issues of history writing. At the end it was concluded that without making the history writing impartial and bias free, a clear picture of present, past or future is impossible. At the end, Dr Razia Sultana, the chairperson department of History, thanked the eminent historians and others for their participation.