Actually, Jinnah wanted a federation as well, but was foisted because of the intransigence of the Congress, a Pakistan. This is an uncomfortable fact for most people - both Indian and Pakistanis - but there isnt much that can be done about it. That being said, I had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion about teaching Pakistani history and was amused to see how trapped people remain in - as val daniels and akeel bilgrami, both of whom were in the audience also pointed out - that Pakistani history seems to be nothing more than an amateurish genealogy of place. That even after 65 years, we are concocting history as if all it needs to be is a justification for where Pakistan ended up. And yet, as you look as this map, and as you read about the shenanigans that went into the final creation of Pakistan, you can see how fluid, changing, flexible, accommodating and in fact vague and indefinite the physical idea of Pakistan was. What emerged in 1947 was not even quite what had been variously explored, and certainly, never within the communities that ended up with the burden of this national entity. It also amused me that there remains such reluctance to create a broader, more inclusive, and creative idea of what history actually means. To move away from dates, events, leaders, political movements, and to begin to include the vast range of social, cultural, political, societal and intellectual influences that moved in and across the areas that are currently Pakistan. (and this can change by the way, so....). The panelists struggled with very convention frameworks of thought, and in fact, seemed incredibly uninteresting for the most part when they spoke about history. There were no imaginative leaps, no creative and passionate calls for history not as a lesson in facts, but as an exercise of the imagination. For after all, all histories are based on very vague and indefinite readings into the mists of the pasts, and each generation, or even the same generations, sees different demons and outlines in the same mist. That is what makes it so exciting. History as ideology. History as genealogy. History as polemic. History as a text book. History as a form of forgetfulness. History as political project. History as mind control. We have all that. Can we move on
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:18:05 +0000
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