Colonial history portrays pre-colonial era as a free-for-all and the era under the rule of the colonisers as civilised
Nothing is more tragic than the phenomenon of dispossession. A cursory look at history shows us how ruthlessly societies have been pitted against tragedies time and again, for the sake of a prolonged stay in power or in the name of national (read: vested) interest. The projection of history through one single story can rob a people of any understanding of their original past.
Not so long ago, colonisers dispossessed the people of the subcontinent from their organic past through the projection of history via a colonial perspective. The above claim can be corroborated from the fact that our youth, after being given a small introduction on the subject of the history of the subcontinent in their academics, have a greater understanding of the region under the colonisers’ rule than when it was under the rule of the Mughals or prior to the Mughal era. Colonial history portrays the pre-colonial era as a free-for-all and the era under the rule of the colonisers as civilised. This portrayal of history has invoked a sense of disregard for the pre-colonial era’s otherwise rich legacy among students. Devoid of any concrete criterion for morphing ourselves into a nation — because of the diversity of four primary ethnicities comprising Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch — we thought that the following of a common religion can perhaps turn us into a united nation.
Religion as the sole criterion of nationhood in Pakistan is another projection of history in a single story, which has come at the cost of the reality that the people of our land belonging to various ethnicities. In our curricula, no effort has been made to help students of various provinces understand the history of our major ethnicities. Their concept of ‘Pakistaniat’ is based upon flimsy grounds that have been indoctrinated by the state. The whole concept of ‘Pakistaniat’ vanishes when they have to discuss an issue of national interest and instead of carrying forward the national interest narrative in debate, they take positions with respect to their ethnicities, pointing fingers at the other.
This is what I observed as member of the Youth Parliament of Pakistan, PILDAT, in 2013, and at many other youth discussion forums in Lahore, while I was a student at Government College University. The danger of a single story through which we try to make sense of history is that it leads to stereotyping and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are necessarily untrue, but that they give an incomplete picture, leading to poor understanding of the problem at hand.
The concept of being a ‘Pakistani’ needs to be redefined with an inclusive picture of history rather than using one single account of history.
Inamullah Marwat
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2015.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
