Technocracy and its ramification in a country like Pakistan which is being depoliticized in the n... more Technocracy and its ramification in a country like Pakistan which is being depoliticized in the name of Technocratic excellence capable of resolving all the issues confronting it.
T his study seeks to examine the status of the Christians in the postcolonial Pakistani Punjab. C... more T his study seeks to examine the status of the Christians in the postcolonial Pakistani Punjab. Christians, according to the 1998 census, constitute 1.59 percent of the population, making them the second largest religious minority. Pakistan has the 70th largest Catholic population and the 47th largest Protestant population in the world (Herald 46). The vast majority of the Christians are the offspring of the lowest strata of the population, untouchables pejoratively called churahs. 1 Most of them embraced Christianity in the last quarter of the 19th century. 2 Denzil Ibbetson calls them "the sweepers and scavengers par excellence of the Punjab" (Ibbetson 293). In Pakistan, with religious ideology propounded as the state's raison detre, the status of the minorities has remained an issue of enormous complexity throughout Pakistan's 62 years history. Incidents such as Shantinagar, Gojra and Sumbrial in the Punjab are testimony to the exacerbated level of intolerance o...
Abstract:To date, a micro-study about the exclusion of the Ahmadi through a Constitutional amendm... more Abstract:To date, a micro-study about the exclusion of the Ahmadi through a Constitutional amendment remains to be carried out. This is despite the scholarly contribution of Asad Ahmad, Sadia Saeed and Ali Usman Qasmi. Qasim Zaman and Vali Nasr have also shared their insights on the subject but the events in the run up to the Constitutional exclusion of the Ahmadi has eluded their scholarly deliberations. Consequently, existing literature on the subject has been produced either by the pro-Khatam-e-Nabuwaat maulvi and polemicists like Allaha Wasaya, Tahir Abdul Razzaq, Yousaf Ludhianvi and Mateen Khalid, or by scholars who sympathise with the Ahmadi position. Dost Muhammad Shahid is a conspicuous example of the latter tendency. In both instances, analytical rigour has been sacrificed. A dispassionate scholarly micro-study on this issue is thus imperative to fill the gap in the existing body of knowledge.This study supplements existing literature with a perusal of major local newspapers in English like Dawn and Pakistan Times, and Nawa-i-Waqt and Jang in Urdu. More importantly, records of parliamentary proceedings have been analysed at length, particularly Proceedings of The Special Committee of the Whole House (The National Assembly of Pakistan) Held in Camera to Consider the Qadiani Issue. Most of the opinions on the issue of Ahmadi Exclusion have been drawn from vernacular periodicals like Tarjmanul Quran and Al Haq, along with monthly Laulak and weekly Khatam-i-Nabuwwat. The violence sent tremors among the Ahmadi settled abroad, particularly in the UK, who worried about their relatives living in Pakistan. The letters written by concerned family members living in the UK during 1974–75 form a valuable source of this study too.
The chapter discusses the growth of western tourism to Lahore in the closing decades of the ninet... more The chapter discusses the growth of western tourism to Lahore in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Tourism was made possible by the emergence of steam ships and railways and the opening of the Suez Canal. The pioneering role of the Thomas Cook Company is highlighted. The 1906 Royal visit of the future George V and the writings of Rudyard Kipling further increased interest in the city amongst the wealthy and leisured western classes. Travel perpetuated Orientalist stereotypes of the city. The chapter examines a range of guidebooks, including the Newell Guide and later motorists’ guides produced by the Automobile Association of North India revealing how they reproduced the colonial official accounts of Lahore’s history that played down its wider commercial connections. The chapter concludes with an examination of the more discerning view of the city in the 1912 unpublished travel account of the Fabian socialists Sydney and Beatrice Webb.
A Shift from the devotional to the Natural in Nineteenth Century Art Education in Lahore.y, 2022
The chapter initially sets out to foreground the painting of nature in colonial Punjab, with a sp... more The chapter initially sets out to foreground the painting of nature in colonial Punjab, with a special focus on painting prior to the onset of the British rule in the region of northwest India. It sets out the themes in the Lahore School of Painting and how art was impacted by the decline and collapse of the Mughal rule. According to the influential Pakistani artist Abdul Rahman Chughtai (1894-1975), who is considered to be "the first significant modern Muslim artist from Pakistan" (Dadi, 2010), in his book Lahore Ka Dabistan-i-Musawari , the artists, from making the objects of nature and environment as the subject of their painting began instead to focus on the images of mythological/religious figures (Chughtai, 1979). Simultaneously, Partha Mitter's argument has been invoked that he presents in his first and influential book Much Maligned Monsters: History of Western Representations of Indian Art , in which he casts a critical gaze on the interpretation of Indian art by the Western art critics over an extended period, seeing those art forms as "monsters where artists had intended gods" (Mitter, 1977 : 1). Jurgan Wasim Frembgen also writes about artists' images of the Muslim Sufis performing miracles (Karamat) (Frembgen, 2008). Thus, the art forms, particularly the painting irrespective of faith or denomination, had an esoteric turn with break-up of the Mughal Empire.
There have been several studies of colonial Lahore in recent years. These have explored such them... more There have been several studies of colonial Lahore in recent years. These have explored such themes as the city’s modernity, its cosmopolitanism and the rise of communalism which culminated in the blood- letting of 1947. This work moves away from the prism of the Great Divide of 1947 to examine the cultural and social connections which linked colonial Lahore with North India and beyond. Imperial globalisation globalization intensified long established exchanges of goods, people and ideas, despite portrayals of Lahore as inward looking and a world unto itself. The current volume is thus reflective of the concerns arising from the global history of Empire and the new urban history of South Asia. These are addressed in a series of thematic chapters, rather than in a narrative account of the city’s development during colonial rule. A number of previously neglected areas of Lahore’s history emerge in this volume that are suggestive of new avenues for research. These include the links bet...
Faith-Based Violence and Deobandi Militancy in Pakistan, 2016
In “Genealogical Sociology of Sectarianism: A Case Study of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan”, Tahir Kamra... more In “Genealogical Sociology of Sectarianism: A Case Study of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan”, Tahir Kamran discusses the example of SSP to argue that the causes other than ideological divide are important in tracing the genealogical sociology of the militant organization. Different groups and stakeholders involved in the conflict deploy multiple strategies to further their interests. SSP represented more than just a violent struggle against the Shia sect. Historically it was also a legacy of Ahrar; socially it was a confrontation of urban nouveau riche in collaboration with the migrant community, who were politically dispossessed by the Shia landlords; and, in a much wider context, it served as a means to counter the Iranianization of Pakistan—the agenda set forth by General Zia ul Haq and the military establishment with the aid of Saudi Arabia. Hence at various levels the same organization acted with multiple guises, purposes and functionalities by serving the interests of various groups and states.
Technocracy and its ramification in a country like Pakistan which is being depoliticized in the n... more Technocracy and its ramification in a country like Pakistan which is being depoliticized in the name of Technocratic excellence capable of resolving all the issues confronting it.
T his study seeks to examine the status of the Christians in the postcolonial Pakistani Punjab. C... more T his study seeks to examine the status of the Christians in the postcolonial Pakistani Punjab. Christians, according to the 1998 census, constitute 1.59 percent of the population, making them the second largest religious minority. Pakistan has the 70th largest Catholic population and the 47th largest Protestant population in the world (Herald 46). The vast majority of the Christians are the offspring of the lowest strata of the population, untouchables pejoratively called churahs. 1 Most of them embraced Christianity in the last quarter of the 19th century. 2 Denzil Ibbetson calls them "the sweepers and scavengers par excellence of the Punjab" (Ibbetson 293). In Pakistan, with religious ideology propounded as the state's raison detre, the status of the minorities has remained an issue of enormous complexity throughout Pakistan's 62 years history. Incidents such as Shantinagar, Gojra and Sumbrial in the Punjab are testimony to the exacerbated level of intolerance o...
Abstract:To date, a micro-study about the exclusion of the Ahmadi through a Constitutional amendm... more Abstract:To date, a micro-study about the exclusion of the Ahmadi through a Constitutional amendment remains to be carried out. This is despite the scholarly contribution of Asad Ahmad, Sadia Saeed and Ali Usman Qasmi. Qasim Zaman and Vali Nasr have also shared their insights on the subject but the events in the run up to the Constitutional exclusion of the Ahmadi has eluded their scholarly deliberations. Consequently, existing literature on the subject has been produced either by the pro-Khatam-e-Nabuwaat maulvi and polemicists like Allaha Wasaya, Tahir Abdul Razzaq, Yousaf Ludhianvi and Mateen Khalid, or by scholars who sympathise with the Ahmadi position. Dost Muhammad Shahid is a conspicuous example of the latter tendency. In both instances, analytical rigour has been sacrificed. A dispassionate scholarly micro-study on this issue is thus imperative to fill the gap in the existing body of knowledge.This study supplements existing literature with a perusal of major local newspapers in English like Dawn and Pakistan Times, and Nawa-i-Waqt and Jang in Urdu. More importantly, records of parliamentary proceedings have been analysed at length, particularly Proceedings of The Special Committee of the Whole House (The National Assembly of Pakistan) Held in Camera to Consider the Qadiani Issue. Most of the opinions on the issue of Ahmadi Exclusion have been drawn from vernacular periodicals like Tarjmanul Quran and Al Haq, along with monthly Laulak and weekly Khatam-i-Nabuwwat. The violence sent tremors among the Ahmadi settled abroad, particularly in the UK, who worried about their relatives living in Pakistan. The letters written by concerned family members living in the UK during 1974–75 form a valuable source of this study too.
The chapter discusses the growth of western tourism to Lahore in the closing decades of the ninet... more The chapter discusses the growth of western tourism to Lahore in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Tourism was made possible by the emergence of steam ships and railways and the opening of the Suez Canal. The pioneering role of the Thomas Cook Company is highlighted. The 1906 Royal visit of the future George V and the writings of Rudyard Kipling further increased interest in the city amongst the wealthy and leisured western classes. Travel perpetuated Orientalist stereotypes of the city. The chapter examines a range of guidebooks, including the Newell Guide and later motorists’ guides produced by the Automobile Association of North India revealing how they reproduced the colonial official accounts of Lahore’s history that played down its wider commercial connections. The chapter concludes with an examination of the more discerning view of the city in the 1912 unpublished travel account of the Fabian socialists Sydney and Beatrice Webb.
A Shift from the devotional to the Natural in Nineteenth Century Art Education in Lahore.y, 2022
The chapter initially sets out to foreground the painting of nature in colonial Punjab, with a sp... more The chapter initially sets out to foreground the painting of nature in colonial Punjab, with a special focus on painting prior to the onset of the British rule in the region of northwest India. It sets out the themes in the Lahore School of Painting and how art was impacted by the decline and collapse of the Mughal rule. According to the influential Pakistani artist Abdul Rahman Chughtai (1894-1975), who is considered to be "the first significant modern Muslim artist from Pakistan" (Dadi, 2010), in his book Lahore Ka Dabistan-i-Musawari , the artists, from making the objects of nature and environment as the subject of their painting began instead to focus on the images of mythological/religious figures (Chughtai, 1979). Simultaneously, Partha Mitter's argument has been invoked that he presents in his first and influential book Much Maligned Monsters: History of Western Representations of Indian Art , in which he casts a critical gaze on the interpretation of Indian art by the Western art critics over an extended period, seeing those art forms as "monsters where artists had intended gods" (Mitter, 1977 : 1). Jurgan Wasim Frembgen also writes about artists' images of the Muslim Sufis performing miracles (Karamat) (Frembgen, 2008). Thus, the art forms, particularly the painting irrespective of faith or denomination, had an esoteric turn with break-up of the Mughal Empire.
There have been several studies of colonial Lahore in recent years. These have explored such them... more There have been several studies of colonial Lahore in recent years. These have explored such themes as the city’s modernity, its cosmopolitanism and the rise of communalism which culminated in the blood- letting of 1947. This work moves away from the prism of the Great Divide of 1947 to examine the cultural and social connections which linked colonial Lahore with North India and beyond. Imperial globalisation globalization intensified long established exchanges of goods, people and ideas, despite portrayals of Lahore as inward looking and a world unto itself. The current volume is thus reflective of the concerns arising from the global history of Empire and the new urban history of South Asia. These are addressed in a series of thematic chapters, rather than in a narrative account of the city’s development during colonial rule. A number of previously neglected areas of Lahore’s history emerge in this volume that are suggestive of new avenues for research. These include the links bet...
Faith-Based Violence and Deobandi Militancy in Pakistan, 2016
In “Genealogical Sociology of Sectarianism: A Case Study of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan”, Tahir Kamra... more In “Genealogical Sociology of Sectarianism: A Case Study of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan”, Tahir Kamran discusses the example of SSP to argue that the causes other than ideological divide are important in tracing the genealogical sociology of the militant organization. Different groups and stakeholders involved in the conflict deploy multiple strategies to further their interests. SSP represented more than just a violent struggle against the Shia sect. Historically it was also a legacy of Ahrar; socially it was a confrontation of urban nouveau riche in collaboration with the migrant community, who were politically dispossessed by the Shia landlords; and, in a much wider context, it served as a means to counter the Iranianization of Pakistan—the agenda set forth by General Zia ul Haq and the military establishment with the aid of Saudi Arabia. Hence at various levels the same organization acted with multiple guises, purposes and functionalities by serving the interests of various groups and states.
The World Humanities Report is a project of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (... more The World Humanities Report is a project of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI), in collaboration with the International Council for Philosophy
Uploads
Papers