PhD scholar defends research thesis on Pashtun society

PESHAWAR: A research study by a faculty member of the University of Peshawar for her doctorate degree has discovered that apart from physical and resources-related explanations of the causes of underdevelopment in Pashtun society, the self-aggrandised and vainglorious attitudes of the community has prevented their development.

The research has been conducted by Dr Naila Raza Qazi, a faculty member of the Department of Sociology, University of Peshawar. She successfully defended her thesis at the public defence here.

The researcher found that Pashtuns could not make development in all aspects of life because of the widespread presence of what she called self-aggrandisement (talking big of oneself, one’s tribe and one’s ethnic group).

Such vainglorious attitudes have resulted in the formation of very narrow worldviews of most members of the Pashtun society, due to which they could not keep abreast of the development in the world and adopt the same in their own society.

Talking to The News, Dr Naila, said such narrow worldviews among Pakhtuns prevented most of them to consider everything foreign as evil despite the fact that such social transformations like industrialization, modernization, access to liberal education, mass communication and resultant high-level of political participation and the consequential democratisation as instrumental in the progress of all developed societies.

Dr Naila said she adopted ethnographic research design within a qualitative approach for the study. The study was carried out in districts Swabi and Charsadda of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For the purpose 92 selected respondents from the two districts were interviewed in depth along with four Focused Group Discussions in each district to look for the major trends and themes regarding self-aggrandizement and development among Pakhtuns.

She said the research study found that the prevalence of excessive self-aggrandizement among Pakhtuns of Pakistan has colossal repercussions for the society and these consequences have been impacting the individuals and collective life in particular the development.

She said that development among Pashtuns in recent years has become a very important subject for research especially after the Global War on Terror main theatre was their land in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

She said that only after that the world realized that the widespread underdevelopment of Pashtuns has been hugely devastating for the latter, their society and even have an impact on the entire region. However, Dr. Naila said that scholars have never tried to understand that it is not only the foreign influence, control, manipulation but the internal social dynamics like tribalism have been the main cause(s) of underdevelopment among the Pashtuns.

She argued that the most sordid social fact of the Pakhtun society during the study was found that majority members had been desirous of preserving the traditional, pre-modern, archaic attitudes and behaviours instead of transforming them to achieve higher standards of living.

The research study has come up with a new aspect of Pashtun society as generally most Pashtuns consider that their underdevelopment has had external causes instead of internal causes. Thus in her recommendation, she said that more such research studies must be carried out in this respect so that the dream of development among the Pashtuns could be achieved by gradual transformation of society.