Among Pakistani academia, if anybody epitomises multidisciplinarity, he is Dr Akbar Zaidi.

Known for his prowess as an expert in political economy, Zaidi’s point of view, as a serious commentator on the overall state of social sciences in Pakistan, carries considerable weight and credence. The extent of his publishing over the years makes him one of the most prolific social scientists in Pakistan. Equally important is his role as a public intellectual, exhibited through his newspaper articles and general writings.

He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, thus adding depth to his analysis of social and economic issues.

On March 4, 2014, Zaidi held an interactive seminar at the South Asia Institute of Columbia University in New York. Zaidi, who divides his time between the Columbia University and University of Karachi, much for the good of the latter, moderated the event.

Besides this scribe, the panel on Pakistan’s History consisted of eminent scholars like Vazira Zamindar from Brown University, Sana Haroon, from University of Massachusetts, Boston and Manan Ahmed Asif from Columbia University.

Vazira Zamindar was catapulted to stardom in the realm of South Asian scholarship through her book The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, which is considered a ‘must-read’ for both students and academics.

Along with Yasmin Khan’s The Great Partition: The making of India and Pakistan, and Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, Zamindar’s book is considered the most valuable intervention in the study of the Partition.

Sana Haroon authored Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland, a widely cited account of the war-torn north-western region of Pakistan.

Listening to Zamindar and Haroon was indeed enlightening. And Manan Ahmed, a medieval historian, was a revelation. He did his Bachelors at the Miami University, Ohio and received his PhD from the University of Chicago. He hails from Lahore and specialises in Islam’s advent in Sindh. His research ‘traces the long durée history of contestations among varied communities in South Asia’. Currently, he is busy unraveling the early 13th century account of Uch Sharif.

The presence of scholarly figures like Akeel Bilgrami, David Lelyveld, Katherine Ewing and Parbhat Patnaik substantially enhanced the discursive rigour of the deliberations. The turnout at the seminar was encouraging that, of course, underlined the fact that Pakistan and its history are of interest to many in America.

Nationalism provides an anchoring pedestal to any nation-state, and the Pakistani state is no exception. The embedding of nationalism in history is a universally accepted postulate and the same holds true for Pakistan, despite Faisal Devji’s contrarian argument that Pakistani nationalism has a futuristic trajectory and is devoid of any historical continuity.

While giving an overall account of Pakistani history, this writer asserted that immediately after Pakistan’s independence, the discipline of history was re-categorised to suit the prevailing quest for a distinct Pakistani identity as envisaged by the proponents of two-nation theory. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi took the lead and S.M. Ikram, K.K. Aziz and Abdul Hameed followed somewhat obsequiously.

K.K. Aziz, however, towards the end of his writing career, rescinded that trend and tried to contest the stereotypes that Pakistani historiography had come to be riddled with. His study, The murder of history, was a trendsetter which gave stimulus to many to interrogate the methodology and overall trajectory of Pakistan history. But the host of less well-known writers pushed their respective pens to strengthen Pakistani identity by demonising Hindus.

Among the textbook writers, Sahibzada Abdul Rasool, Abdullah Malik, Shaikh Rafique and, later on, Riazul Huda transmitted the same version of history to students. The whole official narrative, which is resonated in the textbooks, centres on the three postulates -- Islam, Urdu and Hindu as the Other.

Thus, to put it very simplistically our view of history is Hindu-centric which, as Manan Ahmed pointed out, was doggedly reinforced by literary figures like Nasim Hijazi. His novels, like Khak Aur Khoon, Muhammad bin Qasim or Akhri Maurqa, to name but a few, that remarkably exemplified what can be termed ‘rider on horse-back syndrome’, were publicised and widely circulated during the Ziaul Haq era.

Ahmed mentioned Zia writing a few words of endorsement on the back-jacket of one of Hijazi’s novels.

The most interesting opinion of Manan Ahmed was with respect to the figure of Muhammad bin Qasim and his representation in the history of Sindh. Until the late 1970s, Muhammad bin Qasim was regarded as Sindhi by the laity of Sindh. However, he was conspicuously absent from the textbooks of Pakistani history. Qasim made his way into Pakistani history on the behest of the Saudi government, a process that Manan called was ‘racialisation of history’.

Monetary support to various universities and various departments from the Saudis brought in ‘Arabisation’ of the Pakistani discourse on history. An Arab young general was, therefore, projected as the harbinger of Islam in the subcontinent.

While commenting on the absence of ‘peripheral’ voices, Sana Haroon lamented the erasure of Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s role. The same can be said about Abdul Samad Achekzai, Abdul Rahim Popalzai, G.M. Syed and also Abdul Hamid Bhashani. The inclusion of the history of borderlands, according to Haroon, is most necessary, particularly when the Pakistani state is facing the worst turmoil of its more than six-decades-long history.

During the Q&A session, an intriguing question about the inadequacy of the territoriality that Pakistan eventually came to be associated with in the fulfillment of its nationalistic aspirations, was raised. While faced with the geographical inadequacy, as the germination of Pakistani nationalism came to pass in the areas which were included in India in 1947, Islam remains the only source to define the national identity.

Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, Dar-ul-Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, all are in India and, if Mushirul Hassan is be believed, the belt from Mussorrie to Delhi is most renowned for the instruction of Hadith. Such facts may lead one to believe that institutionally India is still the centre of Islam. Influences from India have been triggering problems in Pakistan -- anti-Shia treatise of Manzur Naumani, a Deobandi scholar, and the thoughts of Abdul Shaook Lucknavi’s sectarian polemics are the cases in point.