Towards Peoples’ Histories in Pakistan: (In)audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts
Edited by Asad Ali & Kamran Asdar Ali
Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 978-1-3502-6119-8
276pp.

In the Pakistani context, archiving history has been an immensely laborious and painful affair. After the country’s inception, historiography remained hooked to pre-Partition events, mostly eschewing historicity while shrinking space for multiple voices in archiving the past.

In the book Towards Peoples’ Histories in Pakistan: (In)audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts, Asad Ali and Kamran Asdar Ali et al term such historiography a homogenous empty time, a history devoid of the diverse voices, rhythms, rituals and memories that give time its cultural experience. Thus, their book, in its essence, is a point of departure, which questions Pakistan’s history so often written from a unitary nation’s perspective.

Comprising 14 essays divided into four parts, the book makes for a taste-arousing read, touching upon multiple historical facets while taking into account peoples’ experiences. Moreover, interestingly, the title is in the plural. It gives the book its exclusivity, since it charts a new historical path, recording and presenting the histories of the ‘peoples’ rather than a history of the ‘people’.

In essence, this academic work attempts to develop a different discourse about the ‘history of a nation’, venturing to include voices that have not been a part of historiography written through a national lens. Thus, in the first part of the book about ‘Recalling Progressive Histories’, the authors bring in inaudible voices from progressive and leftist politics in Pakistan that are crucial to understanding the left and the labour movements during the heady days of the country’s inception.

An anthology of academic essays seeks to shift the focus away from the history of an imagined and unitary Pakistan, to the diverse and sometimes conflicting histories of its peoples

In the first part of the book, Kamran Asdar Ali et al trace the arrival of leftist politics in the nascent country post-1947. Like in the case of the division of assets between the newly created states of India and Pakistan, the leadership of the Communist Party of India (CPI) also got divided into two parts. The leadership of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) initially came from India, as noted by Ali, and was ignorant of the cultural, social and economic landscape of the newly formed state.

But what made the Communist Party’s roots stronger was Karachi’s industrial lure, which attracted a big chunk of the labour force. And this perfectly fitted in with what Ali terms the “vision of anticipatory politics”, which promised a future free from exploitation.

From 1947 to 1955, Karachi hosted 774 industries, constituting 50 percent of all industrialisation projects in the country. CPP workers, such as Zaheer and Mohammad Sharaf Ali, continued to carry out their activities through the platforms of trade unions that were established during the expansion of industrialisation.

Additionally, the essays trace the limitations to the expansion of leftist politics in the country and the propaganda techniques the workers associated with the left employed to keep their socialist legacy alive.

On the limitations, the noose around the necks of the CPP workers tightened with the surfacing of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case in 1951. The subsequent crackdown on the party’s workers and their arrests not only allowed the state to use the ‘traitor card’ against them but also employed religious definitions to handle workers with an iron hand.

Central to the essay ‘South Asia’s Partitions and the Limiting of Progressive Possibilities in Pakistanis’ is Biyyothil Mohyuddin Kutty (B.M. Kutty), who landed in Pakistan post-Partition. Having genesis in the Indian state of Kerala, Kutty remained a prominent trade unionist. He had been a part of movements such as the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) during the 1980s.

The writers of the essay Anushay Malik and Hassan Javid attempt to shed light on the failure of leftist politics through the lens of Kutty’s life experience as a left-worker. Moreover, to build upon the context, Mahvish Ahmad et al masterfully introduce a collection of papers that were brought out at different times as mouthpieces of leftist politics.

The essays in the second part of the book, titled ‘Nationalism’s Many Violences’, recount the sufferings of the people on both sides when Bangladesh was carved out on the world map following a bloody civil war in erstwhile East Pakistan. Nayanika Mookherjee attempts to delve into the issue of the rapes during the civil war in 1971. Not only does she illuminate the plight of Projonmo Ekattor (Generation 71), an organisation of survivors — mostly belonging to a minority Hindu community — whose parents were killed during the civil war, Mookherjee tells us also about the rape of Bihari women by the Mukti Bahini fighters.

In subsequent essays, the writers give a detailed account of the Bihari community that has been standing at an identity crossroads in Bangladesh, neither recognised as Bengalis nor Pakistanis or refugees, and the struggle of women who chose Pakistan as a destination for their sustenance.

In the third part of the book, titled ‘Alternate Registers, Other Histories’, the authors dig deep into the annals of the past to bring out what has been eschewed or left out, deemed as insignificant, meagre or not worth recording.

For instance, in his essay ‘Un-archiving Baloch History’, Adeem Suhail writes about the experiences of Baloch women. Baloch history, as observed, does not make it to the historiography encompassing nationalist history. On the other hand, it enters the historiographical lanes as forces of resistance or bravery, putting males central to the overall narration.

Suhail tells us about Azra Bibi and Babli Baloch, belonging to Karachi’s densely Baloch-populated area Lyari. As a businesswoman who learned life’s lessons from her father’s management skills, Azra today claims to have been the brainchild behind the ‘Jhatpat Market’ in Lyari.

In contrast, Babli has earned her recognition as a young female political activist who managed and was tasked to induct activists into the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). When she was dismissed from a Lyari medical facility, Babli rose to play a key role in the development of the health infrastructure in Lyari.

To further build on the literature, Omar Kasmani, Amen Jaffer and Claire Pamment incorporate critical voices such as queer debates, colloquialisms and oral histories shared by people adhering to Sufi saints as well as the untold accounts of transgender people in Pakistan.

Finally, in the fourth and last part of the book, titled ‘Politics and ‘the People’’, the authors attempt to shape and bring meaning to the term ‘people’ used in broader political settings. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar focuses on leftist politics closely by bringing Zahoor Khan, Munir Comrade and Yamin Rana’s activism into play. Akhtar also questions the lack of inclusion of women in the left’s political hierarchy.

Moreover, the authors of part four, Akhtar, Humeira Iqtidar, Farida Shaheed and Asad Ali, bring to light various historical aspects, such as the women’s struggle during Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime and the efforts to streamline the ‘disordered’ social order by enacting ‘controversial’ laws about religion, which Akhtar calls an attempt to establish a ‘cultural hegemony’.

The book vividly builds a new literature in historicity which, in the context of Pakistan, remains an important academic contribution to the body of already existing literature. However, these peoples’ histories are missing the country’s sportsmen and their experiences.

The early post-Partition phase of Pakistan had a body of sportsmen representing various social and cultural aspects that may, if represented through the theoretical frame, be used to build upon the current literature, while also helping readers understand a vast arena of social, political and cultural history that has also been (in)audible.

The reviewer is a member of staff.

X: @Ayaz_Jurno

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 31st, 2023