LAHORE, Jan 26: Eminent historian Dr Mubarak Ali says in order to solve Pakistan’s current political crisis, the people should be made “historically conscious” so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

He was speaking at a seminar titled ‘An analytical survey of Pakistan’s history’, which was organised by the Students Action Committee (SAC) at 5-Zaman Park (next to detained Aitzaz Ahsan’s residence) here on Saturday.

Dr Mubarak said the interpretation of history as forwarded by the government elevated an Islamic viewpoint to detriment of all other groups, neglected the contribution of non-Muslims in the independence movement and provided the environment in which extremist ideologies could prevail.

Talking to Dawn, Dr Mubarak said: “As far as history is concerned, there are no hard and fast rules. Every region and every society has a different structure: social, cultural, political, and so for this region we have to find out our own model.”

“The only thing we can extract from history is what we call a ‘historical consciousness’. We know that always there is change, and society never remains static. And then another important thing is there’s always a conflict between progressive and traditional values.”

Dr Mubarak’s talk centred around how historical interpretation had been used by those wielding power for their agendas.

He said during the colonial era, the British imperialists sought to discretise Indian history into the Hindu period and the Muslim period in order to promote themselves as the ‘unifiers’, who brought harmony and civilisation.

In fact, Dr Mubarak said, this characterisation was misleading because the label ‘Hindu period’ discounted the contributions of the Buddhists, whereas in the so-called ‘Muslim’ span, many Hindu kingdoms continued thriving and co-existing with the Muslims.

He said such an interpretation of history was very dangerous because it sowed the seeds of communalism that came about later.

With the advent of the communalism, the Hindu community cleansed important Muslim figures from their history, as did Muslim historians, who neglected mentioning the importance of Gandhi and Nehru in the struggle for independence.

Thus, when Pakistan won its independence it was falsely painted as independence from Hindu hegemony. “Our legitimacy lay in saying we gained our freedom from the Hindus, rather than the British, and thus the two-nation theory was born,” he said.

The pre-eminence of the post-colonial Muslim identity led to the division of the world into two spheres, Darul Islam, the one being ruled by Muslims, and Darul Harab, the other being ruled by non-Muslims, which provided the ideological foundation for going to war with India, he said.

According to Dr Mubarak, national identity must come first for the sake of a nation’s stability and the process of Islamisation also comes about from a struggle to find an identity.

He said the study of history in today’s Pakistan lacked quality and credibility. “Today, if you go to a bookstore in Pakistan, you will find nothing on ancient India or the medieval period, and many elite families engage in self-promotion by commissioning books eulogising their own family histories.”

He gave the example of the Bhutto family, whom he claimed had originally commissioned a biography of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by American scholar Stanley Wolpert, but later distanced themselves from it owing to its at times unflattering portrayal of the leader.

He later added that history being taught in schools and universities lacked analysis and instead it placed too much emphasis on memorising events and dates by heart.—Issam Ahmed