June 9, 2002 ARTICLE: Colonization of knowledge By Mubarak Ali Dr Murbarak Ali is a historian who is the author of several books on the history of South Asia If any society loses its knowledge system and depends on others for guidance, inspiration and understanding of its socio- economic and political problems, it is worse than being subjected to political or economic control by a foreign power. In the case of political colonization, the society that is subjugated retains its identity and power of resistance to fight and struggle against economic exploitation and political subordination. But in the case of intellectual domination, it loses not only its dignity, honour and self-respect, but it also has to endure humiliation and insult. As a result of it, the people are robbed of their creativity and innovation. The Pakistani society is a case in point. After independence, we have experienced political subjugation and economic exploitation by our own ruling classes and have also faced intellectual decline. Our educational and academic institutions have failed to produce any new research in any field of knowledge. The result is that we depend entirely on the works of others and seek their help whenever we are faced with a crisis and need help in crime investigation or tracing the causes of accidents. We depend on foreign experts to draw up our economic plans, to recommend education reforms, and to control the law and order situation. In some cases they also tell us how to govern ourselves and how to administer our financial system. Leaving aside other areas of dependency, I have only two disciplines in my mind: history and archaeology which have suffered heavily as a result of intellectual dependence. Here I would like to discuss the consequences of the deterioration in their standards and its impact on society. Is it not an irony that just after Independence when the question of writing the biography of Muhammad Ali Jinnah arose, we failed to find a historian amidst us and asked a British historian, Hector Bolitho, to pen down the biography of the father of the nation? We did not realize that a person with no genuine interest in the leader of the nation who undertook the project only for pecuniary reasons could not write a biography. The work was done hurriedly. He wrote an eulogical biography to please those who invited him and left after getting his payment. It remains a sub-standard book and enjoys no standing in the academic world. The government of Pakistan set up the Quaid-I-Azam Academy with the purpose of producing research on his life and works. One of its directors published a biography of Jinnah during the Ziaul Haq period and interpreting Jinnah’s speech of August 11, 1947 wrote that the speech was delivered when the Quaid was a sick man. Moreover, not being well versed in Islamic mores and traditions, he could not speak otherwise. He was reprimanded for this interpretation and was asked to withdraw these sentences that he duly did. He also published Fatima Jinnah’s book on Jinnah titled My brother and admitted that he had deleted some sentences from it, which were, perhaps, not to the liking of the rulers in office then. One can imagine the standard of such research. How could it be accepted as serious scholarly work? The result was that an America historian, Stanley Wolpert, wrote a biography from his own perspective. It has a number of historical and factual mistakes but it became very popular in Pakistan. Now, he is regarded as an expert on Jinnah. We invite him to speak about our Great leader. Once Gail Minault, an America historian, had visited Lahore. She was invited to speak on Rashidul Khairi, a famous Urdu writer. There were young girls and boys who very enthusiastically attended the lecture and took notes. It saddened me to see that we are incapable of producing a scholar on our own history and culture who could tell us about our writers, academics, leaders and cultural traditions. The tragedy is that our researchers and scholars have no depth and insight and produce substandard, superficial work. Mostly our scholars have no knowledge of research methodology, new trends, material, theories and interpretations. Even recent publications are not accessible to them as our libraries have no funds to buy books. Our archives departments are bureaucratized to the extent that it is impossible for a scholar to obtain a single document from there. A few years ago I visited the documentation centre when it was located in Lahore and requested a document published in 1935. I was asked to write an application first and wait for two or three days for the reply. The answer was quite simple: the document was classified and could not be issued. That was the end of my research. Our academic decline has reached the stage where it is now well nigh impossible to obtain any information on ancient Indian history because it requires knowledge of ancient languages and we simply do not have the facility to learn them. The mediaeval period that we call “Muslim rule” is also neglected because there is need to learn Persian to read and consult original sources. We produced a couple of books in the early years only. That is all. We have no experts who specialize in our recent history. The result is that foreign universities and research institutes take interest in our history and culture and dominate our knowledge system. They have resources, interest, and motives. They know more about our history, culture, and society than our scholars do. Now, we see our image in their mirror, as we do not have a mirror of our own. The same is the case with archeology. Last year I went to Turbat. There friends took me to a site where some French archaeologists were excavating a mound. They told me that they were interested in investigating the trade and commercial links between the Gulf, Iran and the Mesopotamian civilization. I asked them if there were any Pakistani archeologists working with them. The answer was in the negative. The same was the case of the Mehargarh archaeological site. The French excavated it, documented it and left it to decay. The discovery of Mehargarh remains unknown to the majority of Pakistanis. It is not mentioned in our textbooks. (Interestingly the nuclear explosion was immediately incorporated as a chapter in the textbooks in Balochistan). It has been reported that illegal excavations are taking place in the Frontier and Punjab by people to get hold of gold and silver coins and ancient artifacts which they sell to foreigners at throwaway prices. We all know that our historical monuments are decaying. There are cases of encroachment and land grabbing. In the process of which historical evidence is fast disappearing and with it is vanishing our sense of history. This raises two questions Why is there such apathy on our side? And what will be the result of this apathy? The reason of our apathy and lack of interest is that we imprison our knowledge system within the framework of an ideology. Our historians are supposed to write history in order to justify that ideology, which results in the distortion of events. That is why history has suffered immensely. For dissident historians there is no place. Neither are they liked by the state nor society. Finding no space, their views remain confined to a small circle and have no impact on society. Archaeologist are expected to excavate only those sites which show the glory of the Muslim rule as in the case of Bhambore, and Mansurah. The state has no interest in ancient monuments relating to the pre-Islamic period. UNESCO could take care of them. Once we have lost our own knowledge system and depend on others, a shallowness develops and ignorance overpowers us which saps our energy and creativity. This is evident in our failure to produce or add to our literature, social sciences, natural sciences, and fine arts. Such a nation is destined to live as a pariah. It cannot claim a dignified existence.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 08:45:31 +0000
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