On the record: Archival issues in Pakistan
by Ahmad Salim and Mohi ud Din Hashmi, Pakistan
This paper explores the neglect of archives in Pakistan. The factors responsible for archival neglect are taken into account and recommendations are made regarding the development of mechanisms and creation of awareness of the many-faceted aspects of archives preservation and management.
The archives in Pakistan suffer from neglect and hazardous circumstances. This paper highlights how in addition to environmental threats, police raids and state censorship have played havoc on private and public archives. The frequent change of government can also be held responsible for the destruction of existing archives.
Awareness regarding the importance of historical and cultural heritage also seems to be scarce. This paper records how an unenlightened attitude persists on the part of state and many owners of private archives and the public at large. There seems to be a lack of awareness regarding private archives and how they could facilitate researchers and scholars. The paper deals with issues in the establishment of private resource centers and makes recommendations to remove obstacles and negative tendencies in the preservation and promotion of private and public archives.
Orality as a source of history: a case of the Punjab
by Dr Tahir Kamran, Pakistan
Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are ‘unwritten’ sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. Particularly in those parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past, and even among peoples who have writing, many historical sources, including the most ancient ones, are based on oral traditions. The main categories of the oral tradition, according to E. Bernheim are: narratives, legends, anecdotes, proverbs, and historical lays.
All such categories of Orality were accorded great significance in the wake of the emergence of a new paradigmatic shift in the discourse of history. Traditional paradigm that resonated the historical method employed firstly by the Prussian historian Leopold Von Ranke with its emphasis on state archives and the written evidence, stood completely nullified with the advent of Annales historians represented by March Bloch and Lucian Febrve in 1930s. That shift in focus has afforded new vistas of perception and analysis of such societies where oral methods of preserving history had been prevalent for centuries. Punjab, definitely, is a case in point.
With the establishment of the Colonial state, the traditional governmentality was displaced and new categories of power were brought in vogue by the British. As Michel Focault argues, power and knowledge are the flip sides of each other and one complements the other. To make their rule more effective and wholesome, the British resorted to appropriation of the indigenous knowledge. Thus, serious efforts were deployed towards the preparation of district gazettes, ethnographical surveys and census reports etc. Hence, the local knowledge was re-inscribed and reinterpreted in the light of the standpoint of the colonial rulers. “History Of the Punjab” by S. M. Latif or “Tehqiqat i Chisti” by Nur Muhammad Chisti, the two noted works of the contemporary era testify the historiographical pattern suited to the interests of the Colonial masters. All the analysis or appraisals of the history of the Punjab carry indelible epistemological imprints of these books. Just to unhinge the deeply entrenched historical perception regarding Punjab, oral method ought to be put in use. Akhan, War, Qissa, Mahiyas and Dhollas are literary genres, however, they can be very useful tools to give a new orientation to the history of the Punjab which would be articulating something radically different from the established view.
In the paper that I intend to present at the annual conference of SDPI, the theme mentioned above would be elaborated with the help of the discourse of Orality to afford a new paradigmatic structure vis a vis the discursive fixation bequeathed to us by the Colonial age. By so doing, some alternative rubric of history of the Punjab can be brought up with the hope of generating interesting debate.
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