n its new undergraduate policy, the Higher Education Commission dropped Pakistan studies for its list of mandatory courses. The move caused great consternation and concern in the academic community in general and the academia associated with this discipline in particular.

The Senate of Pakistan took notice and the matter was discussed at length in the house. The logic behind HEC decision was questioned. The HEC, then, called a meeting in Karachi, consulted academia from across Pakistan and prepared a new outline issued in March 2024. It promised a notification for its mandatory status. This was issued on September 19.

The subject of Pakistan studies was started in early 1970s in University of Islamabad (now Quaid-i-Azam University). It was modelled after the area studies programmes in United States and some other countries, in a multi-disciplinary framework involving disciplines such as history, geography, sociology, political science, religions and languages and literature.

“It was conceived as wholesome framework for the study of Pakistan, as an area,” says historian Sikandar Hayat in his book, Pakistan Studies: A Book of Readings (2023). The subject got recognition as a compulsory course for undergraduate programmes in 1978 and retained this status, with only a brief recent disruption.

The discipline needs to be learnt, taught and researched with renewed vigour and vitality, making it a truly meaningful field of study. Many countries have tailored master narratives and we too have the right to do so. However, the narrative needs to be nuanced and reasonable. For this, it need to be shorn of its ideological baggage. From being areas studies it had transformed into an ideology. The HEC, ironically, replaced it with a course titled Ideology and Constitution of Pakistan.

An essential part of Pakistan studies is the history of the country. History, by nature, is a wholesome study including, but not limited to, social, economic, political and cultural aspects. However, in many books it was reduced to ideology and teleology.

Jaffar Ahmad, the eminent social scientist, argues that “…the ideology of Pakistan is generally accepted as Islam, but the fact of the matter is that religion and ideology are two distinct identities. Religion is trans-territorial while ideology is a political construct, confined to territory of a nation state, where people may have diverse cultures, languages, religions or belief systems.”

Another problem is that the national narrative forgets or erases the Indus valley civilisation and its incarnations such as Taxila, Hakra-Gagger and Kot Diji from the curriculum. This raises questions about the context of the state and its heritage. Tahir Kamran, academic and public intellectual, writes in his recent book Chequered Past, Uncertain Future: A History of Pakistan (2024) that “a history of Pakistan should therefore focus on the geographical regions that make up the country rather than linking it up with the Arabian Peninsula.”

Yet another perplexing issue in Pakistan studies is the cultural conundrum. Religion is a necessary part of culture but culture is not all about religion. It is far more than that. Culture is made out of people’s interaction with their geography, environment and history or heritage. Food choices are constrained by what a land produces. Dress codes are determined by environmental constraints and possibilities. Language, literature and religion are inherited through historical processes or heritage. Many Pakistanis are in a state of denial about our geography, environment and history.

Women and minorities have remained largely marginalised in the Pakistani society and state. Women from the minority communities are doubly marginalised. Jinnah stated in 1944 that “no nation can rise to the heights of glory unless your women are side by side with you.” Pakistan studies should not only include but bring to centrality, for teaching and research, these two segments of our society in line with the importance attached to it by father of the nation. Recent years have witnessed a spiralling of incendiary and violent incidents of vandalism against minorities. This trend should be stopped. The Pakistan studies academia should play a leading role in this effort.

For many decades, Pakistan has remained isolated. Foreign policy initiatives and tourism, cultural as well as religious, can play an important role in integrating Pakistan in a globalised world. Pakistan studies can play a vital role in this regard too. Besides teaching in the country, Pakistan Studies Centers should be established in other countries.

The restoration of Pakistan studies course should be taken as an opportunity to make it a relevant, rich, rewarding and resourceful field of study. This, certainly, is a formidable challenge for academic community associated with this discipline.

Dr Muhammad Abrar Zahoor heads the History Department at University of Sargodha. He has worked as a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He can be reached at abrar.zahoor@hotmail.com His X handle: @AbrarZahoor1