Dr Omar was addressing a seminar on ‘The state of zoos in Pakistan: searching for humanity,’ organised here by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

Dr Omar said that unfortunately there is general denial of rights of the animals, where animals are treated as an object. He termed the zoos as prisons where animals are kept as innocent prisoners. He said that inefficiency of the management, poor governance structure and lack of accountability mechanism are largely responsible for the miserable state of zoos in the country. He stressed the need of educating the public about the rights of the animals and civil engagement to help protect the zoos and wildlife parks in the country through citizen liaison committees to report on malpractices and mismanagement.

Dr Imran Khalid from SDPI said that zoos could serve to educate us about the value of biodiversity amid extinction of species all over the world as a result of climatic changes. He said environmental degradation and extreme weather events in the form of heat waves and droughts are not only negatively affecting the humans but also other species including animals, which need to be protected.

He said that the state of zoos in Pakistan is questionable on many fronts including capacity gap, lack of skill, human resources, poor infrastructure and lack of security. He urged the authorities to take the responsibility of conserving the zoos and wildlife as per international biodiversity conventions.

Dr Ejaz Ahmed, biodiversity specialist said it is unfortunate that the state of the zoos in the country deteriorated over time, but zoos and wildlife parks have the important role to play in conservation of extinct species. He said the need is to educate the public and especially the visitors about the importance of the animal conservation and biodiversity for the ecosystem. However, the authorities need to take care of the animals’ food, health and provide a recreational environment as per international standards, he added.

Katie Sipra, scientific officer, Bio Science Department, Comsats University, stressed the need of conservation of animals in zoos through animal management, research, recreation and educational programmes.

Ms Sipra said that zoos should be taken care of by highly trained individuals who are passionate about their profession. Zoos and wildlife parks should be accredited and must meet the international standards, which include living environments, social groupings, nutrition, enrichments, veterinary programmes, involvement in conservation and research, education programmes, safety policies and procedures and physical facilities.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

Feminist groups were in the vanguard of the struggle for political and social rights during the heyday of the Gen Zia’s martial law regime, and women activists were the first to launch public protests against legislation that amounted to state-sponsored gender discrimination — placing the issue of women’s rights at the heart of the national democratic struggle.

Following amendments to criminal law regarding ‘honour’ killings in 2004, we have witnessed a decade of progressive legislation being moved in parliament. In recent years, the efforts of the Alliance against Sexual Harassment culminated into the enactment of the landmark Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2010.

There is still a long way to go to create enabling work environments.

Under the act, a federal ombudsperson secretariat was created in Islamabad in 2010 specifically for the resolution of cases of workplace harassment. Retired justice Yasmeen Abbasi, the current federal ombudsperson, has contributed significantly to the implementation of the law. The ombudsperson’s office is also working on amending the act to replace ‘women’ with ‘person’ in the act to make it more inclusive and extend its outreach to workers in the uncharted shores of the informal economy.

However, the right of suo motu action, which is granted to all other federal and provincial ombudspersons in the country, has been denied to the federal ombudsperson for workplace harassment. Without the legal authority to proactively seek out cases of sexual harassment, such as those that are brought to the public’s attention through the media, the ombudsperson’s office must wait for the aggrieved person to step forward and lodge a formal complaint before the law can take its course.

If a woman accuses a man of sexual harassment, her claim must be taken seriously. Sadly, the prevalent chauvinist attitude assumes that the woman must be guilty of provocation. Such allegations are routinely brushed aside in organisations dominated by men. Given this casual attitude towards harassment and the fact that women are almost universally discriminated against by men in Pakistan, some say that even if a woman wanted to make a false allegation the attempt could be ignored. The National Implementation Watch Committee, a part of the implementation framework, should proactively monitor cases of harassment to offset any chance of the law being misused.

What does it say of the efficacy of the federal ombudsperson for workplace harassment that even a member of parliament such as Aaisha Gulalai chose to make her allegations public and fight a media trial with PTI chairperson Imran Khan rather than file a formal complaint with the office? Parliamentarians must arm the ombudsperson’s office with the powers to actively initiate investigations into workplace harassment, and make use of the mechanism themselves to build trust in the institution.

Given the increasing number of women in higher education, business and employment, all public and private organisations must abide by the act in letter and spirit. Many women are also assuming active roles in politics and working across various tiers of political parties. It is high time that the National Assembly speaker and the Senate chairperson establish an internal code of conduct, and a complaint and appeal mechanism, to enable women parliamentarians to participate in a fair, equitable political environment.

Gender sensitivity trainings workshops should be conducted in all places of work and education in both the private and public sectors. Schools, colleges and universities — nurseries for developing a young nation — should be the focal points for gender sensitisation programmes.

Notwithstanding the gaps in the implementation of laws designed to create enabling public, work and home environments for women, the series of legislation and amendments in the Penal Code are commendable attempts to reform not just criminal justice but also society. These laws aim to change deep-seated gender inequalities, rooted in our social structure, which tend to restrict the economic and intellectual potential of Pakistani women to unremunerated household labour.

It is an obscure fact of our national history that nearly all our human rights bills have been tabled by women parliamentarians, aided by rights activists. Pakistani women have struggled very hard to achieve legal emancipation; however, there is still a long way to go to achieve emancipation from the clutches of a patriarchal, social and cultural order.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

As close royal aides, transgender persons were appointed as generals, governors, judges and teachers, according to their upbringing, education and experience. The less cultivated among them were employed in lower administrative ranks. In the slave market of mediaeval India, eunuchs were sold at a price three times higher than an average man.

Defined as a person who identifies with a gender other than the one assigned at birth, khawajasira has been adopted by human rights activists as a substitute for more customary (but derogatory) terms used to identify the transgender community. Today, not all khawajasira are eunuchs; the majority of them are male, biologically speaking, who adopt a ‘feminine’ persona, ie their manner and appearance is more commonly associated with the female gender.

The pejorative status of transgender people is a colonial relic we must discard.

Still, under Pakistan’s criminal laws, all transgender persons are legally considered eunuchs. Even the groundbreaking judgement on transgender rights by the Supreme Court in 2009 (and subsequent judgements in 2012) refers to khawajasira as eunuchs. Pakistani laws are based on a thick text of colonial legislations, which not only has primacy in current legislation, but also determine the social attitudes and public morality of contemporary society.

In contrast to their dignified status during the Mughal era, nowadays in our society to be transgender is widely regarded as a social pathology, its people inherently morally bankrupt and criminally suspect. The pejorative assignation of sexual deviancy stems from a 19th-century European view of politics, domesticity and gender, which was inherited and applied by the East India Company as it gained hegemonic control over the Indian political sphere.

Given the prominent role of the khawajasira in the Mughal administration, British colonialists perceived them as a threat to their territorial control that had to be eliminated. The British took steps to stop their community from growing, and prohibited the employment of otherwise highly competent khawajasira in the British Indian administration.

With the reins of power passed to the Crown, they began the task of social engineering British India. The lives of the transgender community were to be governed under the infamous Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. Under this colonial law, from the elite khawajasira to subaltern hijra, the community was considered equivalent to a tribe whose criminal intent was determined by their transgender-ness, and thus brought under the surveillance and control of the colonial state. By yoking the community under draconian laws as petty criminals, their movements were policed, their living quarters raided and their public performances banned on grounds of obscenity.

When the Mughal empire fell, the khawajasira too fell from grace, never able to regain what they had lost. From being trustworthy politicians, bureaucrats and generals of the Indian royalty and elite, they were reduced to being a laughing stock and counted among the poorest of the poor — treatment they continue to suffer from.

Although the revenge of the British colonialist seems total and the destruction of transgender groups complete, the khawajasira continue to resist the colonial and post-colonial control of their sexuality and survive to date as subalterns of Indian history, silenced and un­­heard by society. Today’s spectacle of the khawajasira begging on the street originates from the custom of toli, the collection of alms, as an everyday form of colonial resistance as well as an economic strategy to gain an alternate livelihood. More­over, the very act of begging turned them into ascetics whose blessings, it is believed, can allow a woman to conceive a male child.

After centuries of neglect and shame, the world of the transgender community in Pakistan is rapidly transforming. While the judiciary is to be credited for recognising non-binary gender, the role of the legislature in allowing transgender people their rights of equal citizenship, admitted by the courts, through relevant legislation must also be commended. In this regard, the role of the National Commission for Human Rights, the federal ombudsman’s office and transgender rights activists is laudable in drafting a bill tabled in parliament for the protection and advancement of our transgender community. It is a moment of reckoning for legal mores and public morality, which has held the potential and promise of this community in chains for far too long. A new era must begin.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

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The growing use of social media, smartphones and digital devices is transforming our children’s lives in unprecedented ways, giving them fantastic opportunities to navigate the world from the safety of their own homes. It is estimated that one in three children around the world — most of them outside the West ­— now uses the internet. Schoolwork, online gaming and social networking are popular online activities.

While most children in our cities navigate the internet for homework, schools teach little about the risks and responsibilities of being online, the pros and cons of the internet. Young minds are lured into the cyber world knowing little about viruses, online privacy, social networking etiquette, and other internet safety and security issues. The explosion in popularity of internet sites for social interaction, unrestricted access to age-inappropriate content online, and extended screen time are playing havoc with our children’s social, emotional and cognitive skills.

We watch out for children when they go out of the home, but we fear nothing when they go online. We will not leave our children with a stranger, yet most of us are content to let them surf the virtual world on their laptops or smartphones, considering this a benign pastime.

We are not training our youth to understand the complexity of online content, or to be able to differentiate between authentic information and misleading content, whether it comes from paid propaganda websites or individual user-generated content. They don’t know the difference between news and fake news. The exploitation of young people at the hands of sharks on the social media is a growing phenomenon, under-reported due to social taboos.

With the widespread use of smartphones and tablets, photography has become a general skill among the young. The worldwide fad among the youth of taking selfies has led to oceans of photographs. Most of these pictures land on social media sites such as Instagram or Facebook. The circulation of personal photographs of girls and women on social media outlets can be disastrous in Pakistan where societal norms are conservative. Yet, millions of family photographs are circulating on Facebook, with no privacy settings.

Nobody is watching over children browsing the web.

With advances in Photoshop, creating fake IDs is child’s play. The social consequences of a faked account can be devastating for someone’s life and career. Most of Pakistan’s urban young live in a social environment where there are very few opportunities for social and physical engagement beyond school or colleges, such as hobby clubs, art and cultural centres, or sports grounds. In the absence of face-to-face interaction, there is a tendency towards online relationships through social networking websites.

There is a contradiction between what young people see on the digital media and what they experience in their personal lives. The pleasure of experiencing Western culture through the digital media contrasts with the stark realities of lived experience in a Third World country that is plagued by corruption and social injustice. Feeling powerless in either changing or beating the system, young people in Pakistan suffer from anxiety and frustration, with some even taking refuge in narcotics. Outbursts of emotions through social media updates and blogging can land them in trouble with the law.

Sadly, public investment in the development of citizenship is minimal. More money is spent on upholding the law through coercion, than in trying to uphold it through civic education. While the chief of army staff warns the youth about the dangers lurking in the internet, the risk of college-going teenagers, such as Noreen Leghari, being radicalised by complete strangers through online interaction is on the rise.

Internet filtering is a method of controlling inappropriate content used by many countries; it needs to be gainfully employed further in eliminating hate speech from the internet. However, it should not be used as a back door for the government to have greater online control over the freedom of speech in the country.

A nationwide campaign anchored in schools is needed to make children aware of the potential risks of the internet. Digital literacy should be an essential part of the curriculum from the early years in school, so that children recognise and avoid the dangers on the internet. A stakeholder consultation comprising of parents, IT experts, government officials, and school officials is required to equip our young people with online literacy so that they can benefit from the brave new world that technology has opened up.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

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Little do we realise that there is a field of knowledge called social sciences, where students are trained to understand the changing dynamics of human societies by following long-established theories, frameworks and methods. The various fields of social sciences, if applied, have a lot to offer where contemporary challenges facing Pakistan are concerned.

The changing social and economic composition of cities, population explosion, rural-urban migrations, spread of the road network and civic infrastructure to remote areas, growth of small towns, development of new technologies of cellular communications, satellite and cable television and the rise of social media, are a few of the drivers of rapid social change and transformation in society, about which we have little scientific information.

Development is taken to mean economic development in Pakistan. The social sector research by NGOs is not only limited to select fields such as poverty alleviation, health, education etc, but also guided by donor-driven policies that are strategically framed by Western academics and think tanks. Pak­istani researchers are expected to fill in the details rather than pose independent research questions that might lead to different answers and unexpected policy outcomes.

What are the consequences of the shifts in the way people lived and interacted with each other? Do we know enough about our ‘traditional’ society, which is in a state of flux? Take one of the new forms of digital communication as an example. Do we know the impact on the social psychology, public communications and visual norms of modesty of the ever-increasing number of image-savvy Facebook users cutting across classes and regions? Did we realise how Mullah Fazlullah aka Mullah Radio was able to use the latest broadcast technology to muster support for his retrogressive ideologies while we hailed the spread of technology as an aide to modernisation and development?

Do we know enough about our ‘traditional’ society?

Even during the most turbulent decades of Pakistani history, when the very survival of the democratic state was at stake, social scien­tists — foreign or local — were never part of any negotiations and consultations. A case in point is the Swat armed insurgency of 2002.

The people of Swat were the subject of classic ethnographies, which explored the broader issues of history, culture, class, and religion of the Pakhtuns in general and the residents of Swat in particular. Frederick Barth was the first Western anthropologist who had laid the foundation of anthropological studies of Swat with his book Swat Pathans (1951).

When the people of Swat became embroiled in a bigger battle for control of this key geopolitical region, anthropologists who could have contributed to understand the conflicts were never consulted by the state or NGOs. No effort was made to see what was happening in society that led to massive social upheavals.

Likewise, beyond the security perspective, no analysis of the deepening crisis in Balo­chistan is offered for public debate, whereas social scientists who have a deeper understanding of the social structure and history of Balo­chistan can explain why the social order has collapsed and what can be done to mitigate it.

The hegemony of English-language scholarship in Pakistan has led to academic disconnect with centuries-old, rational intellectual tradition among Muslims in India written in classical and regional languages, such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, Punjabi, Seraiki and Balochi.

In Punjab, Bulleh Shah, the 18th-century humanist philosopher who was well-versed in Arabic and Persian but chose to write in Punjabi, offers a powerful critique of the hegemonic interest of clerics and the state. His social analysis though articulated in rhyme was grounded in profound observation and rational interpretations.

The entire history of social analysis and critique of Muslim society in India, pioneered by the rationalist critique of Syed Ahmad Khan, should have served as the primary reference for social scientists on the current ills of fundamentalism and sectarianism, if not the theological critique of Ghulam Ahmad Pervaiz, Jinnah’s counsellor on religion affairs.

Social sciences need to help people cope with the impact of rapid social change to make their research relevant and responsive to the community needs. A people-centred agenda of applied research has to take front stage in social sciences, where the challenges facing the country are not seen as only matters of internal security.

The social science research into particular issues, rather than judicial commissions, can lead to mapping based on scientific grounds. It will be a sad commentary on us — as participants of a conference in 2002 concluded — if a bureaucratic, authoritarian, insecure, modernising and dependent state like Pakistan can produce only technocratic, apolitical, tame, hyper-factual and empiricist social sciences.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

Understood as comprising norms, traditions, values and the social structure of society, culture forms the lens through which people see the world. These are significant aspects that influence individual and community worldviews, perceptions and behaviour. Worldviews affect the way people think and react to risks and opportunities offered by the process of development.

To decrease uncertainty — a result of rapid modernisation — people construct cultural ideas about what causes the change and the possibility of religious intervention that can inform them of what to do. The significance of these cultural ideas must be understood and incorporated into any attempt to deal with development rather than treated as illogical.

The idea that information and knowledge provided by the outside agency (NGOs or the state) will make people behave rationally is discredited. Communities interpret information through their own cultural lens. They may draw conclusions which are not the same as those of the outside agency.

Where culture acts as a barrier it is important to understand it.

As Terry Cannon put it in the context of environmental change, “If ‘traditional’ societies do it through magical-religious practices, modern societies do it through forecast. Even with these different epistemological approaches, shamans and meteorologists fulfil the function of interpreters to reduce climatic uncertainty”. It is only by investing in understanding the rationalities behind a variety of behaviour, some of which may appear to outsiders as irrational, that we can come up with culturally informed development strategies.

As a social construct, religion is a particularly important driver of perception and behaviour, in both constructive and negative ways. Although the social sciences have extensively studied religion and belief systems, this understanding is rarely consulted for guiding social development.

Governments disregard culturally embedded knowledge in the formulation of national policies and share the agnostic approach of donors and NGOs towards social change. They rely on technocratic solutions based on scientific rationality. Pakistan’s development strategies fail to understand the underlying intricacies of religious belief systems as they play out in the process of social change.

A case in point is the culture of resistance in the polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan carried under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The vaccination campaign has become a contested affair which draws on the varied and deep-seated beliefs and mistrust of foreigners, leading to tension between divergent viewpoints and value systems. Although the government has faced stiff opposition from religiously motivated militant factions, leading to the murder of more than 50 LHWs and their armed escorts, the cultural rationality of resistance to the anti-polio campaign has not been fully explored.

Authoritarian regimes perceive the opposition to vaccination as a challenge to the state’s writ. However, elsewhere in the world, especially in the US, exemptions have been granted to mandatory vaccination based on religious beliefs, while strictly warning the parents of the health risks and social consequences of unvaccinated children. In Pakistan, no active effort was made to negotiate with an alternate cultural rationality, even when a TTP spokesperson re­­portedly expressed consent for the polio vaccination, provided assurances that polio drops were made according to Islamic tenets and that the campaign would not be used for espionage were given.

Where cultural factors are acting as barriers, it becomes even more important to understand and transform them. Taking alternate cultural logic obliges us to explore how local norms, values, and belief systems can be deployed as an aid in the process of modernisation — in order to develop an approach that can be effectively used by traditional and religious communities. In Botswana, WHO makes a similar case for integrating positive aspects of ‘witchcraft’ in the national health system, given the therapeutic potentials of spiritual healing.

Studies on behavioral economics, psychology, sociology and anthropology have long debated the relevance of alternate cultural rationalities for dealing with development and modernisation but surprisingly this knowledge has had little impact on the development discourse. The first step in changing the way that the development sector deals with religion and beliefs is to understand that faith matters, and understanding its advantages and disadvantages should be integrated into development policies.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

The inscription on the stairs of the Purana Qila Mosque may read ‘Note: Do not put shoes on the stairs’, but the instruction obviously falls on deaf ears.

Similarly, the ignored ‘No Parking’ sign in this photograph shows a blatant disregard for the rules in the Narankari Bazaar area.

But both photos reveal a disturbing trend: public spaces are shrinking. Overcrowding and high population density are leading to situations where there is simply not enough space for everyone.

The tone of this message, painted on a wall in another part Narankari Bazaar, is more imploring than anything else. It reads: “Urinating here is prohibited. Please do not urinate here, otherwise people from the office will taunt you”.

The sight of someone urinating in public, however repulsive, is not an uncommon one in the Pakistani context. Especially in an urban setting, where one would expect there to be more facilities than are available in the more remote parts of the country, a lack of public lavatories and a greater lack of proper health and hygiene measures is quite noticeable.

Public spaces that see hundreds of thousands of people everyday are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the sanitary requirements of a burgeoning populous.

Rawalpindi is littered with private streets and alleys. This elaborate sign placed at entrance to one such thoroughfare outlines the hazards of venturing into this ‘hallowed ground’.

The sign reads: “1. This is a private street leading to a residence. Outsiders are not allowed inside. 2. Do not block the street entrance by parking your vehicles or you will be responsible for any damage incurred. 3. Meter readers may contact the school gate in case the street gate is closed.”

The finality in the tone of the authority that had this sign put up gives the reader an insight into their mindset. Annoyance with repeated violations of decorum and/or invasion of privacy in what people consider ‘their own backyard’ speaks volumes about how congested the city has become. God help the man who dares tresspass here.

Spotted in Bhabra Bazaar, this poster announcing a death in the community, carries an important message.

Ostensibly meant to ensure that no one is left in the dark regarding the tragic demise of a loved one, the poster reads: “Funeral Announcement: Friends are informed that Haji MD has died by the will of God and his funeral will take place…”

The notice continues to name loved ones and is doubtlessly meant to supplement announcements from the local mosque.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

Census has always been a controversial affair, even more so at the inception of British colonial rule in India when the contemporary censuses were first conducted in the 19th century. Grand efforts were made by the British to douse any suspicion caused by educating the colonial subjects about the usefulness of census for their education, health and employment.

The Pakistani government can forget the lessons learnt on census worldwide on its own peril. In many countries, despite the successful census taking, census results have quite often been received with suspicion and scepticism. As in Pakistan, this takes many forms. Some people believe that information stored in government files will be used against them, so they fear giving correct information to the census takers. Some genuinely fear that census data can artificially inflate the counts of some groups at the expense of other groups. The marginalised segment fear that census results will be used for fiscal purposes and may lead to increase in taxation. If the public is not aware of the lengthy process of compilation of the census, even the perceived delays in the release of census results can become one of the leading causes of the mistrust among the people.

A comprehensive communication strategy divided into pre- and post-census phasesis needed to address the concerns of the all the stakeholders of society. Such a strategy should have been timely developed,with a clear goal to improve the understanding of the census process, increase voluntary participation,and enhance the credibility of census results.

Learning from the international best practices can be the first step to devise a communication strategy to educate the citizens on the census. In Italy, to prepare the young generation for the census, a simulation of the census in schools was conducted,where students acted as enumerators,which explained to them what census is, how it works and what is its usefulness. Even the very image of the team of male dominated census- takers, clerks with police escorts and soldiers holding magisterial powers is threatening for the rural population and needs a drastic makeover.

The communication strategy should also focus on the last phase, when the census results will be released, in order to promote a consensus and the usage of census data by the public and institutions. A series of dissemination workshop for the parliamentarians should also be held,as they are major stakeholders in the national planning process and assist them to understand the content of the census results and how they can be utilised.

The census is a national data gathering exercise, which is the only informed basis of reliable statistics for the macroeconomic management of a country and for many it is the hallmark of what constitutes a nation. Failure to achieve a national consensus on the results of the census will pose a significant threat to the sovereignty of the country, which must be offset through a robust communication strategy.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk

Internationally recognised references of Rawalpindi’s irreplaceable natural heritage form a small fraction of what survived from the past and are preserved in Islamabad’s Natural History Museum.

Ghandharan civilisation left its marks on the landscape of the entire Potohar region in the form of stupas and monasteries. More than eight centuries of Ghakkar rule in Potohar, a group of tribes claiming a Persian descent and key allies of the Mughals, left a wide range of monumental architectural heritage.

The entire heritage is being decimated mercilessly by expanding the urban conglomerate of expensive housing societies in the suburbs of Rawalpindi, without a thought or care for setting up museums, if merely, as a token reminder of what we lost at the altar of our crass commercialism.

British colonial archaeologists picked up the traces of an ancient city called Gajnipur. Mughal chroniclesciteFathepurBaori, as the older name of the city. The city received its contemporary name Rawalpindi, when Jhanda Khandeveloped and expanded it in1493. With the decline of the Mughals, Sikhs Misls began to assert their political power in the region. Sultan Muqarrab Khan, the last Ghakkar ruler, was defeated bySardarMilkha Singh Thehpuria in 1765. To rebuild the city, Singh invited traders from neighboring commercial centers of Jhelum and Shahpur to make the city their home. The family of Sardar Sujjan Singh, cited in Chiefs of Punjab, was among the earliest Sikh settlers who made Rawalpindi their home. The city was taken over by Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1818 and it remained part of the Sikh Kingdom until their defeat at the hands of the British East India Company in 1849.

From ancient to modern times, Rawalpindi has gone through a vicissitude, largely due to its strategic location on the Grand Trunk Road.Rawalpindi’s locations owed the seeds of city’s development as well as its destruction.As a transit point, Rawalpindi played a major role in exchanging goods and services, receiving and transmitting religious and political ideas.

Given the vulnerability of the city to foreign aggression, the city was never chosen to be a fortified settlement. Its name is also associated with the blood trail of fabled diamond Kohinoor, a prized passion of Indian rulers over centuries. With the conquest of Delhi in 1739, Nadir Shah took Kohinoorand kept it in his imperial collection. Shah Shuja, the grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani and fifth King of Afghanistan, carried it in his personal possession, as he fled from Kabul after losing his kingdom in 1809. He took refuge in Rawalpindi, at the residence of his elder brother Shah Zaman, the third King of Afghanistan.In 1813, Shah Shuja was lured into Lahore, in the hope of winning back his Afghan throne and was forced to surrender the Kohinoorto Ranjit Singh.

Much of Potohar’s history is shrouded in mystery and what is popularly known through travelogues is steeped in controversy. Academic research on cultural history is at its infancy, with handful of archaeological base line surveys led by international academicians.

Historical literature is scarce. There are Mughal sources of medieval history but they offer a fleeting account of cultural history.

Kai-Goharnama, a tripartite series of text, is an indigenous source of political history. Composed in Persian prose and metric forms, it is one of the rare accounts of theGhakkarSultans.Modern historical writings, though helpful, are laden with colonial narratives that create skewed understanding of the multi-cultural past.

Sadly, the contemporary scholarship on Potohar in Urdu and English is growing largely oblivious to the emerging paradigms of history writing and without recourse to primary, written sources, or in-depth field work. The use of oral history methods is singularly lacking. There is an urgent need to shift the emphasis, from the grand narratives of Pakistani history, and attend to local, marginal and eclipsed hi(s)tories.

Nadeem Omar Tarar

The writer is an anthropologist, former Director of National College of Arts, Rawalpindi campus, currently working for the Center for Culture and Development (C2D), Islamabad & Vice President of the Council of Social Sciences.

c2d.org.pk