KARACHI: From the time man started to live in groups to Foucault’s take on the modern state, students interested in history and international relations got to hear a variety of views on the correlation between history and state at a conference organised by the International Relations Department, University of Karachi, SZABIST and Tareekh Publishers in the university’s art auditorium on Tuesday morning.

Eminent historian Dr Mubarak Ali, who joined the moot from Lahore via Skype, described the concept of state from the hunting-and-gathering time period in history. He said there were three stages of man’s collective growth: it first got together in the form of groups, then as clans followed by having a chieftain which meant they needed someone who could organise and lead them. It led to the idea of civic states.

Dr Ali then shifted his attention to the institution of monarchy and state. He said the king used to have all the power, including the power to declare himself a deity so that no one rebelled against him. This bred the rich class who could look after the king’s interests — collecting taxes, looking after administrative matters, etc. The notion of state changed in the 18th century in Britain and the need for having a judiciary, bureaucracy and administrators was felt. It was also decided that state and church would be separated. State underwent another change with the French Revolution when, as per Rousseau’s assertion, now power rested with the masses. People’s loyalties were with their state and everything was seen with a nationalistic perspective — national flag, national anthem, etc.

Dr Ali said later on other states emerged, such as the ones based on racism. In that regard he mentioned South Africa, where the native black population was discriminated against. Another example was of the Nazi party under Hitler in Germany that tried to destroy Jews.

With reference to the religious state, Dr Ali cited Israel, Pakistan and Iran as examples. He then spoke on the experience of the colonial state for which London had been the capital for a long time and argued that a colonial state could not succeed without the support of the natives. The British could not have won the 1857 war of independence if the locals hadn’t cooperated with them. Colonial states always left behind conflicts as a result of which we saw the division of Palestine and our own experience of being an ideological state, he said.

Dr Jaffer Ahmed’s topic was ‘Understanding the state in Pakistan’. He said there were two available narratives: ‘What a state should be?’ and ‘What is it?’ In that context he gave a few theories and started from Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s liberal, democratic and secular view after which came the points of view of ulemas such as Maulana Maudoodi (Islamic state) and Maulana Israr Ahmed in 1996 (Pakistan and Afghanistan as one Islamic state) and some Sunni ulemas who opined that since Sunnis were in majority in the country, it should be made into a Hanafi state.

Dr Ahmed said though not much of theorisation had been done on the subject, there were some scholars who had come up with noteworthy thoughts. He mentioned Mustafa Kamal Pasha’s study of Pakistan in the light of ideology and drew a parallel to Gramsci’s thoughts — state had hegemonic powers and it established its legitimacy through hegemony because of which citizens were fed with an ideology to buy their loyalties. This is what we did with East Pakistanis when we told them that we were Muslims and it didn’t matter if we were Bengalis, Punjabis or Sindhis, he said.

Dr Ahmed also touched upon the works of scholars Raza Naqvi, Khalid bin Saeed, Ilhan Niaz, Dr Feroz Ahmed and Ayesha Jalal. Ms Jalal believed, he said, when Pakistan came into being the situation was fluid as there were no defined boundaries; so the bureaucracy needed a strong army to dominate the state. India was reckoned as the enemy as a result of which Pakistan was made a security state.

Dr Ahmed said Hamza Alvi saw things in the social context. He argued that the French Revolution did hurt feudalism but did not eliminate it completely, consequently the region experienced Bonapartism. In Pakistan three classes made by the British existed: indigenous bourgeoisie, metropolitan bourgeoisie and the feudal. The bureaucracy mediated between the three of them to hold on to power. Dr Ahmed said he found himself closer to Alvi’s point of view, although today things were a little different, for example, in a city of 18,000,000 there were 20,000,000 weapons.

Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed traced the role of the media and how the media historically functioned in countries such as the United States, Britain, China, India and Pakistan. Pakistan, he said, adopted the East India Company’s policy after independence which continued till 1988. Things took a new turn with the attack on journalist Hamid Mir and now the role of secret agencies, MNCs and mafia groups became more evident in controlling the media.

Dr Mutahir Ahmed said Europe had an inclusive approach to progress which was why it moved forward and rejected anything that came in the way of advancement.

Dr Riaz Sheikh talked about the concept of welfare state and said while ‘welfare’ was as old an idea as mankind, state was not. So we needed to look at how those two came together over a period of time.

Irfan Ahmed shed light on Foucault’s concept of ‘gorvernmentality’. He said the French philosopher did not see philosophy solving any problems. Foucault thought the question ‘What is a modern state?’ was abstract. He’d rather ask the question ‘How does the modern state operate?’ in terms of the complexity of power relations. He didn’t take power just as a top-down function but thought that it existed everywhere. Knowledge and power could not be separated. Visible power could be resisted but knowledge-based power was invisible. Therefore ‘governmentality’ was power imposed through knowledge. Resistance was required to gain freedom for which critique of ideology was important, he said.

Earlier, Prof Dr Moonis Ahmar, dean of the faculty of arts, said we hadn’t learnt any lessons from history despite the fact that Pakistan was the only post-colonial state that had disintegrated.

Karachi University vice-chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Qaiser said nations that didn’t pay heed to history lost their existence.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2014