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December 28, 2003
Review: Why this indifference?
AKBAR ZAIDI’S name is well known as a social scientist. He has recently created something of a flutter among social scientists by his monograph The Dismal State of the Social Sciences in Pakistan (2002). This flutter threatens to become an awakening, if not a renaissance or a reformation, by the efforts of Dr Inayatullah who has created the Council of Social Sciences (COSS). One of the objectives of COSS is to understand why is it that the social sciences seem to be stagnant? To pursue that objective The State of Social Sciences in Pakistan (1989) has been reprinted. Akbar Zaidi’s own monograph mentioned above has also been printed by the Council and the book under review is part of this series.
The book comprises papers out of which only one has not been published before. The papers date from the 1980s but they are relevant even today because, while the world has changed at a very fast pace since then, social science in Pakistan has been more or less fixed in a groove. Another justification for this book is that it makes accessible all that has been published previously in the social sciences in the form of books. The next project of COSS, which is near completion, is the state of the social sciences at present.
The first paper is that of Inayatullah who wrote this paper initially for the 1989 survey of the social sciences. He argues that Pakistani researchers write articles full of raw data but lack adequate analysis. Our writing of history suffers from excessive and unsubstantiated glorification of most Islamic rulers whether they were fair human beings or not.
After this there are several papers on economics. S.M. Naseem, writing on ‘Economists and Pakistan’s Economic Development’, argues that non-economists dabble in economic matters because of the widespread interest of the public in economic issues. He then traces the history of economic development in the country during the early years of Pakistan’s history. Eventually, because of American dominance, Pakistan’s economic planning came to be dominated by the Harvard Advisory Group (HAG). Most decision-making, even in the field of economics, was and remains in the hands of a generalist bureaucracy.
A paper on the conditions of teaching and research in economics, is by S.M. Naseem but co-authored by S.K. Qureshi and Rehana Siddiqui. The paper argues that Pakistani universities and research institutions have been deteriorating because of lack of incentives, turf battles and lack of research resources. The private sector is attracting talented economists but its priorities are not conducive to research in economics.
The book has a paper, which continues and extends the theme of the first two papers and places the profession of economics in a historical perspective. Pakistani economists have worked in applied economics and have abandoned the academic profession to acquire powerful bureaucratic or advisory jobs. In contrast, their Indian counterparts have remained in the universities and ‘have engaged in theoretical and fundamental research, and not just in development economics’. The authors go on to suggest that ‘had the HAG vision been based on rooting the profession on sound academic lines in academic institutions in the country, perhaps Pakistan would have seen a wholesome development of the profession’.
Economics, the strongest of the social sciences in Pakistan, has received ample coverage. It is interesting to find a paper on ‘contemporary sociology in Pakistan’ by the well known sociologist, Hassan N. Gardezi. He argues about the Pakistani sociology developed under American influence. In recent years, however, sociologists have studied flexible research strategies to study issues like rural life, inequality, gender and ethnic issues.
In their paper on mass communications, Fazal Rahim Khan, Hashmat Ali Zafar and Abdus Sattar Abbasi trace out the history of the discipline called ‘journalism’ and now named ‘mass communications’. It makes the point that theoretically grounded empirical research is exceptional in the country. However, the issues demanding research are many.
K. K. Aziz is a familiar landmark in Pakistani historiography. Ever since his paper appeared in The Pakistani Historian (1993) it has been quoted and referred to by many who are critical of the way the historians function in Pakistan. Prof Aziz argues that the state has created rules which make it difficult for the historian to produce genuine research. Mediocrity and conformity are rewarded and originality is discouraged. This makes Pakistani historians pusillanimous and conformist in their orientation.
In her paper, Rubina Saigol looks at the way the state has created textbooks which tend to create and nurture negative bias against the religious ‘other’, be it Hindu, Christian or Jewish. The reason for this is that state ideologues feel that Pakistanis should be brainwashed into supporting militant policies by emphasizing the wickedness and evil designs of the ‘other’. The siege mentality created by this propaganda facilitates the huge expenditure on the continued militarization of the state.
The last paper is an abridged form of Akbar Zaidi’s monograph on the dismal state of the social sciences in Pakistan. Zaidi is of the view that conditions are not conducive for good social science research in the country because of which the best work in the subject comes from Pakistanis settled abroad. This is because questioning and dissent is not encouraged and the social sciences are under-funded. Where NGOs and the corporate sector fund research, they encourage only the developmental, practical aspects of it and not the theoretical aspects of the discipline.
While one agrees with the general conclusion that the state has prevented social science research from taking off by acts of omission and commission, one would like to correct K. K. Aziz’s polemical contention that social scientists have to take formal permission to publish and the proceeds of the sales of their books cannot be used by them in full. This may be true about the college K.K. Aziz worked for, but it is not true about the public funded universities.
The present reviewer has been working in public universities since 1985 and has never taken anybody’s permission to publish his research papers, books, reviews and even newspaper articles. Moreover, all the money generated by these publications has been used by the present reviewer without any institution claiming any of it. It is necessary to clarify this in the interest of truth and accuracy because many years later people will read K.K. Aziz’s article and feel that both universities and colleges had the same restrictive rules. The fact is that only colleges might have had them but the universities, or at least the ones where the present reviewer served, did not. Dr Inayatullah, head of the COSS, has done valuable service to the cause of the social sciences in Pakistan. We have to know first what is wrong with the social sciences before we can do something about them. This book helps us in understanding something of what is wrong. Let us wait for the rest of the answer to this question which the COSS has promised us.
Social Science in Pakistan in the 1990s
Edited by S. Akbar Zaidi
Council of Social Sciences Pakistan (COSS), 307 Dossal Arcade, Jinnah Avenue, Blue Area, Islamabad
Tel: 051-2274565 Fax: 051-2275803
Email: cossp@apollo.net.pk Website:
www.coss.sdnpk.org
ISBN: 969-8755-01-2
319pp. Rs150
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