PAKISTAN Studies as a domain of study outside Pakistan has largely existed on the margins of South Asian Studies, Oriental Studies, and Area Studies. The evolution of — and tensions between — these academic approaches have shaped how Pakistan Studies is perceived and packaged abroad.

The term ‘Oriental’ to describe the ‘Eastern’ world has long been the subject of controversy in academia and beyond. Drawing on Edward Said’s seminal 1978 work Orientalism, the East has often been portrayed as exotic, inferior, static or unchanging, and in need of Western guidance or control to foster ‘progress’. Orientalism is not just a field of academic study but also a ‘style of thought’ and a political instrument used to justify Western notions of superiority and practices of dominance.

The colonial legacy of Oriental Studies is evident in the establishment of the Professorship of Sanskrit at Oxford University in 1832, funded by Col Joseph Boden of the East India Company. Until 2022, Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies retained its name, only recently being renamed the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Cambridge University had taken that step earlier, in 2007.

Indian academia has successfully challenged Western hegemony in South Asian Studies by developing its own theoretical approaches and knowledge base (for example, subaltern studies), with stronger disciplinary foundations. This helps explain why India has often overshadowed Pakistan within the broader field of South Asian Studies. Institutions like JNU have played a central role in establishing India’s academic presence, whereas Pakistan still lacks robust PhD programmes in humanities and social sciences.

Pakistan Studies remains constrained as a field by the broader discipline of South Asian Studies.

Since the term ‘Pakistan Studies’ did not exist before 1947, the regions that now constitute Pakistan were primarily studied by colonial administrators. Some of these ICS officers went on to produce substantial scholarly work — such as Sir Malcolm Darling, on rural development in Punjab; Hugh Lambrick, on the history of Sindh (also known for his archaeological work at Mohenjodaro and Harappa); Sir George Grierson, whose monumental Linguistic Survey of India spans 19 volumes documenting the languages and dialects of British India; and, one of the most intriguing ICS officers, Sir Penderel Moon, on the history of British India and its transition to independence.

The memoirs and diaries of ICS officers offer insight into orientalist approaches to colonial governance, beginning with their training at Oxford and Cambridge. The correspondence between idealistic young assistant commissioners and higher officials, found in these diaries, provides an internal critique of the colonial administrative mindset. Although colonial documentation was originally produced to serve imperial interests, archives at the British Library, the National Archives in London and SOAS University of London have since become valuable resources for scholars challenging the hegemony of colonial narratives.

Pakistan Studies must be examined within this historical and intellectual backdrop of postcolonial studies.

In 2011, SOAS started an MA programme in the Study of Contemporary Pakistan and established the Centre for the Study of Pakistan. However, the MA programme fizzled out after a few years, being considered too niche for a full Master’s degree. The centre eventually morphed into the SOAS South Asia Institute. A similar effort at Oxford University never materialised. Nevertheless, Master’s programmes in South Asian Studies have continued to garner interest, including from Pakistani students, at SOAS, Oxford and other universities. The American Institute of Pakistan Studies has been fostering scholarly exchange between the US and Pakistan since 1973. Among its donors are the US Department of State and the US Department of Education — both facing significant potential cuts under President Donald Trump.

Pakistan Studies remains constrained as a field by the broader discipline of South Asian Studies, which has firmer disciplinary grounding in history, comparative literature, anthropology, and other social sciences. As Umair Javed, a sociologist at Lums, put it, “it makes little sense for people to do Pakistan Studies since there is no separate theoretical approach or knowledge base that is distinct from South Asian Studies”.

I previously wrote in these pages that, over the past six years, around 70 academic social science books have been published — or directly bearing — on Pakistan, excluding edited volumes. A new generation of academics has emerged, as evidenced by the fact that more than half of these books stemmed from PhD theses, nearly all having undergone doctoral training abroad. This emerging scholarly cohort may define the future contours of Pakistan Studies by developing a theoretical approach and knowledge base specific to Pakistan.

For example, works like Hamza Alavi’s 1972 paper The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh articulated the concept of the “overdeveloped state”, offering a foundation to develop a framework both in support of and against his thesis. His earlier work, particularly the 1965 paper on the role of the “middle peasantry” and its alliance with the “urban working class” in bringing about revolution, was also widely debated among theorists around the world.

The younger generation of social science academics faces an uphill task. Some may consider adopting an interdisciplinary perspective on Pakistan Studies — such as examining middle-class values as defined by anthropologists, economists, historians and political scientists.

Academic books published in recent years already reflect a shift away from a state-centred narrative or an exclusive focus on religious extremism.

The class composition of young Pakistani social science academics, however, may pose a challenge to the growth of Pakistan Studies in a country where educational pathways are deeply divided along class lines. Without the development of robust taught postgraduate and doctoral programmes in the social sciences and humanities at Pakistani universities — allowing research-based collaboration with the full breadth of Pakistani society — this vision may remain a distant goal.

Academics must emerge from a broader societal base — much like in India — to offer more inclusive perspectives that can contribute meaningfully to the development of disciplines focused on Pakistan Studies. Without this, we may continue to see ourselves only as others view us.

The writer teaches economics at SOAS, University of London, and is associated with Bloomsbury Pakistan.

nadir.cheema@economics.oxon.org

X: @NadirCheema

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2025