KARACHI, Nov 1: Historians of the subcontinent wrote history with major focus on glamorising personalities of rulers and toed with their personal wishes and whims, ignoring the real problems and issues of the masses.

This trend needed to be changed now and contemporary historians should focus on people instead of rulers while writing history, said speakers at a national conference on Wednesday.

The conference on ‘Historiography in the subcontinent: trend and issues’ was organised by the Pakistan Study Centre of Karachi University at Shaikh Zayed Centre.

Renowned historian Dr Mubarrak Ali said that history writing in Pakistan was a complicated issue. He said that the role of legends, two-nation theory and religious sentiments had remained the guiding factors for writing history in Pakistan. He was of the opinion that modern and scientific trends in history writing should be introduced in Pakistan.

Dr Mubarrak Ali said that Pakistani historians should change their framework, as the new generation was seeing the historical aspects of the partition of India from a new angle. He said, “We should see our past with a new modern perspective.” He said that the modern history of Pakistan started from 1947 and in these 60 years Pakistani society had undergone many changes. He said that historians should study and discuss causes of these social changes and unearth historical catalysts of these changes.

He said that it was the dire need to study our historical issues by isolating it from politics in the light of social, economic and cultural perspectives.

He was of the opinion that today the Pakistani society was witnessing a clash between old and modern values. He said that feudalism, tribal values, extremism and dictatorship were pitched against broadmindedness, liberalism and democracy.

He expressed his concern that the voice of liberal and democratic forces in Pakistani was feeble as compared to feudal and tribal lord, extremists and dictators. He asked scholars and academicians to explore the causes behind weakness of liberal and democratic forces in Pakistan.

Dr Mubarrak said that historians should ascertain whether our society really preferred conservatism to liberalism and was not ready to break the present shackles.

Karachi University Vice-Chancellor Dr Pirzada Qasim, who presided over the moot, said that the history was the other name of preservation of collective remembrance of any nation or society.

He said that if these valuable historical facts were not preserved properly it would harm the identity of the particular nation or society. He said that it was duty of not only historians but also of rulers to play their due role for writing of a correct, honest and unbiased history leaving aside their own vested interests.

Dr Pirzada said, “We are living with two histories, the history of Muslims and the history of the subcontinent.” He stressed on streamlining and merging the two histories in a realistic manner.

He said that a historian should suppress his personal feelings and subjectivity while writing history and instead focus on objective facts.

Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed said, “We have given a cold response to our history during the last 50 years. The defeat in the Battle of Palashi pushed Muslims of subcontinent towards sorrows, deprivation and slavery and played pivotal role in shaping their present psyche,” he said adding that 2007 would be the 150th year to this battle.

In this regard, he suggested that Pakistan, Bangladesh and India should convene a combined moot to discuss causes and effects of this battle.—PPI