KARACHI: Highlighting the importance of preserving archives as a factual source of history, speakers at a seminar held at Madinat al-Hikmah on Thursday underscored the need for having a national archival policy.
They also called for building up expertise in archives and records management by creating institutional opportunities offering degrees in the relevant field.
The national symposium and training workshop on archival heritage of Pakistan was organised by Hamdard Pakistan in memory of late Hakim Mohammed Said.
Dr Kaleemullah Lashari, a scholar of applied archaeology and chairman of the Central Record Office under the provincial government, regretted negligence shown towards acquisition, preservation and dissemination of archives throughout Pakistan’s history.
“We do not have the record from 1947 to 1955. In 1961, the capital was shifted from Karachi so [was] the limited record. In 1976, the Sindh archives department was finally created but it had nothing. The then commissioner of Karachi handed over his records to the Sindh archives department,” he informed the audience, while explaining how neglect towards one’s history could harm a nation.
He disagreed with the common perception about ‘digitisation’ that it was an easy technology and said: “It’s not an easy method. The technology keeps on updating and, therefore, there is a need for continuous development to carry out digitisation.”
According to Dr Lashari, the colonial British government after 1857 formally kept records and “thus the history we know now is because of them”.
Personal letters and diaries, he said, were valuable part of archives and there was a need to work on the written works of those who fought against the British.
“The colonial records, however, show the positive impact the British had on the areas under their rule and avoided the Muslim point of view,” he said, adding that one could find the orders of the Mughal emperors but without mention of any specific period.
The British, he continued, kept most minute details, such as their correspondence with the Talpur rulers of Sindh when the British were threatened by the French and the Russians and they started making formal agreements with the rulers of Sindh.
“Their letters are a great asset of Pakistan. When Charles Napier conquered Sindh, he established the archives record,” he said.
Sharing lapses in archives and record management, he said when Sindh became a province in 1936 the then governor of Sindh tried to keep records but the job could not be done effectively. Later, in 1947, some records were collected but even then the process couldn’t be done in an organised manner.
Dr Asma Ibrahim, the director of the State Bank of Pakistan Museum and Art Gallery Department, in her keynote address paid tributes to late Hakim Said and said his speeches were inspirational and motivating.
On the management of public records and archives and her experiences, she recalled she always wanted to join the department of archaeology and museums but couldn’t do so because she was told that this field was not for girls.
“So I joined the State Bank of Pakistan and learnt that no one prior to me had even thought of maintaining records. I changed this situation and now the State Bank Museum is an internationally known museum,” she said.
Pakistan, she pointed out, had various provincial and national archives, which were the region’s treasure highlighting its past, present history, policies, culture and economy.
“Our archives are exceptional but very few people in the world know about it. We must find out why this is so. To me, there are four problems; scholars’ accessibility to archives, bureaucratic hurdles, sheer negligence of concerned staff and lack of expertise,” she explained.
She also lamented that there was no institution in Pakistan offering degrees in archives and record management.
Dr Ibrahim informed the audience that the Punjab archives in collaboration with the Punjab Information Technology Board and the Information Technology University had launched an ambitious digitisation project.
One similar project had been undertaken by the Balochistan Archives, Quetta.
Vice Chancellor of the Hamdard University Prof Shabeebul Hasan and director of the Bait al-Hikmah Library Prof Malahat Sherwani also spoke.
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2019