05 From Dear Colleagues, Students and Friends, The first issue of Guftugu, the biannual TABLE OF CONTENTS the Dean’s Desk newsletter of the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences 100 Years of Soviet Revolution (MGSHSS) at LUMS, is in your hands. We have chosen the title as we in MGSHSS believe in opening up conversations, Neglected Narratives: An Interview encouraging debates and fostering discussions. In short, we want to promote with Dr. Layli Uddin a truly dialogic (the academic in me could not resist) social and cultural space which Events at MGSHSS promotes non-hierarchical and democratic deliberations on a range of topics. Hence, Guftugu is our vehicle to share what we Center Events accomplish at MGSHSS during a semester and also represent what we hear from the community in our forums, symposia, Editing at MGSHSS: Essence in conferences, workshops, musical events, Variety creative endeavors and artistic pursuits. We remain committed to this exchange of ideas, opinions and points of view by News Shocks and Teaching Methods: bringing them forward in a guftugu. An Interview with Syed Zahid Ali I say with a sense of pride that MGSHSS The Newsletter is the holds a unique place among liberal arts Muslims Against the Muslim League: official voice of the programs in Pakistan, if not in South An Interview with Ali Usman Qasmi Office of the Dean, Asia. I say this because as we delve into Mushtaq Ahmad works on politics, sociology, economics, Gurmani School of culture, religion, art, literature, science and Teaching Economics Like the Last aesthetics at our School, we accomplish Humanities and Social Thirty Years Matter this through a faculty that has altered Sciences, LUMS. In the way in which the social sciences and addition to thanking the humanities are taught in Pakistan. In the Streets of Lyari all staff members in Their passion and commitment is reflected the Dean’s Office, we in the vibrant intellectual culture of the want to specially thank School, and translates into a pedagogical Exploring the Early History of Sara Saleem Khan and method that is truly transformative. They Pakistani Civil Aviation Ateeb Gul for their seek to inculcate in our students the excellent work and spirit of curious thinking, of risk taking effort for this issue. and of thinking outside the box. The Faculty News intellectual work and creative contribution of our faculty and our students will especially be foregrounded through Student Contributions this newsletter, so that the world gets to know that we implicitly understand ourselves. Let the conversations begin! Sincerely 02 100 Years of Soviet Revolution A two-day workshop marking the and Kamran Asdar Ali on the politics, centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution history and legacy of the Progressive was held on the 3rd and 4th of November. Writers’ Movement in South Asia. Organized by Anushay Malik and Ali Raza, the workshop brought together The conference was well-attended by scholars and activists with an aim academics, students professionals, and of initiating a critically-informed activists from Lahore and elsewhere. It conversation on communist, socialist, was also attended by veteran activist Rauf and revolutionary movements in South Malik, the last surviving member of the Asia, and, specifically, in Pakistan. pre-partition Communist Party of India. One notable aspect of the workshop was The workshop was inaugurated by the personal reflections of the speakers, the noted intellectual and women’s many of whom have devoted their lives rights activist, Nighat Saeed Khan, who to progressive politics and causes in gave a keynote address on the role of Pakistan. Notable examples included: women in Marxist political thought Nighat Saeed Khan, one of the founders and leftist movements. Her address was of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF); followed by four sessions featuring a Karamat Ali, Director of the Pakistan total of thirteen speakers. Together, the Institute of Labour Education and sessions covered the history of labor Research (PILER); Aasim Sajjad Akhtar of movements, political organizations, the Awami Workers Party; and Ahmed intellectual genealogies, and progressive Salim, whose valuable work in archiving literature in Pakistan and South Asia. the records of progressive movements in Pakistan continues to be a great resource The speakers reflected on how the for researchers across the world. Soviet Revolution was important not only for the events of the revolution As part of the conference programme, itself, but also for the impact it had a concert by Arieb Azhar was also internationally. In that respect, Karamat organized. The concert was enjoyed Ali, Ammar Jan and Aasim Sajjad Akhtar by faculty and students alike. discussed the global implications of the Bolshevik Revolution’s legacy, while Anushay Malik, Ali Raza, Nadeem Khalid, Anushay Malik and Ali Raza are Sarah Suhail and Muhammad Azeem Assistant Professors at the MGSHSS. discussed its impact on leftist and labour movements in Pakistan. An important perspective from East Pakistan was Arieb Azhar in concert. also provided by Dr. Layli Uddin who gave a talk on the politics of Maulana Bhashani and the National Awami Party. These perspectives were further enriched by the contributions of Ahmad Salim, Humaira Ishfaq, Jaffer Ahmad, 03 Neglected Narratives: An Interview with Dr. Layli Uddin I thought we could begin with you establishing a longer trajectory and filling Dr. Layli Uddin telling us a little about your work as in the gaps since so much of what I’m is a historian of a historian in general, and perhaps a looking at and the figures I’m concerned modern South Asia little about the paper you presented. with do not exist in conventional and is currently archives. One of the key concerns of my A lot of my work on Bangladesh and work is to bring in the silences that exist working on a book how it comes about, the ‘making and in the archives, and question things on the making unmaking of Pakistan’ if you will, like the grounds on which workers and unmaking functions as a counter-narrative to mobilized, their conception of and of Pakistan and existing historiographies. Especially in faith in Bhashani as a leader and how the sense in which they attribute 1971 this alliance between the marxist and Bangladesh. She is and the creation of Bangladesh to the his murids functioned on the ground. also the curator of events of high politics and big political Another question is what socialism might the ‘Two Centuries figures. What gets ignored is the role have looked like then, and how were of Indian Print’ of the peasants, the landless laborers, these constituencies being empowered. If the students. This is where Maulana Bhashani was a leader who appeared to project at the Bhashani becomes important, because his murids in their dreams, do I invalidate British Library. in a lot of ways he was speaking for that entirely because of modern ideas In November, these constituencies. His leadership and of rationality? It’s important to open she presented a charisma were important factors, and these histories and navigate neglected in the absence of understanding that narratives with caution and respect, paper titled ‘1969: connection, and the radical imaginaries because otherwise you risk ignoring Marxists, Murids that fueled those peoples, often the how people conceptualized events that and the Maulana ways in which workers and peasants we are trying to understand as history. in the Unmaking did politics is not understood. of Pakistan’ at I was going to ask you how your the 100 Years of What about your work at the experience of the conference was. Soviet Revolution British Library? How does that Given that there was a variety of conference at LUMS. that feed into your research? talks and papers, what were your thoughts about the other panels The ‘Two Centuries of Indian Print’ given what we just discussed about project looks at publications, printers alternative ways of looking at history? and authors of the early colonial period, The eighteenth to early twentieth It’s been a tremendously productive centuries. I do draw on the collection for experience here. LUMS has a great faculty my research—it’s especially helpful in in the Humanities and Social Sciences. 04 I’ve gotten to meet some great colleagues who also reads anything and everything “It’s important who share similar ways of thinking about the city. So we had a great sort of about history or doing history. There talk. We went to the Badshahi Mosque, to open these are some really impressive historians the Lahore Fort, the Wazir Khan Mosque, and academics here. The conference was the Anarkali Bazaar, and I think we saw histories wonderful because there was a mixed Sultan Qutbuddin Aibak’s mazaar. And and navigate bunch of academics and activists and it’s we saw from the mazaar this Hindu really good getting that idea of what was temple, which is no longer in use, but neglected happening on the ground. And it was is now a residence. And since then I’ve looking at the whole of the 20th century, just been resting. I still feel like there’s narratives looking at the history of the October so much more to see, because as we with caution Revolution, but also its impact in South were coming back he pointed out Neela Asia. Not just its immediate aftermath, Gumbat and all these little mazaars. and respect, but also at its long term implications up And I feel like there’s also so many to the present. So there were a number of conversations to be had about the city. because diverse papers ranging from the October I’m going to a remembrance today at otherwise you revolution, to the Progressive Writers’ the Women’s Action forum, and I met Association, to thinking about what with the Feminist Collective at a dhaaba.