By S. Akbar Zaidi
A detailed survey in Pakistan of social science research and teaching on India shows that there is a conspicuous silence on India in Pakistan’s research and teaching institutions. The little research that is done is skewed in favour of strategic and defence studies. Even books and research emanating from India are not part of the curricula. Among the reasons for this dismal state are constraints of ideology, politics, state paranoia and lack of infrastructure. This absence of research and teaching on India also reflects the generally poor state of social sciences in Pakistan. The article ends by questioning the lack of social science interest in India on Pakistan.
1 Introduction
In many important ways, there is not much of a story to tell. An attempt to look at empirical data and evidence in order to examine the nature, extent and quality of social science teaching and research conducted, in Pakistan on India, in the disciplines of economics, history, sociology, political science and international relations draws almost a complete blank. There seems to be a conspicuous, silent, absence of India in Pakistan’s academic and research institutions where the social sciences are taught and researched. There are very few exceptions to this general observation, both in terms of individuals and institutions. Most of the exceptions that do exist, both in terms of individuals and institutions, strictly speaking, are not part of the broader category of the social sciences and are almost exclusively restricted to “experts” in security studies.
This noticeable absence of India in Pakistan’s higher institutions of learning and research ought to come as a surprise given India’s dominant presence in Pakistan’s historical, political, cultural and military existence. Pakistan was carved out of a united British India. It considers India its main political foe, largely because of the continuing Kashmir issue. India remains its primary long-term foreign policy issue, the war on terror notwithstanding. Pakistan’s military has fought two wars and has had many more skirmishes with India, having lost its more populous eastern half in 1971. But despite all of these, Pakistan’s cultural and entertainment scene remains inundated by “Bollywood”. Given all of this, it does seem strange that India is so under-studied and under-researched in Pakistan, almost a glaring absence. One would have thought that like the relationship between the United States (US) and Russia during the cold war and between the US and China since, India and Pakistan too (and in this case, neighbours) would have studied, researched, taught, understood and analysed each other. Unlike other adversaries in the world, Indians and Pakistanis know little about each other. In the case of Pakistan, this situation can be based on two probable explanations.
The first relates to the nature of Pakistan’s state and its intrusive security/military establishment which lays claim to being the fountain of all knowledge and wisdom in Pakistan, especially regarding anything to do with India. The second explanation is to be found in the rather dismal state of the social sciences in Pakistan and in its weak institutions.