تشکیل علم اور لسانی سیاست: ایک تاریخی اور سیاسی محاکمہ

Friday, May 17, 2025 | 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM | Faculty Lounge, VC Office, LUMS

The Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature at LUMS hosted a thought-provoking, day-long conference titled “تشکیل علم اور لسانی سیاست: ایک تاریخی اور سیاسی محاکمہ” (The Formation of Knowledge and Language Politics: A Historical and Political Inquiry) on May 17, 2025. This interdisciplinary gathering brought together scholars and researchers from across Pakistan to explore the relationship between colonial knowledge systems, linguistic politics, and the formation of literary canons in South Asia.

The conference opened with welcome remarks by Dr. Ali Usman Qasmi, Director of the Gurmani Centre, and Dr. Ali Khan, Dean of the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences (MGSHSS). Both speakers contextualized the day’s discussions within broader intellectual debates on epistemic decolonization and the politics of language in postcolonial societies.

The first session, titled “Missionary Institutions, Colonial Knowledge, and the Construction of Literary Standards: A Critical Examination”, explored how institutions such as Fort William College and missionary presses shaped literary norms under colonial rule. Papers by Sajida Aslam, Anila Zulfiqar, Samira Ali, and Sajid Siddique Nizami examined how colonial education systems and publishing networks constructed, categorized, and disseminated knowledge to serve imperial interests.

The second session, “Print, Religion, and Nationalism”, focused on the role of colonial-era print culture in shaping religious and national identities. Presentations by Abrar Khattak, Muhammad Naeem, and Arsalan Hanif addressed the impact of missionary publishing on Pashto literature, the influence of Christian texts in Urdu, and the preservation of Punjab’s oral storytelling traditions through colonial transformations.

The third session, “The Politics of Language and Literature After 1947”, shifted the discussion to post-independence Pakistan, examining the linguistic and cultural legacies of colonialism. Atif Khalid Butt, Zubair Torwali, Safdar Rasheed, Adeel Abbas Adil, and Muhammad Noman presented papers on themes such as internal colonialism, the marginalization of regional languages, and the politicization of linguistic identity in the modern state.

The day concluded with a panel discussion on the challenges and potential of Urdu as a research language. Dr. Nasir Abbas Nayyar, Zahra Sabri, and Abdul Aziz Mufti reflected on the institutional and ideological barriers to conducting academic research in Urdu. The panel was followed by a rigorous Q&A session, which illuminated the broader challenges of teaching and sustaining regional languages within an increasingly homogenized educational landscape. The discussion reaffirmed the urgency of preserving linguistic diversity in the face of centralizing state discourses.

The conference attracted a diverse academic audience, with registered participants from GCU Lahore, LUMS, UET Taxila, COMSATS Islamabad, Punjab University (multiple departments and campuses), University of Central Punjab, University of Sargodha, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, and the National College of Arts (NCA). The panelists and presenters reflected geographic diversity as well, with scholars joining from Karachi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Islamabad, underscoring the national relevance and reach of the conversations held.