The Continuous History of Disruptions in Lahore: A Conversation with Manan Ahmed Asif

In this discussion with Manan Ahmed, we consider thepolitical history of South Asia from the perspective of one of its most vibrant and famed cities, Lahore. Drawing from his latest book, The Disrupted City: Walking the Pathways of Memory and History in Lahore (The New Press, 2024), we consider the various episodic and modular histories of citiesin the Global South, their role in forming new kinds of tactile consciousness towards politics, and their presence in colonial and postcolonial political imagination. Enchanting yet tragic, monumental yet fragmented, Lahore—as depicted by Ahmed—embodies a dual legacy. It bears the scars of the 1947 partition of South Asia into India and Pakistan while also reflecting its own vibrant, if imperfect, history of religious and cultural cosmopolitanism—a legacy sacrificed to the nationalizing imperatives of what Ahmed calls “Prophetic Pakistan.”
Ahmed’s Lahore departs from the grand, romanticized, orientalist cities painted by Western writers. It is intimate and inhabited by ordinary emotions. Navigating the complexities of the city’s past, Ahmed alerts us to the diversevisions of toil and labor, violence and subterfuge that shapes Lahore as a city of celebration and disappointments.