Unpacking Pakistan History: 1940-1971 and Conspiracy Theories - Ali Usman Qasmi - TPE

Ali Usman Qasmi, Professor (History) at LUMS comes on the podcast to unpack the history of Pakistan, starting from discussing the varied perspectives of Muslims pre-1947. On this podcast we discuss the Pakistan Resolution, the Punjabi Identity, whether Muslim League was a movement of the elites, how Pakistan came to be, the anti-Ahmadi riots, election rigging, Fatima Jinnah, Ayub Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.  Qasmi sahab also goes into detail of the Ahmadi issue as we unpack the history of Pakistan 1940-1971.   

Ali Usman Qasmi, Associate Professor (History) at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, joined LUMS in January 2012. He received his PhD from the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University in March 2009. Before joining LUMS, he was a Newton Fellow for post doctoral research at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He has published extensively in reputed academic journals such as Modern Asian Studies and Journal of Islamic Studies. He is the author of Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Qur’an Movements in the Punjab (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011). His second monograph, The Ahmadis and the Politics of Religious Exclusion in Pakistan (London: Anthem Press, 2014), was the recipient of Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) Peace Prize in 2015. Dr. Qasmi has co-edited several edited volumes as well, which include Revisioning Iqbal as a Poet and Muslim Political Thinker (Heidelberg: Draupadi, 2010), The Shi‘a in Modern South Asia: Religion, History and Politics (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Muslims against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Ideas of Pakistan (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2017).   

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The podcast is hosted by comedian and writer, Shehzad Ghias Shaikh. Shehzad is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters in Theatre from Brooklyn College. He is also one of the foremost Stand-up comedians in Pakistan and frequently writes for numerous publications. He can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tinder.   https://www.facebook.com/Shehzadgs/ https://twitter.com/shehzad89 https://instagram.com/shehzadghiasshaikh  

Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 3:00 Muslims Against the Muslim League 6:20 The model of the nation state 10:30 How was Pakistan imagined? 13:40 Pakistan: Provinces or sovereign states?  14:00 Pakistan Resolution 17:00 Two State Theory 20:30 Anti-Democratic Traditions 25:00 UP kay laundo kee saazish 33:10 Was Muslim League an elite movement? 35:00 Separate Electorates  36:30 Punjabi identity and Inferiority Complex 50:00 Dividing Provinces during Partition 58:00 Quaid-e-Azam's 11th August Speech 1:01:00 Was Quaid-e-Azam sidelined? 1:06:30 Liaquat Ali Khan  1:08:30 1953 Anti-Ahmadi riots 1:20:00 Ahmadi conspiracy theories 1:25:00 Allama Iqbal's Conspiracy Theory 1:26:40 The Ahmadi Question 1:36:00 Bhutto and Ahmadis 1:40:00 Ahmadis and the law 1:54:00 History of Election rigging 2:01:30 Ayub Khan