Writing authentic history of Pakistan is a difficult job: Mubarak

Noted scholar Muabarak Ali, giving a talk on Saturday at the South Asia Policy Analysis Network, looked at absence of authentic source and settled facts material in writing an objective history of Pakistan.
His complaint was that everything was nebulous, including the oft quoted statement of the Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, made on August 11, 1947, which many people regard people as the direction of the Father of the Nation to adopt a secular agenda.
In Mubarak Ali's reckoning, some people think that when he made his speech at the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the Quaid had reversed his famous two-nation theory. He added that many more people as easily refer to his other speeches in which Quaid had spawned the logic for separate electorate, which later became the logic behind the division of India in two dominions of Pakistan and India.
'We (the Hindus and Muslims) were separate in our attitude of life, customs and habits and we could not become one in the ballot box,' the Quaid had said. According to the historian, in the early years of Pakistan the institutional view was that history should began with the Moenjadaro period and this was reflected in the book 'Fine Thousand Years of Pakistan', written by Sir Mortimer Wheeler.
Apparently, this view did not find favour with official set of historians, led by the late Dr Ishtiaq Qureshi. Hence, a later edition of this book was discouraged and was not printed. He also gave an example of a meeting presided by former president Ayub Khan which discussed the huge undertaking of history writing. The meeting got bogged down on the point from where history should begin. So the historians asked Ayub for a direction.
Basing is observations on this argument; Mubarak came to the point that scholars working in government educational institutions could not be expected to write true history.
For obvious reasons they would concentrate on officially certified truth. In the same breath Mubarak Ali told the audience that even the book on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto written by the American historian Stanley Wolpert is not historically perfect.
In fact he also took a disconcerting view of recent memoirs, which is ghost written by generals and bureaucrats with a view to glorify their role and also earn prestigious mention in history books.
He had the same objection for historical records of important cities and many disparate regions of Pakistan, though he conceded that regional histories did help the true historian to glean a larger picture of the larger frame. But then there was a danger that such books were giving historic dimension smaller people and also trying to throw up regional feelings and negating national identity.
In his opinion the panacea is to write the history of the common people and their struggle. May be he was thinking of social history of the people, a subject which has not been attended in this country so far.
Dr Mubarak Ali did not have a smooth sailing. Many people thought that the historian was presenting a personal view at history to the exclusion of documented text. A lady asked, 'Are you suggesting that we should not take pride in the recent history of our country were established'.
A gentleman asked, 'You are asking us to discard the history as we have witnessed and taught on the touchstone of subjective narrative of facts, but how are we to expect that you have been objective in stating facts.'
Eminent octogenarian intellectual, Professor Khawaja Masud, who presided the discussion, and he had no difficulty explaining Pakistan to American audiences during his visit to the United States. 'The people did not know about Pakistan, and so I started from the visit of Alexander the Great, and they understood fine.'
Professor Masud had a prescription. In writing and speaking about history or any other subject, we must relate to well known things, and if we remain 'cool and dispassionate whatever the controversy we can clear all cobwebs.'