Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

21.11.

The ‘Reds’ and the ‘Mullahs’:

The Islamic Jamiat-e-Talaba and the Democratic Students Federation in Nascent West Pakistan

room 217, 2nd floor

2pm

BERSAS South Asia Research Colloquium

moderation: Dr. Monika Freier (IAAW)

This presentation is of a paper-in-progress that examines ideological and political encounters between the Left and the religious Right in 1950s Pakistan through student politics. Focusing on the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and the Islami Jamiat-e-Tuleba (IJT), it shows how campus activism became a site where competing political imaginaries of the postcolonial nation were articulated and contested. Through a close reading of two student journals from the decade, the /Students’ Herald/ and the /Students’ Voice/, the paper will aim to traces how global ideas of socialism, anti-imperialism, and pan-Islamism in the Cold War context were refracted through local political contexts.

Dr. Sadia Bajwa is based at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, where she teaches and researches on colonial and postcolonial South Asian history, politics, and urban studies. In her doctoral project she worked on the colonial and postcolonial history of students politics and national education West Pakistan. She draws on postcolonial theory to explore the social and cultural history of South Asia, especially student politics, education, Muslim historiography, and the history of Muslim nationalism.