The dissident : addressing historical lacuna and state censorship with documentary prose

Abstract

The notion that the Hindus and Muslims of India could never be one nation was the genesis of Pakistan in 1947. But this political idea, which was referred to as two-nation theory in undivided India, was re-labelled in the late 1970s as the "ideology of Pakistan." This time, however, it was military dictators -- and not mainstream politicians -- who deployed these concepts to craft new notions of statehood and nation. The first section of this thesis examines how this new "ideology of Pakistan" was propagated through the hijacking of the state by the military establishment and the institutionalised erasure of political personalities and events from Pakistan's history. The thesis sheds light on how the successive regimes manipulated school curricula and the mainstream media to forge an official discourse more suited to its objectives. In the absence of independent secular histories of Pakistan, the thesis takes lessons from the works of Svetlana Alexievich and Alexis Wright to explore alternative and novel ways of documenting lives and events. The creative part of this thesis is a political biography of Pakistani politician and activist Mairaj Mohammad Khan. Inspired by Alexievich and Wright's documentary prose and narrative collage techniques, this section tells the story of a man whose existence and achievements were excluded from inherited historical narratives. The intention is to show how documentary prose can help narrow the gaps between recorded, official histories and what transpired on the ground.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English