Writing history is supposed to be based on critical evidence and rational inquiry while recollecting memory is seen to be about emotions — personal and transgenerational — and the sounds and images of the past etched in the mind.

With its innumerable gains for a select population of the developing world in terms of language, skill and knowledge, there are some major pitfalls in the dominant education system — whether in a school classroom or a university seminar — across the Global North and the Global South. One major negative consequence of this system is the inability of most scholars to go beyond what is imparted to them, which is based on narratives of power and borrowed Western categories of analysis. Consequently, history is considered to be objective and memory subjective.

On the other hand, if we take into account the fundamental question raised by the South African singer Miriam Makeba, how can the conqueror or invader tell the truth about the vanquished and the subdued native? All of Western imperial history-writing, and its prolonged offshoots even today — for instance what we see in the case of Zionism and Israel — loses all its objectivity about itself.

Therefore, we also see the rise of ‘subaltern history telling’, which has produced some exceptional works from Ranajit Guha, Partha Chatterjee, Shahid Amin and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, to name a few, where history is seen not from the lens of power and authority. Similarly, we see the likes of Benedict Anderson and Veena Das, in the wider areas of anthropology, who turned established power narratives upside down.

From the standpoint of a student of literature and politics, I would argue that both history (whether traditional or subaltern) and memory (personal or collective) should not be used to cancel out each other. Rather, they should be analysed together, so that any interpretation of data and facts includes the personal and collective memories of the overpowered and dispossessed.

We cannot take away the credit due to colonial researchers for collecting enormous amounts of data and relating significant events as they saw them. However, situating that data in a larger context and interpreting those events to understand what was happening cannot be left to their word.

In Pakistan, from K.K. Aziz to Mubarak Ali to Ayesha Jalal to a few others (including those who have recorded history about specific regions within the country and around), we find some significant works interpreting history or retelling it. But, overall, these efforts fail to become a movement still because of the continuity of the colonial character of the state.

I hope that changes because there are new historians who are looking at the available evidence from the past with a fresh outlook. However, that will require them to physically organise and intellectually collaborate on matters that shape our individual and collective perception of the past and present and, subsequently, will shape how we as a people view the future. Neither a single compendium nor a couple of compendia will suffice to create a purposeful body of literature. There have to be many.

Both history (whether traditional or subaltern) and memory (personal or collective) should not be used to cancel out each other. Rather, they should be analysed together, so that any interpretation of data and facts includes the personal and collective memories of the overpowered and dispossessed.

One such compendium of history in the Punjabi language that challenges the colonial and the current powerful narratives about Punjab is Aamir Riaz’s Punjab Di Vel [Celebrating Punjab] — which is both a sincere celebration of a resilient language and common folk and a composed account of their largely unrecognised bereavement.

It is a remarkably expansive work on the whole region of Punjab, including its adjoining areas that now fall in India or Afghanistan, from the emergence of the Lahore Darbar in 1799 to as recent as the last year, 2025. Riaz meticulously collects historical evidence, political facts, cultural references and the tragedies inflicted upon the common people of Punjab during this period.

Riaz’s book is neatly divided into nine detailed chapters, 26 relevant annexures, adequate references, a large bibliography, and detailed indices. Besides an insightful introduction, backed by meticulous research he has related four major periods of Punjab’s history since 1799 over these chapters and annexures: the Lahore Darbar, the British Raj, the partition of Punjab, and the current post-Partition Punjab region in Pakistan and India.

He has also looked into old manuscripts and the archival material available on the region and its language. The language that remains marginalised by the state not only survives, it now thrives among the common people. Being a bibliophile, researcher and political and cultural activist for long, Riaz has a definite command over Pakistan’s political history. There are many incidents that he has researched and related that bring a certain kind of neutrality to the arguments he makes. He does not spare the collaborators of power from anywhere, including Punjab, but builds an honest case for the rights of the people who have no participation in decisions that affect their lives.

Something that truly moved me was the dedication of the book to Riaz’s mother, Rehana Riaz. In 1947, she was found as a young survivor in a heap of corpses and did not know who her parents or forbears were. She was never bothered about issues such as whether Pakistan was born on August 14 or August 15. The only thing that mattered to her was that, on those dates each year, she would make offerings to the poor in the name of her parents and the elders she neither knew nor met after 1947.

The writer is a poet and essayist. His latest collections of verse are Hairaa’n Sar-i-Bazaar and No Fortunes to Tell

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 27th, 2026