PERENNIAL JOURNAL OF HISTORY

Political Existence and Question of Historical Agency: Performance of Pakistan People’s Party in Punjab (1999-2018)

Muhammad Yasir Ali — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Pakistan People’s Party has gone through difficult times since 1999. They went through split in the parliamentary party by giving birth to ‘parliamentarians’, lost leadership, attained power and experienced the lowest electoral score in the political history between 1999 and 2018. These two decades have been crucial not only for the Pakistan People’s Party but also for the overall political development in Pakistan. Enforcement of emergency, introduction of ‘enlightened moderation’, war on terror, charter of democracy, eighteenth amendment and above all the slogan of ‘tabdili’ accredit this era for a deeper analysis of the events. Plethora of work has been done on the political, social and economic aspects of this period in the political history of Pakistan. This paper analyses the relationship of political existence with the historical agency to understand the events of political success and failure in the light of historical standards of existence. It defines the historical standards on the basis of sociocultural dynamics of society and on the basis of these standards analyses the performance of Pakistan People’s Party. It argues for the deterministic presence of History as an agent in the social and political development. This paper extends the argument, while answering the question of nature of socio-cultural and historical relevance of a political party, to the understanding of existing material on political development, understanding of socio-cultural transitions and by understanding the emerging socio-cultural realities. It concludes the discussion with linking the performance of Pakistan People’s Party with the historical dimension.

The Politics of Electables in Baluchistan: Concerning the Emergence of the Baluchistan Awami Party (BAP)

Sajjad Akhter, Abdul Waheed, Qamar Abid — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In this study, the researcher highlights the issues of governance and the politics of electables in Baluchistan. Over the last ten years, the culture of party-switching politics in the province has developed due to electables and their way of politics. The population of the province is mostly comprised of rural areas, and in these areas the influence of the tribal chiefs is strong and their bank of the vote in rural areas of the province. In this study, the researcher also explores the political engineering in Baluchistan because, to remain in power, political leaders compromise their political ideology and form relations with the establishment. The Baluchistan Awami party was introduced a month before the general election of 2018, and it emerged as a majority party in the province. The research was exploratory and cross-sectional, as ell as collecting secondary data.

Crisis of Identity in 20th Century: The Case of the Sikhs in India

Isra Sarwar, Muhammad Shamshad, Farooq Arshad — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Punjab has been in turmoil since the partition of British India and now its predicament is the outcome of blend of factors. These factors may include mixing of religion with politics, central machination, vote-bank polities and obvious economic grievances. In the post-partition period, the Sikhs demanded affirmative discrimination largely based on colonial heritage job and regional autonomy. They started using ethnic symbols like history, geography, culture and land to gain sympathies of the masses and to attain greater political autonomy and economic benefits. Unfortunately, the Congress considered their struggle for identity disturbing for the secular outlook of India and put this social issue into the conceptual framework of communal politics and aligned it with Sikh tradition. The situation was politically engineered by Congress through mixing religion with politics and it took decisive actions following the divide and rule policy and extracted electoral benefits out of it. The militant operations against fellow the Sikh citizens and manipulated actions radicalized the society which created social unrest and urged the Sikhs to demand a separate state. This article has highlighted the Sikh political struggle for the

recognition of their separate identity and demand for Khalistan. The critically analyzed historical study is based on qualitative methods by using secondary sources.

Impact of Shanghai Cooperation Organization on the US Interests in Central Asia

Muhammad Atif , Muhammad Kashif, Mudassar Jahangir , Muhammad Saqib — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The US is increasingly interested in Central Asia. Yet it remains an imperiled area because that confronts numerous routine issues arising from global power and the hard enthusiasm of terrorist groups in trying to overthrow domestic authoritarian governments. Today, the interests of the USA are below contest in three defined ways. Firstly, Russia and China have established a matched movement to expel the USA’s deliberate attendance from Central Asia. Secondly, the USA has organized “color revolutions” with the title of democratic reforms to throw out those governments from a power whose interests are allied with China and Russia in the region. In the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war, Regional powers are also joining/ backing the SCO, which is the third major challenge for the US. Therefore, the USA faces concurrent and several military, political, economic, and ideological challenges to its interests. For a decade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has also emerged in the worldwide arena as a substitute method for consensus-building in central Asia. So far, this geopolitical discussion neglects the massive effect of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on its main region.

Tomb of Tahir Khan Nahar in Sitpur: An Analysis of its Architectural Features and Decorative Elements

Muzna Matloob — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The true spirit of people is reflected in the folklore, custom, tradition, art and craft of the region. Punjab (Pakistan) has impressive folk art, diversity of cultural heritage, stunning historic architecture and variety of arts and crafts. It is regarded to be a glimpse into Pakistani culture. The historic tomb of Tahir Khan Nahar is situated in Sitpur, tehsil Alipur built in circa 1520 AD.

The tomb of Tahir Khan Nahar is the earliest known pre-Mughal funerary monument created in imitation of the celebrated monument Rukn-i-Alam though having its own personality to be regarded as the first ever attempt to create a local variation of the style, especially for the sake of the design and color of faience and faience-mosaic revetment. This paper examined the architectural design and surface ornamentation, which is lavishly embellished with glazed tile work and other details. This paper further analyses the design elements in detail with reference to tomb architecture in Pakistan.

The paper is divided into three parts. First part discussed the historical context of the saint. The second part placed the tomb in its architectural elements and discussed style of its construction. Third part examined the surface decoration of the tomb. The architectural features in relation with the other monuments of the region have been discussed in last part. The paper finally concludes with importance of this historic tomb and impact of cultural influences on tomb architecture.

Madeline Miller’s Circe: A Feminist Stylistic Approach

Rizwana Sarwar, Saadia Fatima — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The present study explores the representation of the woman’s character in literary works and also encompasses the retelling of Greek mythology from Madeline Miller’s female protagonist’s perspective. Gender stereotypes established by Greek mythology require that women must be submissive and marginalized. Those women characters that are not according to these stereotypes are termed as negative characters. Moreover, this representation of women’s stereotypical characterization is done through predisposed language which is informed by male-ruling sexist ideology. These linguistic choices need to be addressed through feminist stylistic analysis. The present study will analyze Circe’s character from the selected text Circe by Madeline Miller (2018) from the perspective of feminist stylistic analysis by employing Sara Mills’ model of feminism (1995). It will investigate how Madeline Miller converts Circe’s negative portrayal into a positive and empowered character in her retelling by challenging the stereotypical characterization of women. In particular, the study will look into Circe’s character at the level of discourse in order to present her as a positive and empowered character.

Construction of Religious Minority Groups in Bollywood Cinema: A Historic & Critical Thematic Analysis

Imtiaz Hussain, Shahzad Ali — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article deals with the dominant themes that emerged in the Bollywood Cinema about religious minority groups Like Muslims, Christian, and Sikhs. The research utilized the structure provided by the Clerk and Brown 2006 in terms of thematic Analysis. Thirty movies were selected through purposive and random sampling. Ten movies were represented by each minority Group. The dominant themes found with regard to the Muslim community in Bollywood movies were Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, economic, education backwardness, and Muslim identity, Sikh dominant themes were found as Comedian, Sikh Identity, Brave, and truthful. Similarly, Christian themes were Westernized, Christian Identity, erotic, and Prostitute. Based on Historic and the critical thematic analysis as well as theoretical grounds of Hall’s representation, Said's Concept of Orientalism, and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model concept, the research clearly indicated that the Bollywood Cinema blurred the identity of religious minority groups and decorated them as others, for example, it distorts the religious concepts, promotes Islam phobia and connecting Islam with the terrorism, in terms to Muslims treated as brutal, extremist, shelter provider, the danger for the state, etc and Sikh as a painted comedian, drinkers and their culture in merged with the Hindus rituals as well as Christian minority female painted erotic object, westernized and Hypersexual. The research clarifies that the Bollywood cinema articulates the content of the movies under the umbrella of the elite political mindset.

Global Citizenship Education: A New Approach to Global Citizenship Development

Amna Saleem, Farah Deeba, Muhammad Aqeel Raza — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Global citizenship education is a type of civic learning in which students take part in projects that deal with social, political, economic, or environmental problems that affect the whole world. The goal of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is to give people of all ages the tools they need to take part in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, and safe societies, both locally and globally. As a basic need of citizens, global citizenship education is of paramount importance today. The purpose of the paper is to provide understanding related to global citizenship and global citizenship education. The data was collected using secondary sources such as journals, articles, web sources, etc. Researchers shed light on the major elements, dimensions, and themes of global citizenship education. The major themes of global citizenship education, such as peace education, human rights education, civic education, humanitarian norms, and the psychosocial dimensions of global citizenship, are discussed in this paper. In this paper, it is concluded that global citizenship education enables citizens to change the way they live and to adopt modern education for their betterment. Additionally, it changes their mentality towards different cultures of the world, bringing peace and harmony to the whole world. According to this study, teachers should be educated about global citizenship and provide global citizenship in all fields of education. The current government should provide facilities for Pakistani students in order for them to become global citizens.

Educational Reforms in Pakistan: A Comparative Study of Civil-Military Regimes (1999-2018)

Sajjad Ahmad, Farasat Zahra, Rabia Perveen , Safdar Hussain — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The study is based about comparison of civil-military regimes (1999-2018). The main objective of the study is to explore the educational reforms/policies and analyze the internal / eternal factors related to failure of educational system in Pakistan. Education plays a usually role in the advancement and protection of National Identity. However, being ideological state the Western countries considered Pakistan nurturing anti west approaches amongst a few Muslim countries. They claimed that Muslim countries included Pakistan majority of children getting Madaris education, where they produced extremists, fundamentalists and Islamic Jehadists. The radicalization concept was converted into technical education through Education Sector Reforms (ESR) 2002, education for all. This article sheds light on the educational reforms/policy of civil-military governance regimes 1999-2018 of Pakistan with a major focus education for all, introducing technical education and Madaris reforms to achieve 80% literacy rate. These education sector reforms did not fruitful due to involvement of bureaucrats for making policies and ignored educationist in the relevant field specialists. After 2010, the 18^th amendment in the 1973 constitution of Pakistan the slogan of civilian governance compulsory education for the children from ages five to sixteen (free education for all). Here millions of children still have not registered in education to achieve the target. There are so many other flops like religious factors and sectarian violence. Through 18^th Amendment the school education is the subject of provincial matter.

The Trajectory of Energy-Growth Relationships Revisited: A Multi-Sectoral Analysis with Relevance of Time Inclinations in Europe

Fatima Gulzar, Zahir Faridi, Sajid Pervez — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines the multidimensional impact of energy intensity (EI) and sectoral energy consumption on economic performance (EP). A sample of dataset includes European economies consisting of three decades from 1990 to 2020 is analyzed by employing several estimators and an inclusive estimation strategy for empirical robustness. This component of research is concerned with determining the trajectory of energy-growth relationships in order to explain changes in magnitude and intensity through time. This study is required in order to make an accurate comparison across time periods that how the change dimension is increasing or decreasing. Econometric practice is panel two step GMM. This study estimated by using GMM estimation and the results have been reported on the basis of probability values of F-statistics. The Kleibergen-Paap rk LM statistic with chi-square p-values of under-identification test are used to check the identification of the model. The chi-square probability values of Kleibergen-Paap rk LM statistics in all of the models of current study are highly significant which shows that model are identified. Moreover, Hansen J statistics are included to check validity of instruments. Our key findings suggest that energy intensity and energy mix on economic performance for European countries varies depending on the time era and degree of development. Results predict that economic expansion tends to be acutely susceptible to EI after 1990, and the lower the amount of income per capita, greater the sensitivity. It is also obvious that a broader approach is required.