State mutation of the Social Sciences

Among the many crimes of the Pak­istani state is its muta­tion of the social sci­ences into a dis­fig­ured medi­um for crude­ly-con­ceived state pro­pa­gan­da. Instead of trans­mit­ting knowl­edge gained from cen­turies of sci­en­tif­ic explo­ration in this all-impor­tant dis­ci­pline, Pak­istan’s offi­cial soci­ol­o­gy text­books regur­gi­tate the uncen­sored fan­tasies of para­noid gen­er­als, ultra-nation­al­ist bureau­crats and hyper-patri­ar­chal cler­ics, geared large­ly towards serv­ing the hege­mon­ic needs of a tiny, most­ly Pun­jabi, male elite. Instead of pro­vid­ing young minds with the the­o­ret­i­cal means to under­stand the social world, these text­books are writ­ten with the express pur­pose of repro­duc­ing pli­ant, unques­tion­ing, unthink­ing sub­jects even in aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines sup­pos­ed­ly geared towards crit­i­cal inquiry (in the true spir­it of the colo­nial tra­di­tion).

Bar­ring some elite islands of excep­tion, this approach has infect­ed all our spaces of learn­ing and dia­logue, and per­me­at­ed across wider soci­ety. It is no acci­dent that we have legions of ‘edu­cat­ed’ folks in Pak­istan who sim­ply fail to under­stand how the Baloch have legit­i­mate griev­ances with the state; who can­not com­pre­hend the real­i­ty of insti­tu­tion­al­ized dis­crim­i­na­tion against minori­ties and the work­ing poor; who can’t see the glar­ing gen­der apartheid in our pub­lic spaces; who can’t seem to fath­om that it is con­sid­er­a­tions of gen­dered pow­er, not spir­i­tu­al devo­tion, that under­pin our obses­sive defence of anti-women patri­ar­chal tra­di­tions; who can’t even wrap their heads around why author­i­tar­i­an mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship may not be a very pro-peo­ple mod­el of gov­er­nance.

Years of teach­ing gib­ber­ish in the name of the social sci­ences has left us a soci­ety large­ly unequipped with the tools to under­stand struc­tures of pow­er, sys­temic oppres­sion or social process­es beyond the sim­plis­tic bina­ries wrought by moral judg­ment. In the absence of explana­to­ry frame­works, every social prob­lem becomes a con­spir­a­cy of evil for­eign forces out to get us rather than an out­come of con­crete his­tor­i­cal and mate­r­i­al process­es. All pover­ty and suf­fer­ing becomes an out­come of moral deprav­i­ty and cor­rup­tion rather than observ­able struc­tures of exploita­tion and exclu­sion in place for years.

The rot runs much deep­er than the reli­gious sem­i­nar­ies and the military’s fac­to­ries of jihad. We have bred a gen­er­a­tion that does not know how to think. No amount of mil­i­tary oper­a­tions or sum­ma­ry exe­cu­tions can purge this men­tal decay.

Note: The excerpts below are from the inter­me­di­ate lev­el soci­ol­o­gy text­books rec­om­mend­ed by mul­ti­ple boards includ­ing the fed­er­al board (http://www.fbise.edu.pk/…/Detail%20of%20Textbooks%20at%20HS…), the Aga Khan board (http://examinationboard.aku.edu/…/List%20of%20Recommended%2…). Karako­ram board, and oth­er boards in Pun­jab, Sindh and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa.
The authors are also rec­om­mend­ed for read­ing by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pun­jab: http://pu.edu.pk/…/Course‑O…/Elective-Subjects/Sociology.pdf
and the High­er Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion’s approved soci­ol­o­gy cur­ricu­lum:
http://www.hec.gov.pk/…/Curricu…/Documents/573_SOCIOLOGY.pdf