Re: End of the past?
Who should be our local heroes - rich local Kings with big armies? Is that it? Where are the Punjabi scientists, philosophers, philanthropists, reformers, inventors, educationalists, great campaigners - people belonging to these fields should be hailed as heroes in true sense of the word great, not every mighty King or warrior should be imposed as ‘hero’ just because they are from the same ethnic background as you, this attitude is not any better than Mullahs who only want to glorify individuals who belonged to their religion.
What likes of you are suggesting was already experimented and tragically failed in Nazi Germany long time ago - the blind and mindless chauvinistic Germenisation of German education where only people and individuals having the ‘pure German’ blood were worthy of receiving any praise, rest were all villains and that instantly included Jews and people who didn’t have blond hair and blue eyes. Just look around in Pakistan and see how racism and ethnic bigotry is already a seriously violent problem in provinces where prejudicial ‘God gifted sons of soil’ racialism is proudly propagated as way to control, isolate, divide and rule communities.
Self centered Nationalists don’t want a genuine extension of scope of historical studies in Pakistan, turn into a proper academic discipline to find objective truth, make it a thorough research and evidence based practice. They don’t want history the subject to become a true understanding of the past, what they really want is quick, speedy and self pleasing replacement of one ‘narrative’ (read: propaganda, gross glorification and misinformation) with another. The good old practice of rejecting and accepting people on the basis of race, religion and region.