CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Yusuf Rahman, Namwar |
|---|---|
| Title | Punjabi Domination and the Biopolitics of the Census and Statistics in Pakistan |
| Summary | Through this essay, I investigate the widely levelled accusations from non-Punjabi areas that the census is used as a technology of power to further the Punjab’s dominance over the rest of Pakistan. I argue that the dominance of Punjab is systematically rooted in development during colonial rule, which continued to the post-partition, as well as post-1971 Pakistan. I show that the census is in fact being used as a technology of power, but not through a systematic undercounting of non-Punjabi regions by a unified Punjab, but as a platform that is a link in the chain of making Pakistan a society of control through the use of biopolitics in the hands of a Punjab-dominated state. The Punjabi interests are not as monolithic as postulated by detractors and this creation of a fantastical monolithic Punjab through demagoguery and Punjab-bashing statements in minority regions have hindered a full understanding of the devastation that the biopolitical activities of the sort carried out can have on a nation-state that is as ethnically divided as Pakistan. The findings of this essay are based on seven interviews from people involved in the census all over Punjab but based in Lahore, along with document analysis, analysis of news reports in print and on television, and theoretical research primarily based on the works of Foucault, Deleuze, Appadurai, Rabinow and Rose, and Agamben. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Li, Ju |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/rahman_namwar.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University