‘Selective amnesia led to erasure of minority role’
Scholars discuss ‘Lesser-Known Communities of Karachi’
Karachi’s political and social landscape underwent a paradigm shift in 1971, observed historian Dr Ali Usman Qasmi during the Karachi Conference on Wednesday.
Dr Qasmi was moderating a session on the ‘Lesser-Known Communities of Karachi’ along with Prof Aliya Iqbal Naqvi at the conference, organised online this year by the Institute of Business Administration.
Discussing shifting trends in the city in the past 13 to 14 years, Dr Qasmi noted an erosion of the past in national discourse, with the state playing a role in selective forgetting and remembrance. Terming this violent, he remarked that there was ‘amnesia’ at play when changing names of roads and buildings.