Asmer Safi
DPhil Student
Research Topic: Islamic Socialism and the Struggle for Hegemony (1966-1973)
Supervisors: Faridah Zaman
My research explores the intellectual history of the Pakistani Left in what has been termed the ‘Global 60s’. I trace the intersections between leftist engagements with Muslim and Pakistani nationalism(s), Islam, federalism, and global Third World solidarities. The period from 1966 to 1973 was one of acute turbulence in the country, marked by the rise of a ‘new’ Left following the fall of Ayub Khan’s dictatorship in 1969; demands for democratic elections and provincial autonomy; and the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. Questions of socialism—its variants, applicability, and indigeneity to Pakistan—were being debated as possible answers to the country’s manifold problems. My research explores the emergence of Islamic Socialism as one of the dominant articulations of left-wing ideas during this period, and its popularization through the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) 1970 election campaign. By recovering debates on Islamic Socialism within a divided Left, examining attacks from the religious right, and tracing the historical development of the Left and its various preoccupations within this conjuncture, I reconstruct the complex terrain of political ideas that animated this turbulent period in postcolonial Pakistan.
Asmer is a writer and organiser from Lahore, Pakistan. His work has appeared in The Nation, Mondoweiss, and The Polis Project. He blogs at Left of Pakistan on Substack and serves on the editorial team of Jamhoor Magazine. He completed an MPhil in Intellectual History at the University of Oxford and an A.B. in Social Studies, with a secondary field in Ethnicity, Migration, and Human Rights, at Harvard University.
Personal Website: www.asmersafi.me
Instagram, X: @asmerasafi
Substack: leftofpakistan.substack.com/
