Politics of ethnicity in Pakistan

One of the consequences of the increasing importance of the study of political science is that societies and nations as actors are becoming more and more aware of the necessity of developing policies based on solving the internal issues of a state and society for keeping world peace. There emerged a great opportunity for social sciences to flourish. This change was the main driver for organizing this interactive lecture on the topic “Politics of ethnicity in Pakistan”.  The lecture was especially arranged on Saturday September 15th 2007 for PhD scholars, students of department of Political Science/Pakistan Studies & International Relations & for other social sciences in general at the Auditorium in the IT department.

Our Honorable speaker for that afternoon was Dr. Rasul Bakhsh Rais. He is Professor of Political Science in the Department of, Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences. Dr Rais has Ph.D. in Political Science from University of California Santa Barbara. He has been Professor/Director, Area Study Centre, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad for nearly 22 years.  He was Professor of Pakistan Studies at Columbia University, New York for 3 years, 1991-94.  He took prestigious fellowships Like Fulbright, Rockefeller and Harvard at USA during his academic & professional Career. He is author of

The Seminar was chaired by Mrs Nayyer Masood Chairperson & Conducted by Mrs Quratul Ain Ali Faculty Member, Department of Political Science/Pakistan Studies & International Relations.
 The session formally started with the recitation of The Holy Quran followed by the introduction of the topic & the speaker by the chairperson. Dr Raes spoke for about an hour upon the topic. His speech gave an insightful understanding of the many perspectives that can and should be taken into account when understanding the politics of ethnicity in Pakistan.
The feedback of the participants through a question-answer session confirmed that the seminar was very much appreciated as well as that there is a pressing need for more practical approaches and for other opportunities to discuss the many issues from the realm of political Science.