Ishtiaq Ahmed

Ishtiaq Ahmed was born in Lahore on 24 February 1947. He studied at St. Anthony's High School, the Forman Christian College and the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan. He received honourable mention for each consecutive year during 1964-68 for academic excellence and won the Mehta Chunni Lal Gold Medal from F.C. College for securing the highest marks in English and History in the BA examination in 1968. He secured the highest marks and the first class first position in Political Science in the MA (supplementary exam) in 1970 from the University of the Punjab. He began his academic career as a senior lecturer in Politics at Gordon College, Rawalpindi in February 1972.

Ahmed migrated to Sweden in 1973, where he worked as a research assistant at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) during 1976-77 and 1982-83, working on a project entitled 'Arms Trade in the Third World'. Later, he enrolled for a PhD in the Political Science Department of Stockholm University. He defended his doctoral dissertation, 'The Concept of an Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy in Pakistan' in 1985.

He started teaching as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in 1987. In 1996 he was promoted to associate professor. During 2000-2004, he was the International Academic Coordinator at the Political Science Department. He was in charge of the course on political theory and developed undergraduate and graduate courses on political Islam, ethnicity and nationalism and human rights. He also developed courses on nationalism for the PhD programme. He is the founder member of the international network and research programme, the Politics of Development Group at Stockholm University (PODSU). Currently he holds the position of professor in that institution.

He has lectured at various Swedish universities and conducted extensive field research in South Asia, especially in Pakistan and India. He has also been a regular commentator on South Asian politics on Swedish television and radio channels, Radio Amsterdam, the Netherlands,  and occasionally also on the British BBC.

He is the chief editor of the peer-reviewed electronic biannual journal, Peace and Democracy in South Asia (PDSA) and member of the editorial advisory boards of Asian Ethnicity and the Journal of Punjab Studies.

He is currently in the process of completing a major enquiry on the partition of the Punjab in 1947. It is based on extensive interviews from both sides of the Punjab border.

He has been writing a weekly column since May 26, 2002 in Pakistani English-language newspapers, The Daily Times (May 26, 2002 to November 7, 2006) and The News International since December 2, 2006.

Complete list of publications

Books

1.      2005, (edited), The Politics of Group Rights: The State and Multiculturalism, University Press of America.

2.      1998, State, Nation, and Ethnicity in Contemporary South Asia, London and New York: Pinter Publishers. Paperback with an additional section ‘A South Asian Charter of Human Rights’. Published in 1996 in hardback.

3.      1987, The Concept of an Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy in Pakistan (ISBN 0 - 86187 - 906 - 6) (a revised version of the doctoral dissertation), Frances Pinter (Publishers), London and St. Martin’s Press, New York, April 1987.It was reprinted in 1991 under the title, The Conept of an Islamic State in Pakistan: An Analysis of Ideological Controversies, Lahore: Vanguard Publishers.

Articles in international peer-reviewed journals and edited books

1.      2006, ‘Punjabi identities: Before and after the 1947 Partition of the Punjab, in Troubled Times: Sustainable Development and Governance in the Age of Extremes, Islamabad: SDPI and SAMA Editorial and Publication Service.

2.      2004, ‘Pakistan, Islam, Secularism, Democracy: A Phantasmagoria of Conflicting Muslim Aspirations’ in Oriente Moderno Anno XXIII (LXXXIV), 1, 2004, Special Number ‘Islam in South Asia, Rome: Istituto Per L’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino, Nuova Serie, , pp. 13-28.

3.      2004, ‘Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing in Lahore in 1947: Some First Person Accounts’ in Ian Talbot and Shinder Thandi (eds), People on the Move: Punjabi Colonial, and Post-Colonial Migration’, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004.

4.      'Muslim Nationalism, Pakistan and the Rise of Fundamentalism', Research Report 4, February 2003, Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University.

5.      2002, ‘The Kashmir Dispute’ in Politologen, autumn, 2000, pp. 37-48.

6.      'Comments' (on two papers, presented at a seminar on East Timor, Stockholm, 21 May 2002. East Timor nationbuilding in the 21st Century.pp. 33-38, Stockholm 2002.

7.      2002, ‘Looking Backwards into the Future: A Critique of Islamic Modernism’ in Journal of Futures Studies’ Volume 7, Number 2, pp. 75-95, November 2002.

8.      2002, ‘Globalisation and Human Rights in Pakistan’ in International Journal of Punjab Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 57-89, January-June, 2002.

9.      2002, ‘Communal Autonomy and the Application of Islamic Law’ in International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), Newsletter 10, July 2002.

10.  2002, ‘The 1947 Partition of India: A Paradigm for Pathological Politics in India and Pakistan’ in Asian Ethnicity, Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 9-28, March 2002.

11.  2001, ‘Pakistan Should be a Nation of Equal Citizens’ in (South Asian) IN REVIEW, United States Institute of Strategic Studies, Vol. 2, pp. 71-98, Winter 2000.

12.  1999, ‘The 1947 Partition of Punjab: Arguments put Forth before the Punjab Boundary Commission by the Parties Involved’ in Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh (eds), Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent,pp. 116-167, Karachi: Oxford University Press.

13.  1999, ‘South Asia’ in David Westerlund and Ingvar Svanberg (eds.), Islam Outside the Arab World, pp. 212-252, Richmond: Curzon Press.

14.  1999, Comment on the papers presented on the the Relationship between Economics, Religion and Ethics, in Sybille Fritsch-Oppermann (ed), Religion en und Wirtschaftsethik - Wirtschaftsethik i den Religionen: Der Einflub von Christentum, Judentum und Islam auf die Konzeption moderner wirtsdhftsethischer Entwürfe: Ein länderüberggreifender Vergleich, Loccum: Evangelische Akadwmiw Loccum.

15.  1998 Article, ‘The Nature and Structure of Ethnic Conflict and Separatist Movements in South Asia’ in Manoranjan Mohanty, Partha Nath Mukherji and Olle Törnquist (eds.), People’s Rights: Social Movements and the State in the Third World, New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage Publications.

16.  1998, Article, ‘The Kashmir Dispute: Is There an Important Hydropolitical Dimension to It?’ in Farid Abbaszadegan and Franz Wennberg (eds.), Hydropolitik och Demokrati (Hydropolitics and Democracy), Uppsala: Sällskapet för asienstudier.

17.  1997, Article,‘Tillämpningen av islamisk lag i Europa (Application of Islamic Law in Europe)’ in Euroislam – en tulipanaros?,Stockhom: Svenska Nationalkommitten För Kulturellt Samarbete i Europa.

18.  1997, chapter ‘Exit, Voice and Citizenship’ in Tomas Hammar, Grete Grochmann, Kristof Tomas and Thomas Faist (eds.), International Migration, Immobility and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers.

19.  1996, Article, Religious Nationalism and Sikhism, in David Westerlund (ed.), Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics, London: Hurst & Company.

20.  1995, Article, Pakistan, islam och demokrati, in Internationella Studier, Nr 2, Stockholm: Utrikespolitiska Institutet.

21.  1995, Article, Hamdard in Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, New York: Oxford University Press.

22.  1994, Article, Western and Muslim Perceptions of Universal Human Rights, in Afrika Focus (quarterly journal) , Vol. 10, Nr. 1-2, Gent (Belgium).

23.  1994, Article, Sydasiatisk islam. Konfrontation mellan gamla värderingar och nya realitet, in Ingvar Svanborg and David Westerlund (eds), Majoritetens Islam: Om Muslimer utanför Arabvärlden (Islam of the majority: Muslims outside the Arab world), Stockholm: Arena.

24.  1993, Article, Sikherna och sikhisk nationalism (Sikhs and Religious Nationalism), in Erland Jansson (ed), Stat, Nation och Nationalism i Asien, Uppsala: Sällskapet för asienstudier.

25.  1993, Article, Ethnicity and Separatist Movements in South Asia, in Helena Lindholm (ed), Ethnicity and Nationalism: Formation of Identity and Dynamics of Conflict in the 1990s, Göteborg: Nordnes.

26.  1993, Atricle, Abdullahi An-Naim on Constitutional and Human Rights Issues, in Tore Lindholm & Kari Vogt (eds), Islamic Law Reform and Human Rights, Copenhagen, Lund, Oslo, Åbo/Turku: Nordic Human Rights Publications.

27.  1992, Article, Politics of Ethncity, and the Rise of Separatist Movements in South Asia, in Lars Rudebeck (ed), When Democracy Makes Sense, Uppsala: AKUT.

28.  1991, Booklet, Separatiströrelser in Sydasien, (Separatist Movements in South Asia) Utrikes Politiska institutet, Stockholm, December .

29.  1991, Research Report, The Politics of Ethnicity in Sindh: Changing Perceptions of Group Identity, in Törnquist, O and Haellquist, K. R. (eds), Asian Societies in Comparative Perspective, Copenhagen: NIAS/NASEAS.

30.  1991, Research Report, Islam and Pan-Arabism in the Gulf Crisis, Report No. 1991:1, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University.

31.  Research Report, Et Fatwa for Kuwait (A Fatwa for Kuwait) in Vandkunsten, Copenhagen, January 1991.

32.  1990, Research Report, Sikh Separatism in India and the Concept of Khalistan, in in NIAS Report 1990, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen.

33.  1986, Booklet entitled, Indien: demokrati i kris, (India. A democracy in Crisis) The Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

Professor Ishtiaq AHMED :: Visiting Senior Research Fellow :: Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) :: 469A Bukit Timah Road, #07-01 Tower Block, National University of Singapore, Singapore 259770 :: 65-6516 8105 (DID) :: 65-6776 7505 / 65-6314 5447 (Fax) :: isasia@nus.edu.sg (Email) :: www.isas.nus.edu.sg (Website)

 ISAS is dedicated to the study of contemporary South Asia.