To the conscientious and the significant,

As I ponder the meaning of history today, I am reminded of the Persian adage, "History repeats itself and the debt of sorrow remains unpaid." In Pakistan, our understanding of history has been reduced to a simplistic narrative of dates and events, stripped of nuance and complexity. We inherit a legacy of biased chronicles, penned by the victors and rulers, while the voices of the real people remain whispers in the wind. Our art history, in particular, has been a casualty of this myopic approach. The brutal truncation of our cultural heritage, the denial of our pluralistic roots and the propagation of a sanitised, Islamised narrative have left our students bewildered and bereft. We are left grappling with the fragments of a rich legacy, unable to fully comprehend the material evidence in terms of the art that surrounds us.

The burden of genuineness and authenticity demanded from non-Western art historians can be overwhelming. As noted, "scholars of and in the third world often need to refer to........

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