Impact of the Orientalist Scholarship on the British Policy and Identity Formation in the Present Day Pakistan

Abstract

This article argues that Orientalist scholarship played a critical role in the formation of British colonial policy and the identity crisis in the Indian subcontinent, especially in the region currently Pakistan. This article explores how British Orientalists interacted with local languages, histories and cultures to create administrative strategies and narratives that legitimized the colonial rule. The study reveals the dual impact of Orientalist scholarship: first, as a tool for control; and second, as a catalyst for identity formation among colonized populations, by analyzing key texts, policies and their socio-political implications. The article also discusses the lasting legacies of these dynamics on contemporary cultural and political identities in Pakistan. Writing as a historiographical work in the context, this article confronts the existing debates on Orientalism that are relevant and applicable to current thought in post-colonial discourse. The output has been strongly indicated to draw a complex mutual interplay amidst knowledge production with governance and identification politics during the British colonial scenario.