SUBALTERN VOICES IN THE STREETS OF EMPIRE: RECLAIMING COLONIAL HISTORIOGRAPHY OF LAHORE THROUGH TEHQEEQAT-I-CHISHTI

Abstract

As evident in research conducted, the colonial past of Lahore is investigated using the themes of silencing of subaltern and vernacular memory. The study investigated the Tehqeeqat-i-Chishti (1867) of Noor Ahmad Chishti as a counter-archive counterweighing against British epistemological power. The research investigated the social and religious life, opposed the elite colonial accounts, and proved its usefulness in telling different urban histories by treating it as an indigenous historical source. The qualitative analysis of Tehqeeqat-i-Chishti is presented using Subaltern Studies and postcolonial theory; the interpretation of the archival material focused on the accounts of rituals, occupations, and interactions of the communities, which were presented in parallel to the accounts of colonial administration. Chishti is contextualised through second-hand studies. The results revealed that the vernacular discussion of Chishti has saved the marginalised opinions since it recounts Sufi shrines, celebrations, and a broad arrangement of professions. The reading has long-ough pluralism and interfaith relations, which raised criticism to colonial conceptualization of communal segregation. Sufi organizations are revealed to play key roles in the cohesion of society that presented an ethical alternative to colonial reconstruction. Tehqeeqat-i-Chishti clearly acts as a subaltern archive, since it goes against colonially-oriented historiography, by recording the reality of those who did not constitute the elite of Lahore. Findings revealed that vernacular histories are able to recreate an answer to urban memory as being inclusive and it asserts the role of cultural pluralism in resisting epistemic erasure. Therefore, the research added to de-colonial historiography since it manages to validate indigenous sources as valid historical documents.