1 00:00:09,330 --> 00:00:17,490 Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. All the week, seven session of the modern South Asian Studies Seminar here at Oxford. 2 00:00:17,490 --> 00:00:21,300 This week, we are pleased to have here with us Professor Sara Ansari. 3 00:00:21,300 --> 00:00:25,980 Many of you in this virtual audience would be, of course, deeply familiar with Professor Chancelleries work. 4 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:33,510 But I will insist on saying a few words by way of an introduction before I pass on the proverbial mike back to her. 5 00:00:33,510 --> 00:00:39,120 Professor Sara Ansari is a historian of modern South Asia based at Royal Holloway University of London. 6 00:00:39,120 --> 00:00:46,610 Right from her very first book, Sufi Saints and State Power, one of the distinctive features of Professor Ansari scholarship has been the 7 00:00:46,610 --> 00:00:51,450 tension that she has devoted to understanding the province of Sint in Pakistan. 8 00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:58,290 In doing so, her work has brought forth not just fresh perspectives on the nature of state power and everyday politics in South Asia, 9 00:00:58,290 --> 00:01:02,880 but it has also served what I think is a much needed corrective and counterweight to the 10 00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:07,810 dominance of the Punjab region in the history of colonial and post-colonial Pakistan. 11 00:01:07,810 --> 00:01:11,340 Another key thematic area of process and Saudis work is, of course, 12 00:01:11,340 --> 00:01:17,880 the partition of India and Pakistan and a continuing legacy in the lives of ordinary citizens, especially women. 13 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:24,690 Last year, Professor Ansari co-authored a book with Professor William Gould entitled Boundaries of Belonging Localities, Citizens, 14 00:01:24,690 --> 00:01:27,380 Citizenship and Rights in India and Pakistan, 15 00:01:27,380 --> 00:01:33,450 which really again explored the kinds of interactions that took place between ordinary people and everyday state. 16 00:01:33,450 --> 00:01:40,320 In the years immediately following independence, I believe that she is currently working on a monograph on the history of modern Pakistan. 17 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:48,150 And I think it is out of this deep familiarity with the history of the region that traditionally represented a paper titled Jerko Carious or. 18 00:01:48,150 --> 00:01:52,590 He who tells has the right to eat development and the politics agreed on reforms 19 00:01:52,590 --> 00:01:58,640 and in late 1940s and early 1950s consent before a handover to Professor Ansari. 20 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:02,820 I will say that we will have time to take a few questions from the general audience. 21 00:02:02,820 --> 00:02:09,580 So please do use the queue in a bar, which should be right at the bottom of your screen to send in your questions and towards the end of the paper. 22 00:02:09,580 --> 00:02:14,850 We will have the chance to select few questions and have our press on salary respond to some of them. 23 00:02:14,850 --> 00:02:18,540 So over to you, Professor Sorrento. Thank you. 24 00:02:18,540 --> 00:02:24,370 Thank you very much, Emoter. That's very kind introduction. I want to share my screen, so I'm going to do that now. 25 00:02:24,370 --> 00:02:28,620 I think, Clare, I should do that. And then you take it from there. 26 00:02:28,620 --> 00:02:41,280 As I understand it, yes. Somebody could tell me when when the screen is is is shared, then I can. 27 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:46,850 I'll begin my talk show. I thought, I'll let you know when I can see it on my end. 28 00:02:46,850 --> 00:02:55,180 So I can't see it yet. OK, hang on, let me just. 29 00:02:55,180 --> 00:03:01,950 Okey dokey. Share desktop. 30 00:03:01,950 --> 00:03:06,390 Hopefully it'll come soon. Yes. 31 00:03:06,390 --> 00:03:13,360 Yes. Would be brilliant. OK, fine. Well, that's my screen, Chad. 32 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:20,260 So great. Very nice to be speaking to people today. A morgue has just introduced my topic. 33 00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:24,580 So knowing that time is is relatively short. 34 00:03:24,580 --> 00:03:34,110 I'm going to kick straight off with my paper. And what I want to do today or begin my talk today by doing is quoting a relatively recent report. 35 00:03:34,110 --> 00:03:42,730 So from about 2006, it was produced by the world by Ken called securing since future prospects and challenges. 36 00:03:42,730 --> 00:03:51,400 And according to this report, the province of sinned. And you can see I've just kind of highlighted where it is in the world on this map. 37 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:58,260 The province of Sin had the narrowest distribution of land ownership in 21st century Pakistan, 38 00:03:58,260 --> 00:04:08,200 with something like one percent of all farmers there owning 150 percent more land than the combined holdings of 62 percent of small farmers. 39 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:14,070 So we can see the kind of extent of that inequality. 40 00:04:14,070 --> 00:04:19,540 Moreover, to quote the report, given the province's feudal traditions, 41 00:04:19,540 --> 00:04:27,070 progressive ideas and reforms have always taken more time to take root in the interior of sin than in most other areas of Pakistan. 42 00:04:27,070 --> 00:04:31,750 Sint has the highest incidence of absolute landlord landlessness, sorry. 43 00:04:31,750 --> 00:04:37,270 Highest share of tenancy and lowest share of land ownership in the country. 44 00:04:37,270 --> 00:04:42,340 So despite the introduction over the years of reform measures that on paper at least 45 00:04:42,340 --> 00:04:47,080 have been supposed to address this inequality present within the SYNDEY countryside, 46 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:51,580 entrenched, unequal relationships still operate in the province today. 47 00:04:51,580 --> 00:04:56,740 But discussion regarding agrarian reform, more specifically the rights of local sharecropping tenants, 48 00:04:56,740 --> 00:05:02,980 or Hari's, literally the wielder of the plough, has been taking place a scent for a long time. 49 00:05:02,980 --> 00:05:07,780 It began well before independence and has continued there basically ever since. 50 00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:16,030 Indeed, campaigning by since Hari's to improve their lot animated provincial politics in Pakistan's early years. 51 00:05:16,030 --> 00:05:25,450 But my paper is not just about the often overlooked struggle of since Hari's to change the status quo in what was this new state of Pakistan said. 52 00:05:25,450 --> 00:05:28,690 It also touches on ideas about development and progress. 53 00:05:28,690 --> 00:05:36,070 And I put those both in sort of inverted commas as these circulated in the province during that same period. 54 00:05:36,070 --> 00:05:42,880 Discussion regarding optimal ways of organising the agrarian sector in South Asia has deep historical roots going back, 55 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,050 at least from the perspective of the British presence there to the time when and the 56 00:05:47,050 --> 00:05:52,510 manner in which the East India Company secured its revenue bases in the subcontinent. 57 00:05:52,510 --> 00:05:58,060 In the case of Sind following, it's annexation by the British in the mid 19th century, 58 00:05:58,060 --> 00:06:04,270 the status of local hari's these landless peasants was downgraded from that of cultivated to sharecropper. 59 00:06:04,270 --> 00:06:05,980 When were Deros the title? 60 00:06:05,980 --> 00:06:16,120 Often a kind of given to large or traditional headmen and village chieftains were allocated property rights over land under their jurisdiction. 61 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:21,190 From then on land, with Hari's in effect attached, became a saleable commodity. 62 00:06:21,190 --> 00:06:29,740 And as elsewhere in South Asia, the transfer of this property over time became a political issue, contributing to a rise in communal tensions. 63 00:06:29,740 --> 00:06:36,730 By the early 20th century, that was seen as sende as elsewhere, if on a relatively lesser scale. 64 00:06:36,730 --> 00:06:45,370 But whereas legislation in other parts of British India already, some of them created some space for it, for protection in favour of Kennan's. 65 00:06:45,370 --> 00:06:54,220 No such legislation was ever passed in Sydney during the colonial period. And indeed, it wasn't until the early 1970s that the first meaningful, 66 00:06:54,220 --> 00:07:01,070 if largely unsuccessful, attempt to challenge the tenancy status quo really took place. 67 00:07:01,070 --> 00:07:10,100 So this, in a nutshell, is the kind of broader context in which the committee of enquiry on which my paper focuses was set up and tossed 68 00:07:10,100 --> 00:07:18,020 in early 1947 with investigating possible ways of reforming tenancy arrangements in the SYNDEY countryside. 69 00:07:18,020 --> 00:07:25,070 While its verdict, its report published the following May, that is, May 1948, 70 00:07:25,070 --> 00:07:30,080 produced the introduction, which led to the introduction of the Tenancy Act or a Tenancy Act consent. 71 00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:31,880 In 1950, 72 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:45,230 its report and its report recommended against the abolition of the some entire system and the grant of full tenancy rights to Syndey peasants on 73 00:07:45,230 --> 00:07:56,570 the grounds that the latter seldom stayed long in the same place and would be incapable on their own of weathering seasonable crop failures. 74 00:07:56,570 --> 00:08:02,990 It did, however, call for peasant peasants to receive their full share of produce, a better security of tenure. 75 00:08:02,990 --> 00:08:09,320 So this outcome was viewed by contemporaries as confirmation of just how powerful landowners some in Gaza were. 76 00:08:09,320 --> 00:08:13,790 Deros remained in the life and politics of the province. 77 00:08:13,790 --> 00:08:18,260 But the fact that the committee had been commissioned before independence but 78 00:08:18,260 --> 00:08:23,210 only issued its report after the new state of Pakistan had come into existence, 79 00:08:23,210 --> 00:08:28,790 also perhaps offers us the possibility of reflecting on what impact the changing, 80 00:08:28,790 --> 00:08:35,840 the broader changing political circumstances may have had on such discussions and thinking. 81 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:42,710 There were important connexions linking post Second World War reconstruction planning and the early, 82 00:08:42,710 --> 00:08:46,400 in inverted commas, improvement policies that were pursued. 83 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:55,220 However, we see pre independence planning that against the backdrop of World War I tended to stress the need for greater efficiency, 84 00:08:55,220 --> 00:09:01,610 seemingly making way for a growing emphasis on development in this recalibrated 85 00:09:01,610 --> 00:09:08,630 political environment that led up to and then followed independence in 1947. 86 00:09:08,630 --> 00:09:16,640 Not unexpectedly, development rhetoric was often closely connected with the idea of making a break with the recent colonial past. 87 00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:22,400 In the context of early nation building was going to be essential to demonstrate that. 88 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:31,370 Suppose it progress that independence promised and brought had actually come about, or that it had promise had come about. 89 00:09:31,370 --> 00:09:37,550 Efficiency, it could be argued, was all about making existing systems work better development again. 90 00:09:37,550 --> 00:09:46,310 I'm putting all these things in inverted commas. In contrast, change things made places supposedly modern and being modern, at least on paper, 91 00:09:46,310 --> 00:09:52,400 was what independent states needed to aim for, at least in the mid 20th century. 92 00:09:52,400 --> 00:10:04,860 So my paper today really kicks off with me just talking a little bit about an individual agricultural so-called expert, somebody called Roger Thomas. 93 00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:07,340 He was knighted, sir became Sir Roger Thomas. 94 00:10:07,340 --> 00:10:13,550 He was a British landowner and government adviser in Sind who played a major role in determining agrarian 95 00:10:13,550 --> 00:10:21,500 policy in that province during the period that we're looking at staying on in Pakistan after independence. 96 00:10:21,500 --> 00:10:32,190 It was he who chaired the committee of enquiry. So hence he had, you know, an important role in determining its Aspers, its focus and its. 97 00:10:32,190 --> 00:10:39,350 Its findings are then touch on how far earlier planning for post Second World War reconstruction underpinned 98 00:10:39,350 --> 00:10:47,120 and was largely translated into with initiatives aimed at developing agricultural production in the province. 99 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:51,110 And after that, I'll turn to this party committee of enquiry. 100 00:10:51,110 --> 00:10:59,030 It's kind of controversial outcome and political responses in the period that followed with an eye to the bigger story, 101 00:10:59,030 --> 00:11:04,550 I suppose, of agrarian development and hurry politics in post 1947 Sind. 102 00:11:04,550 --> 00:11:11,040 So turning first to Saroja Thomas. I wish I had a photograph just put up while I'm talking about him, 103 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:14,750 but I there's nowhere that I've been able to find a photograph of what he looks like 104 00:11:14,750 --> 00:11:21,590 to just have to imagine him sort of sitting there sort of pulling various strings. 105 00:11:21,590 --> 00:11:30,760 He was the adviser to the government of send in agricultural, agricultural post-war development between 1944 and 1952. 106 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:35,390 And as I said, he chaired this hiree committee of enquiry. 107 00:11:35,390 --> 00:11:43,910 It's kind of, I suppose, more official name was a Sind Farm Tenancy Legislation Committee in 1947 eight. 108 00:11:43,910 --> 00:11:51,200 This Roen allowed Thomas to champion his long held personal belief in the need to restructure and hence inverted commas, 109 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:55,100 improve economic relations in the seedy countryside. 110 00:11:55,100 --> 00:12:00,460 His vision of what needed to change in Syndey agriculture to make it more productive trumped any other consider. 111 00:12:00,460 --> 00:12:06,820 Relations. His strong faith and the positive impact of technology meant that he saw his mandate in terms of addressing 112 00:12:06,820 --> 00:12:16,070 weaknesses in since agricultural arrangements rather than the pursuit of a root and branch land reform agenda. 113 00:12:16,070 --> 00:12:20,840 Thomas was a Welshman born in 1886, in Pembrokeshire in 1913. 114 00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:27,920 He was appointed the Indian Agricultural Service as a deputy director of agriculture in Madras during the First World War. 115 00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:34,280 Thanks to the Indian government's interests in the economic potential of what would later become Iraq than Mesopotamia, 116 00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:39,890 he was seconded to the government of India's foreign a political department in 1970 to serve as the 117 00:12:39,890 --> 00:12:46,640 cotton expert with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force being given the military rank of captain. 118 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:51,720 In due course, that is in 1923, he was appointed director of agriculture there. 119 00:12:51,720 --> 00:13:00,020 But in 1926 he resigned from government service and became the managing director of a cotton plantation company in Iraq. 120 00:13:00,020 --> 00:13:07,280 Having decided that his future lay in, quote, entrepreneurial agriculture by the late 1920s, 121 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:12,590 he'd returned to India, this time as an independent agricultural businessman. 122 00:13:12,590 --> 00:13:18,860 And first he worked in the Punjab as managing director of the British Cotton Growing Association, 123 00:13:18,860 --> 00:13:25,700 but ultimately shifted in 1932 to the District of Midfoot Costs incident, where, with two Indian partners, 124 00:13:25,700 --> 00:13:29,540 he formed a private company, the Sind Land Development Company, 125 00:13:29,540 --> 00:13:38,600 to farm lands reclaimed there as a result of the recently completed Lloyd Farraj or Sukkur Barrage Irrigation Project. 126 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:45,500 He remained in this role through to his death in 1960, though undoubtedly a large sum in DA himself. 127 00:13:45,500 --> 00:13:53,180 Thomas, to be fair, was far removed from the stereotypical image associated with this label, at least in the context of Sende. 128 00:13:53,180 --> 00:13:58,490 Rather, he was a very well informed exponent of modernising agrarian production, 129 00:13:58,490 --> 00:14:04,070 something that would fuse them and doesn't send were really that interested. Before 1947, 130 00:14:04,070 --> 00:14:09,050 he had maintained contact with like minded organisations and individuals across and beyond 131 00:14:09,050 --> 00:14:15,590 the subcontinent with the aim of generating more efficient agricultural production. 132 00:14:15,590 --> 00:14:20,790 In late 1944, at the prompting of the then governor of Sind, the Sin Premier, 133 00:14:20,790 --> 00:14:25,580 Hidayatullah appointed Thomas to his cabinet as Minister for Agriculture. 134 00:14:25,580 --> 00:14:30,680 But the appointment of an unelected European to ministerial office at precisely the 135 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:35,810 time when nationalist pressure was mounting across the region was badly received. 136 00:14:35,810 --> 00:14:42,350 And so within a month, Hidayatullah, under pressure from Ginna Muslim League leader, had dropped Thomas. 137 00:14:42,350 --> 00:14:46,640 However, a compromise solution was quickly found, and as said earlier, 138 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:55,910 Thomas's role was converted into that of the governor government of sins advisor in agriculture and post-war development. 139 00:14:55,910 --> 00:15:01,610 Two aspects of his advisory role were closely intertwined, since in a highly agrarian province such as Sind. 140 00:15:01,610 --> 00:15:07,580 Development planning was bound to be inextricably linked with agriculture closely linked to his 141 00:15:07,580 --> 00:15:12,860 functions as agricultural flies were a string of appointments in various other official committees, 142 00:15:12,860 --> 00:15:22,220 commissions of enquiry and other expert bodies, as well as the whole business of irrigation and problems of water, logging and soil salinity. 143 00:15:22,220 --> 00:15:28,100 Another of his ambitions focussed on the spreading of co-operative methods of agriculture in his views. 144 00:15:28,100 --> 00:15:32,120 These offered the possibility of increasing agricultural efficiency, 145 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:38,330 which in turn would raise rural living standards and alongside all of this, indulging his private passions. 146 00:15:38,330 --> 00:15:43,670 He chaired the Pakistan Flower Show for most of the 1950s. 147 00:15:43,670 --> 00:15:51,560 Somewhat, Thomas's collective activities point to, albeit via sort of one well-placed individual. 148 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:56,780 All the efforts that were beginning from the late stages of the Second World War made by the government, 149 00:15:56,780 --> 00:16:04,010 India and also provincial governments to plan the post-war reconstruction of the region send a newly created. 150 00:16:04,010 --> 00:16:06,440 It was only created in 1936. 151 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:16,730 Small and relatively marginal province had been drawn squarely into the wartime crisis, both as an allied military centre excuse me, 152 00:16:16,730 --> 00:16:24,010 and a source of foodstuffs exportable to other parts of British India as and when required. 153 00:16:24,010 --> 00:16:30,310 Once the war seemed to be ending, plans are to be put on hold with the outbreak of war quickly resurfaced. 154 00:16:30,310 --> 00:16:37,870 By March 45, the provincial authorities have decided that what was needed was conscious and planned development, with the government leading the way. 155 00:16:37,870 --> 00:16:43,120 But they recognise that the province would have to rely mainly on its own financial resources rather than 156 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:49,810 rely on problematic grants and subsidies from the centre to drive the province's draught master plan, 157 00:16:49,810 --> 00:16:59,980 whose first priorities were irrigation, including the projected construction of a loess in barrage in the vicinity of Hyderabad and agriculture. 158 00:16:59,980 --> 00:17:05,590 The following year, these post-war development challenges was summed up in a report produced for the Senate Cabinet. 159 00:17:05,590 --> 00:17:10,990 In the finance secretary's view, the first stage of planning was to prepare individual schemes. 160 00:17:10,990 --> 00:17:19,720 The next would be to accommodate these within a programme with a clear sense, a great sense of priorities and the limits of capacity. 161 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:23,950 Either way, this course of action called for an immediate rise in taxation. 162 00:17:23,950 --> 00:17:34,400 If taxation was on was not not acceptable on the scale that the finance authorities felt it should be, 163 00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:41,500 then the province would have to be content with fewer roads, dispensary's farms, schools and so on. 164 00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:48,340 By 1947, of course, the broader landscape pollute. Political landscape was in the process of being radically reconfigured. 165 00:17:48,340 --> 00:17:53,980 With independence came partition and obviously sand was included within the new state of Pakistan. 166 00:17:53,980 --> 00:17:59,020 So in this context, the fledging Pakistani authorities are both provincial and federal level placed. 167 00:17:59,020 --> 00:18:06,760 Huge rhetorical emphasis on developing the new state. Technical or technological progress was to be the order of the day. 168 00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:11,900 As I said before, becoming modern was what needed to happen to Pakistan and Pakistanis. 169 00:18:11,900 --> 00:18:19,720 And for this to happen. In turn, there had to be development. So in a manner reminiscent of discussions in the years running up to 1947, 170 00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:23,980 the Pakistani states close identification with UN sponsorship of development programmes 171 00:18:23,980 --> 00:18:29,800 and projects was viewed as crucial to its wider public or popular legitimacy. 172 00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:34,300 On the other hand, the harsh reality was that newly created the newly created State of Bucks, 173 00:18:34,300 --> 00:18:38,920 I'll find it very difficult to meet its everyday needs and shortages of essential items 174 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:44,050 and rationing were experienced by most Pakistanis in the year is following independence. 175 00:18:44,050 --> 00:18:53,230 Pakistan was forced to go cap in hand to international organisations and austerity was the order of the day. 176 00:18:53,230 --> 00:19:02,260 I think we should also note by the 1940s and certainly by 1957, perhaps a little bit confusingly, 177 00:19:02,260 --> 00:19:11,320 there also existed in send a vocal send Hari committees or something totally different to the Harry. 178 00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:19,900 Committee of Enquiry. This Hurry committee represented Harry interests and had been founded back in 1930 by amongst others. 179 00:19:19,900 --> 00:19:26,320 GM cited late becoming since most high profile nationalist politician. 180 00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:33,580 By 1947, however, the leadership of the Centenary Committee lay with head a toy whose photograph I do 181 00:19:33,580 --> 00:19:38,290 have a former provincial civil servant who towards the end of the Second World War, 182 00:19:38,290 --> 00:19:45,670 had resigned as a deputy collector in order to champion the rights of since landless peasantry. 183 00:19:45,670 --> 00:19:51,190 Moreover, there had been, we should just note, hidden in the middle during the war in 1943, 184 00:19:51,190 --> 00:19:59,050 a government sponsored tenancy committee that had already produced some recommendations regarding tenancy rights. 185 00:19:59,050 --> 00:20:06,580 But due to the uncertainties associated with the war, no immediate follow up action had been taken on this report. 186 00:20:06,580 --> 00:20:13,840 So in nineteen forty seven March 1947, just winding back at Cutch before the creation of Pakistan itself, 187 00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:19,900 when Pakistan was still actually far from a done deal and under pressure from Central League leaders. 188 00:20:19,900 --> 00:20:27,370 I mean, Jinnah, it is said, considered the uplift of cultivators in the province to be, quote, the foremost necessity of the day. 189 00:20:27,370 --> 00:20:37,240 I mean, he was worried about what he called communistic influence and its chances of spreading fast over the rural population there. 190 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:41,920 But anyway, under pressure from people like Jinnah since then, 191 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:48,310 Premier appointed a five man committee to enquire into tenancy arrangements that we've got Thomas's chair. 192 00:20:48,310 --> 00:20:52,260 And then we have Seddiqi, a bureaucrat and a landlord. 193 00:20:52,260 --> 00:20:59,410 Kakkar, a landlord from Larkana, Gopi Chand, who was a Hindu landlord or Hindu landowner, I should say. 194 00:20:59,410 --> 00:21:05,380 And then the most well known of this group of five, Masood Mohammed Masood Masood, 195 00:21:05,380 --> 00:21:09,760 rather, the last serving district officer who was collector of Nawab Shah, 196 00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:17,800 had won a reputation already for his Hari Uplift work, but who proved often unable to attend the committee meetings in Karachi. 197 00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:24,880 Which one could informer's feeling a bit sort of conspiratorial think was what was partly planned from the start. 198 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:25,720 Significantly, 199 00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:34,840 Masood was not well liked by men cyndie politicians at the time precisely because of his open support in the run up to independence for Hari rights. 200 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:40,660 He was described in the press locally as a pro Pakistan ISIS officer. 201 00:21:40,660 --> 00:21:49,810 Kind of, in a sense, accused of encouraging Hari's not to contravene produce towards the payment of debts contracted by their Salman doesn't know. 202 00:21:49,810 --> 00:21:58,000 Let's just move. This is a picture of Masood, who you probably have heard about already in relation to work that he did later in his life. 203 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:07,330 But anyway, so here are some of the kinds of things which were said about him. 204 00:22:07,330 --> 00:22:10,930 The Cabinet Party Committee of enquiry, once established, 205 00:22:10,930 --> 00:22:19,060 operated in a fairly or pretty classic fashion holding meetings over a period stretching from March 47 to early 48. 206 00:22:19,060 --> 00:22:26,170 Thomas led the proceedings. Gathering information from both within Pakistan and abroad and the other members. 207 00:22:26,170 --> 00:22:32,800 Apart from Masood seemed to go along in the main with whatever he recommended, only occasionally disagreeing. 208 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:39,310 But as the committee's minutes showed, Masood proved a repeated thorn in Thomas's side from urging changes to the 209 00:22:39,310 --> 00:22:44,560 committee's initial terms of reference to challenging its working procedures. 210 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:50,860 And their disagreement over the terms of reference, for instance, reveals the basic difference of opinion between the two men. 211 00:22:50,860 --> 00:22:58,420 Whereas Masood seemed to be hoping for, quote, radical reform that would restructure agrarian relationships in the countryside. 212 00:22:58,420 --> 00:23:05,980 Thomas interpreted the committee's remit to find to mean finding ways to develop the province's agrarian potential. 213 00:23:05,980 --> 00:23:12,520 What was important for him was not who owned the land, but how the land was formed or farm. 214 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:21,310 I should say. Progress on reaching a set of agreed recommendations proved slower than Thomas had originally anticipated. 215 00:23:21,310 --> 00:23:28,780 By October 1947, the committee's attempt to generate data by distributing a questionnaire had, not surprisingly, 216 00:23:28,780 --> 00:23:33,850 considering the disruptions caused by the wider partition related political 217 00:23:33,850 --> 00:23:38,800 developments of the previous six months produced only a very meagre response. 218 00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:43,840 Instead, it was decided oral evidence would be collected from a select number of witnesses, 219 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:50,360 most of whom were to be landlords or landholders or or local politicians and only a handful of. 220 00:23:50,360 --> 00:23:56,040 Three representatives were interviewed, including head to botched toy and his colleague, 221 00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:03,360 a little kid there who was the editor of the Harry Hot Car newspaper produced in his robot. 222 00:24:03,360 --> 00:24:11,070 Now, the committee's majority report, which was presented to the same government in July 1948, wasn't immune to the Hari's plight. 223 00:24:11,070 --> 00:24:16,110 It did draw attention to the huge inequalities present in the Sindy countryside. 224 00:24:16,110 --> 00:24:25,690 It would have been hard for it not to have done so. By the late 40s, Hari's made up more than 50 percent of the province's total rural population. 225 00:24:25,690 --> 00:24:30,990 Now that not only did they pay half the produce off of the land over to their sum in dollars, but, you know, 226 00:24:30,990 --> 00:24:39,150 landlords typically deducted various levies which inevitably reduce the Haresh share of any profit. 227 00:24:39,150 --> 00:24:48,540 So the report wasn't didn't pull, in a sense, any punches when it came to the challenges of that Hari's faced. 228 00:24:48,540 --> 00:24:53,050 But to sympathetic observers, it was surprising, 229 00:24:53,050 --> 00:25:00,690 having produced such a dismal picture of living conditions in rural Sind that the committee did not then recommend reforms or much more, 230 00:25:00,690 --> 00:25:06,270 I suppose, radical reform to raise incomes and living conditions there. 231 00:25:06,270 --> 00:25:11,100 Instead, it seemed almost that the report was suggesting that the problems of Hari's either of 232 00:25:11,100 --> 00:25:16,940 their own creation or perhaps natural problems or the result of government neglect, 233 00:25:16,940 --> 00:25:22,320 that the landlord was a friend of the hierarchy at heart and consequently land reforms were 234 00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:32,670 undesirable and would even really represent a kind of a loss of just a lost fault for the hurry. 235 00:25:32,670 --> 00:25:39,840 So this outcome was extremely disappointing to those who had expected more concrete reform and to Tahari activists. 236 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:48,670 One response suggested that while the. Reports proposed tenancy. 237 00:25:48,670 --> 00:25:58,130 And so of the proposed tenancy legislation was touted as giving Cindy Hari's an opportunity to stand on their own two legs, 238 00:25:58,130 --> 00:26:03,470 quote, in order for them to stand erect, some indoors should get off their backs first. 239 00:26:03,470 --> 00:26:09,650 But from the perspectives of the supporters of the report, what was urgently needed in Cindy was not land reform, 240 00:26:09,650 --> 00:26:16,970 but improved more modern, more developed tenancy arrangements, which would in turn support more developed. 241 00:26:16,970 --> 00:26:21,560 That word again. Agricultural production and hence raise productivity. 242 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:26,210 So all aspirations that were totally in line with the long held views of its primary. 243 00:26:26,210 --> 00:26:36,010 Author Thomas Now Masood dissented with the majority opinion, as mentioned before. 244 00:26:36,010 --> 00:26:42,920 He stuck to his guns and refused to add his name to the report. Instead, he produced a note of dissent. 245 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:47,300 This is something that had been originally allowed and he decided this is what he was going to do. 246 00:26:47,300 --> 00:26:52,490 He presented it to the authorities in July 1948 also. 247 00:26:52,490 --> 00:26:57,620 But what he didn't expect was for his opinion to be then kept from the public. 248 00:26:57,620 --> 00:27:01,320 It was held back. 249 00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:17,960 And as these quotes that I've got up on the screen at the moment suggest there, you know, it it it triggered some commentary at that time. 250 00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,870 I mean, the Pakistan times that still at that time, 251 00:27:20,870 --> 00:27:34,450 a left leaning publication often critical of the authorities for failing to meet the expectations of Pakistan's common man noted that. 252 00:27:34,450 --> 00:27:46,520 That's what that note of dissent was actually recommending, complete nationalisation of of of land. 253 00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:52,190 Masood, who referred to the condition of the Horwitz's deplorable and so forth, 254 00:27:52,190 --> 00:27:58,010 was calling for the complete abolition of the Southern dowry system with minimum compensation. 255 00:27:58,010 --> 00:28:00,020 But importantly, I think we need to note, 256 00:28:00,020 --> 00:28:06,920 he also allocated his eloquence squarely in the context of the post partition refugee challenges facing Pakistan, 257 00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:18,290 setting out his case as follows a saying, I believe we can take several lakhs of refugees providing we overall overhaul our land tenure system. 258 00:28:18,290 --> 00:28:23,150 And he went on at some length along those lines. 259 00:28:23,150 --> 00:28:27,840 Indeed, in his desire to encourage the province's development. 260 00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:37,190 Masood pitched his own, I suppose, argument in terms of him being fully in agreement with his committee colleagues. 261 00:28:37,190 --> 00:28:44,670 I mean, there is no doubt he was committed to precisely the mechanised agrarian development that Thomas was also strongly recommending. 262 00:28:44,670 --> 00:28:55,550 But as I've said, where he deviated from his committee colleagues was in relation to who owned the land. 263 00:28:55,550 --> 00:29:01,150 Obviously, he, I suppose. 264 00:29:01,150 --> 00:29:07,000 On this is this this was this kind of rhetoric that I've got on the screen in front of you, where he's describing in a way, 265 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:20,110 the lot of the Cindy hurry, which really, I suppose, resonated with those who later on came to see the content of his reply or of his dissenting note. 266 00:29:20,110 --> 00:29:31,780 Anyway. Protests at the withholding of Massouda note of dissent quickly mounted with younger Muslim League members putting 267 00:29:31,780 --> 00:29:38,410 pressure on the provincial party and on district league committees to pass resolutions demanding its publication. 268 00:29:38,410 --> 00:29:46,420 Students Too Agitated. Even the president of the Pakistan Muslim League personally appealed to the sin governor governor 269 00:29:46,420 --> 00:29:51,430 urging him to intervene so that the provincial government would yield to public demand. 270 00:29:51,430 --> 00:29:52,530 To add a further twist, 271 00:29:52,530 --> 00:30:00,970 a pamphlet signed by 16 Ulema alleged that the note of dissents contents were UN Islamic and that its right to had communist leanings. 272 00:30:00,970 --> 00:30:10,450 On the other hand, some commentators suggested that any justification of some bhandari by the Ulema would help to drive the masses away from religion. 273 00:30:10,450 --> 00:30:19,930 Anyway, to cut what is quite a long story short with a new sound minister in post who was less reliant on his predecessor for land support. 274 00:30:19,930 --> 00:30:27,820 I'm talking about use of Haroon Cyndie. Authorities finally published Massouda Note in June 1949. 275 00:30:27,820 --> 00:30:38,290 And, you know, this is when the kind of the rhetoric that I've just put on the screen of Psy made quite an impact. 276 00:30:38,290 --> 00:30:45,310 In the meantime, the Sinda authorities had already published a bill in March 1949 announcing legislation 277 00:30:45,310 --> 00:30:51,820 intended to regulate the rights and liabilities of tenants and landlords in the province. 278 00:30:51,820 --> 00:30:58,900 Let's move on. All the while, the S.R.O. committee, and this is its flag. 279 00:30:58,900 --> 00:31:02,740 We've got obviously the documents on the right hand side. 280 00:31:02,740 --> 00:31:09,960 This is later produced in 1952 when, you know, how is it petitioning for amendments to the Senate Tenancy Act? 281 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:19,340 Horror's all the while under head boxes leadership. We're keeping up the sustained campaign to maintain public awareness of the horrid plight. 282 00:31:19,340 --> 00:31:25,000 No demands at periodic intervals that include calling for hereditary rights on land and the 283 00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:35,400 substitute of the kind of crop sharing system with cash rents included in the demands of the. 284 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:45,570 Or now being beat by the Hardy Santara committee were also wider issues like education to be made universal, free and compulsory. 285 00:31:45,570 --> 00:31:48,900 And new elections to be held on the basis of adult franchise people. 286 00:31:48,900 --> 00:31:54,300 And, you know, across Pakistan this time of becoming very frustrated that the elections were not being held, 287 00:31:54,300 --> 00:32:01,920 despite all the promise that had come with independence. A convention, for example, 288 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:11,550 organised by Hari leaders in Karachi in March 1949 highlighted the lack the absence of any Hari representative or representation, 289 00:32:11,550 --> 00:32:19,320 rather, in the existing Legislative Assembly. 290 00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:23,520 At the end of that particular meeting, its president, apparently flushed with excitement, 291 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:27,840 declared that Hari's were not prepared to give up the red flag. It was the flag of the oppressed. 292 00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:36,160 And as long as exploitation exploitation continued so long with the red flag be the symbol of their struggle against oppression. 293 00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:44,130 You know, in 1950, as the bill was being debated, more than 15000 peasants from across the province gathered in Karachi. 294 00:32:44,130 --> 00:32:47,810 They conducted a sit in outside the Sind Legislative Assembly. 295 00:32:47,810 --> 00:32:55,710 And such was the disruption that the assembly members weren't allowed to leave the building while the protest was going on. 296 00:32:55,710 --> 00:33:00,090 Despite the fanfare that greeted the legislation in some quarters, the act as a kick. 297 00:33:00,090 --> 00:33:04,050 I suppose I signalled from the start fail to make any real difference. 298 00:33:04,050 --> 00:33:13,260 Tahari lives by March 1951. The newly reappointed since Chief Minister M.A. Chloro, who was a large Landel holder himself, 299 00:33:13,260 --> 00:33:20,400 felt sufficiently confident to declare much to the surprise of contemporaries that, you know, Ahari problem did not exist in the province. 300 00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:28,400 Only in some newspaper offices. And he suggested that thanks to recent irrigation developments, which had increased the amount of land to be farmed, 301 00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:35,130 it was actually poor zamin dogs who allied with each other to secure the services of the Hari's. 302 00:33:35,130 --> 00:33:42,570 So that then triggered, obviously, press comments along the lines of what Mr Currow did not say was that he was determined to make his quote, 303 00:33:42,570 --> 00:33:46,890 poor some adults richer and the rich hari poorer. 304 00:33:46,890 --> 00:33:55,200 So this period of the early fifties sees no public meetings, pressure being put on, 305 00:33:55,200 --> 00:34:04,420 I suppose, the authorities in different ways by Hari's and their representatives. 306 00:34:04,420 --> 00:34:09,410 Again, in a meeting in 1950. You know, 307 00:34:09,410 --> 00:34:15,220 the sort of the message that came from that meeting was that nothing short of the immediate dissolution 308 00:34:15,220 --> 00:34:21,460 of the assembly and new elections on the basis of universal franchise would satisfy the peasants. 309 00:34:21,460 --> 00:34:28,390 And as head a box, Dutoit pointed out, in spite of 15 years of service of the Hiree Committee for the cause of Hari's, 310 00:34:28,390 --> 00:34:30,880 they're still at the mercy and some does. 311 00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:39,470 They have no proprietary interest in the land, and the Tenancy Act passed last year has still not been enforced until now. 312 00:34:39,470 --> 00:34:47,290 And I could go on and I probably shouldn't go on too long about this, but there are, you know, interesting sort of grass, grass roots. 313 00:34:47,290 --> 00:34:52,900 So activities, activism is being demonstrated through this time. 314 00:34:52,900 --> 00:34:54,350 I mean, we can think, you know. 315 00:34:54,350 --> 00:35:01,900 No, we appreciate that the early 50s were, you know, a pivotal time for Pakistan in terms of its political development. 316 00:35:01,900 --> 00:35:07,780 But I think it's important to factor in what's going on at grassroots level in somewhere like Sende, 317 00:35:07,780 --> 00:35:13,000 which has tended not to be sort of brought into this this bigger picture. 318 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:23,560 What made the matter especially urgent in the early 50s was also the worsening food situation in parts of Sind, let alone the rest of the country. 319 00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:32,530 You know, at a conference held in Macourt in July 1952, reportedly attended by about 20000 people and presided over by FARE's Ahmed FARE's, 320 00:35:32,530 --> 00:35:36,500 who was then secretary of the All Pakistan Confederation of Labour. 321 00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:43,530 The Hari Federation, as it called itself, then issued another call for the abolition of some and Dari. 322 00:35:43,530 --> 00:35:53,530 Some in Dari needed to be abolished without compensation. It called for a land allotted to toilets of the soil on an equitable basis. 323 00:35:53,530 --> 00:35:58,720 I think there's one last point that I just want to make because I appreciate there's got to be some time for questions. 324 00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:03,980 And time has passed very, very quickly. I think the there's an elephant in the room of all of this. 325 00:36:03,980 --> 00:36:10,810 And this is really where refugees, agriculturalists fitted into the picture. 326 00:36:10,810 --> 00:36:14,650 In a sense, they were the elephant in the room. The messy politics, 327 00:36:14,650 --> 00:36:24,580 foreign partition certainly complicated the realities and options involved on the ground in somewhere like Sydney because refugees, cultivators. 328 00:36:24,580 --> 00:36:31,930 It's very clear, often ended up in competition with so-called locals when it came to the allocation of agricultural land during this period, 329 00:36:31,930 --> 00:36:40,990 whether that was land left behind by migrating Hindus or made available by development, say, in in irrigation. 330 00:36:40,990 --> 00:36:48,580 So, you know, this this idea that there was somehow first will a labour problem in in the province. 331 00:36:48,580 --> 00:36:53,650 I think yes. I have a quote from a newspaper article from 1952. 332 00:36:53,650 --> 00:37:03,160 This idea that there was a labour problem that could way be resolved by integrating more, 333 00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:12,100 let's call them refugee agriculturalists into its agricultural landscape was a sort of subtext 334 00:37:12,100 --> 00:37:19,780 to a great deal of what we see being discussed as that last couple of lines on this quote, 335 00:37:19,780 --> 00:37:26,170 say, with such a measure. In other words, adopted, this government will not necessarily be a loser. 336 00:37:26,170 --> 00:37:34,790 Quote, It will have doubled its land under the cultivation, giving a fillip to the grown will scheme and revenue put in crease. 337 00:37:34,790 --> 00:37:40,770 But by the mid 1950s, if we look at a report that was compiled by US officials, you know, 338 00:37:40,770 --> 00:37:46,450 there had been evidently very, very little progress made as far as addressing the Hari predicament. 339 00:37:46,450 --> 00:37:52,000 Hari's had to apply for their rights due to an awareness of the law or fear of the landlord. 340 00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:56,560 Not even five percent, it seemed, had gained them since the passage of the act. 341 00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:02,620 Loopholes. It seemed, again, according to the report, permitted the landholder to follow the letter, 342 00:38:02,620 --> 00:38:09,130 if not the spirit of the law, which in the case of Sind was emasculated, as it put it, by evasive language. 343 00:38:09,130 --> 00:38:13,390 And so this particular report concluded that the passage of the legislation there, 344 00:38:13,390 --> 00:38:20,860 rather than strengthening tenant rights, had led to the widespread eviction of tenants. 345 00:38:20,860 --> 00:38:30,610 So really, I think this is probably where I would just like to end up making just one final comment, 346 00:38:30,610 --> 00:38:36,070 which in a way involves me returning perhaps to the points I made at the beginning of my paper. 347 00:38:36,070 --> 00:38:41,080 I think it's worth reiterating that rural poverty and send remains pervasive. 348 00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:47,650 Again, with some stats just to back this up, some 19 percent of urban Cindi's are classed as poor, 349 00:38:47,650 --> 00:38:53,020 but over twice as many rural Cindi's fall into this category within St. 350 00:38:53,020 --> 00:39:00,820 Within Pakistan, again, Sint has the widest rural urban gap and the largest disparity in quotes, human development. 351 00:39:00,820 --> 00:39:04,930 Though the province may contain amongst the highest per capita Pakistani incomes, 352 00:39:04,930 --> 00:39:15,610 in part the effect of being home to the mega port city of Karachi alongside its extremely wealthy land home owners. 353 00:39:15,610 --> 00:39:20,530 With around one million hiree families cultivating land under sharecropping arrangements, 354 00:39:20,530 --> 00:39:25,870 its human development indicators in rural areas remain the worst in the country. 355 00:39:25,870 --> 00:39:32,320 Technological developments aside, as symbolised by the increased number of tractors now used in the SYNDEY countryside, 356 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:37,390 deep structural inequalities remain at the heart of life in this part of Pakistan. 357 00:39:37,390 --> 00:39:45,020 And I think, you know, we can definitely see an enormous, I suppose, continuity's, even if some of the, 358 00:39:45,020 --> 00:39:51,250 you know, some of the things some things have changed, but the continuity is evident and very evident to see. 359 00:39:51,250 --> 00:39:57,610 So I know I think I should stop here because my clock is telling me that we're about 20 to three. 360 00:39:57,610 --> 00:40:08,420 And I know there may be questions that you'd like me to address. So thank you. 361 00:40:08,420 --> 00:40:10,100 Thank you so much for that, Sara. 362 00:40:10,100 --> 00:40:16,730 And let me just start out by saying and a while, if there are any questions from the audience, please do start sending them in. 363 00:40:16,730 --> 00:40:20,220 We have already had one or two questions. 364 00:40:20,220 --> 00:40:27,490 Perhaps you just want to start by saying that I like to try to use evidence of the U.S. military co-defendants and we will. 365 00:40:27,490 --> 00:40:30,160 You ended by connecting that to the present moment. 366 00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:36,660 And it's likely comical that just yesterday the former Russian chief minister of India there in defence of it, 367 00:40:36,660 --> 00:40:42,770 said that, you know, the party wants to one day take over, send them the city of Karachi in particular. 368 00:40:42,770 --> 00:40:48,450 So I think that I think people always could not have been more interesting. 369 00:40:48,450 --> 00:40:55,490 We have a question from Sayed Karzai, who is perhaps sort of taking forward the point from the title of your paper. 370 00:40:55,490 --> 00:41:04,760 And he says the translation of Jeckle Carious or. He says that perhaps to interpret it as has the right to meet is perhaps a bit too strong. 371 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:10,160 And it can be translated as is can eat rather than has the right to eat. 372 00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:16,640 And I'm wondering if you could see a bit more on that and how you said that in the language of rights. 373 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:25,750 OK. Well, I certainly would defer to someone who who will have a much stronger grasp of language than me. 374 00:41:25,750 --> 00:41:31,250 I suppose it's that idea of you can eat who who he who tells. 375 00:41:31,250 --> 00:41:41,650 P, sorry. Not being clear. He who tells how can eat. 376 00:41:41,650 --> 00:41:50,530 I chose that sort of that that saying really to us as a title for this paper, 377 00:41:50,530 --> 00:42:02,020 because I felt that it kind of captured a connexion between the Hiria as as the producer on the one hand, 378 00:42:02,020 --> 00:42:16,120 and the Hari as somebody entitled to a particular sort of set of rights almost that came or were associated or associated with with the. 379 00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:27,440 The tasks that they carry out, so. I can't really sorry, I'm I'm being I'm stumbling because I'm not quite sure what else to say apart from that, 380 00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:33,490 I would be it would be great to hear what actually Saïd himself thought on this matter. 381 00:42:33,490 --> 00:42:37,820 All right. Arguably, the system doesn't allow it, so don't worry. 382 00:42:37,820 --> 00:42:40,860 OK, say that there is a phone. No question you can upload. 383 00:42:40,860 --> 00:42:46,950 But but, Sarah, if I could sort of ask you in terms of your alter, your book that you quoted last year with William Gould. 384 00:42:46,950 --> 00:42:52,090 Yes. Perhaps we can bring that into the conversation where you very much develop how citizens 385 00:42:52,090 --> 00:42:56,810 in the spirit world were using the language of rights and were making citizenship claims. 386 00:42:56,810 --> 00:43:01,910 And do you perhaps see this fitting in that broader theoretical narrative that you put forward in that book? 387 00:43:01,910 --> 00:43:06,520 What do you see this as something different to the argument of representing the. 388 00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:15,470 I know I do. You're right. I see this as being part and parcel of that same argument, because I think that what I would see or how what I would see, 389 00:43:15,470 --> 00:43:23,990 I suppose Hari's in Cindy's being perhaps one example of if not exactly hitting citizens, 390 00:43:23,990 --> 00:43:32,930 but citizens certainly pushed to the margins when it came to being in a position to, you know, 391 00:43:32,930 --> 00:43:47,510 take benefit from and enjoy the the new sets of rights in inverted commas that came to be associated with the creating of a new state. 392 00:43:47,510 --> 00:44:02,680 So I think that I would certainly, yes, definitely link the struggles of of Hari's in somewhere like Sydney to the bigger picture of. 393 00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:15,670 Know marginalised groups of citizens who were not able to enjoy the full fruits of citizenship post independence. 394 00:44:15,670 --> 00:44:29,840 So this idea in a way of of differentiated citizenship, coming into play with different groups of citizens, having a differential access to. 395 00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:38,360 The sort of. Being to being a citizen, so, yes, it's part and parcel for me is the same, the same. 396 00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,340 So if you want to call it theoretical approach. Right. 397 00:44:42,340 --> 00:44:49,600 Thank you. So your for your question. I'm afraid we are out of time, so we might have to leave it there. 398 00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:54,070 This also brings to a close the modern politicians have not only restored the term Michaelmas, 399 00:44:54,070 --> 00:45:01,090 we have a wonderful line of speakers next term and I hope that many of you will join us next term. 400 00:45:01,090 --> 00:45:06,250 But until then, please join me in thanking Professor Saren. Sorry for that wonderful paper. 401 00:45:06,250 --> 00:45:12,470 And I look forward to seeing a whole lot of you next term as well. 402 00:45:12,470 --> 00:45:20,392 Thank you. Shall I leave this now, then come back?