Politics of Heritage Preservation in Pakistan: Colonial Architectural Heritage in Postcolonial Urbanity

This thesis interrogates the politics of heritage in postcolonial Pakistan through the lens of the critical question: Whose Heritage? Focusing on built colonial architecture, urban planning, and museums in Karachi and Lahore, the research examines how heritage is selectively curated, preserved, and instrumentalised to construct national identity. Drawing on theoretical insights, the thesis argues that heritage in Pakistan is not a neutral inheritance, but a contested terrain shaped by state ideologies, elite interests, and silenced communities.
The thesis reveals how colonial planning and architecture, once tools of imperial domination, have been repurposed by the colonially conditioned Pakistani state to legitimise power and construct a homogenised Islamic national narrative. The official narrative celebrates Mughal monuments and Islamic histories, while vernacular histories and traditions are often neglected or reimagined through commodification, tourism, or nostalgia. The urban fabric of Karachi and Lahore are shaped by colonial planning principles of segregations and spatial control that create cities divided along socio-economic frontiers. These divisions also permeate within the heritage sector limiting public access to many heritage sites repurposed to introduce gentrification throughout both the cities. Museums and educational institutions similarly embody authorised heritage discourse (AHD), promoting elite-authored narratives while marginalising plural, and banal histories.
Through archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and critical discourse analysis, this thesis documents grassroots efforts including community-led heritage walks and vernacular practices that challenge dominant narratives and assert alternative claims to heritage. While simultaneously exposing the exclusionary foundations of institutionalised heritage and demanding a more inclusive, dialogic understanding of the past.
Ultimately, this research asserts that heritage in Pakistan is not merely about conservation, but about power, memory, and belonging. The question Whose Heritage? thus becomes a means to uncover historical silences, expose ideological structures, and reimagine more equitable ways of engaging with the past.