Dr. Yaqoob Khan Bangash
Associate Fellow
Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash is a historian of modern South Asia. His research interests lie in the emergence of Pakistan as a post-colonial state, with broader interests in decolonisation, modern state formation, formation of identities, and the emergence of ethnic and identity-based conflicts across South Asia. Dr Bangash’s first book was published by Oxford University Press as, ‘A Princely Affair: Accession and Integration of Princely States in Pakistan, 1947-55,’ in 2015, and he has recently completed another book: ‘Between the Sword and the Pen: The History of the Lahore High Court.’ Furthermore, he is working on a monograph on the imagination of Pakistan as a country after its creation, using the debates of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (1947—56) as primary material.
Dr Bangash has received several grants and honours including the British Academy Writing Workshop grant, 2021, (Co-PI with Professor Faisal Devji at Oxford), the Barakat Trust Major Award Grant (2021), a Research Excellence Fellowship at the Central European University (2019), the Chevening Fellowship to Oxford University (2019), a British Academy Visiting Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London (2018), Senior Fellowship at the Religious Freedom Institute (2017), the David M. Stowe Research Fellowship at Yale (2017), and the American Academy of Religion Collaborative Grant (2017), and the Fellowship of the Presbyterian Historical Society (2015).
Dr Bangash has published in many high impact journals like, Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Journal of Law, Religion and State, and South Asia Research. He also regularly writes for The News, Daily Times, The Express Tribune and other news media. In 2016, Dr Bangash founded the first academic literary festival in Pakistan, the ‘Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest,’ which attracted over 20,000 people in 2024. Over the years, the ThinkFest has hosted several Nobel Laureates, acclaimed academics and authors, and a cross section of politicians, journalists and opinion makers. The ThinkFest attracts students and faculty from all over Pakistan and leads collaboration of over twenty universities, making it the largest academic literary festival in Pakistan, engendering intellectual thought, deliberation and action.
Dr Bangash completed his BA from the University of Notre Dame, IN, USA, and his DPhil from the University of Oxford. From 2016-18, Dr Bangash was also the Director of the Punjab Archives Digitisation Project, which aimed to make accessible the vast archive in the Punjab spanning over three hundred years. He has taught at Forman Christian College (2011-15) and Information Technology University (2015-2022) in Pakistan. He was the Fulbright Fellow for 2022-23, at the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University, USA. Currently, he is Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, IT University, Lahore.