Sociology of a nation

Aquila Berlas Kiani, known for her theories on sociology in Pakistan, and widely praised across the Indian subcontinent, passed away today in 2012.

Smiling image of the Sociologist; Source: Wikipedia

Aquila Berlas Kiani, known for her pioneering work in sociology and education, was born in 1921 in British India. Her work would become famous as little was known in the West about the subcontinent’s actual sociology, than colonial-tainted accounts which were more often than not suited to their own ideology and its justification. In this kind of world, Aquila made her mark as a scholar of the home country she would eventually belong to, Pakistan.

Her family was a wealthy one - the father, a barrister, being descended from a courtier of the royal courts of Mughal Delhi, and the mother, was a daughter of the last Nawab of Sardhana, in present day Western Uttar Pradesh. Kiani would receive her degrees from India, the UK, the US, and Canada - with her studying career spanning over a decade from 1943-1955.

She would return to her home country of Pakistan to work in Sociology, especially in Rural Sociology and Anthropology, becoming the head of the Department of Social Work in Peshawar. She would publish and research several academic works on a large range of subjects concerning issues of rural and national concern, as well as raise public awareness for them. Likewise, she would hold several positions as President of the Pakistan Federation of University Women, President of the Pakistan Sociological Association, and founding President of the Soroptimist Club of Karachi.

Her works and publications into rural areas, especially on rural children, women, teaching, special sciences, new approaches to humanities, family planning, suicide causes, and overall plans into the research conducted by Pakistani sociologists were widely adopted and praised across the subcontinent, which faced nearly similar situations.

This pioneer of South Asian sociology, despite being based in Pakistan, left a larger legacy behind as she passed away, on the 30th of March 2012, in Canada, where she had moved to teach.