In this post we will talk about two topics. One is the dearth of technical books in Urdu and second is the dearth of text books in any language by Pakistani authors at undergraduate and graduate level.
I have a habit. Every few days I like to sit in front of my book shelf and look at my collection. Last time I did that, my wandering eyes got stuck at one book which I had not noticed in while. It was my very own and very dear book of ‘bunyaadi (Basic) Engineering Drawing’ by M Iqbal Khan.
It was first published in 1978 and it used to be one of our text books in First-Year of Engineering(1990). Most of you may know that students in Pakistani Engineering colleges go through 40+ courses in their 4-year degree program but what may surprise you is that none of the text books for these courses are written by Pakistani authros — except for two that I know of. One of them is the bunyaadi (Basic) Engineering Drawing. This was also the only text book written in Urdu which was taught at undergrad level.
That was 20 years ago. Things must’ve changed by now. Hopefully for better. We all know that AutoCad and Solid Works have completely replaced the skills of technical drawing by hand and geometrical tools. No wonder the best cheap drawing tablet is also on the rise to make these digital illustrations possible.
The set of tools called ‘French curves’ may now appear as a reference to human anatomy to many. See a photo of French Curves here.
As I am writing this post, the book of M. Iqbal Khan is next to me and I am going to pick some ‘cheeda cheeda’ (selected) highlights from it. Iqbal Khan was an instructor at Jamia Millia Polytechnic Institute of Malir, Karachi and later taught at Balochistan Engineering College in Khuzdar. In the first 10 years of its publication (1978-88), this book sold 33550 copies.
The very first lesson is about ‘lettering’ and step by step the book proceeds to teach concepts of drawings conic sections, orthogonal projections, mechanical sectioning, threads (called chooriaN – literally meaning bangles in Urdu) etc.
Look at the image to the right above. It teaches how to draw mechanical threads.
I don’t want to bore our versatile readership with technical terms but this book was indeed the one which impressed myself and my colleagues a lot and we learnt our technical drawing concepts from it.
Besides the above mentioned book there is one more text book of graduate level book by a Pakistani author that I know of. It is called the ‘Introduction to Statistical Theory’ and is written by Professor Sher Mohammad Chaudhary.This book was a text book for Statistics for us in Bachelors. I know this book is also a prescribed text book Masters level programs.
Ok. so while I started this post with a narrow narrative about Iqbal Khan’s book, I now want to broaden up the scope. How about you let us know if you are privy to seeing or studying any other text book by a Pakistani author whether in English or Urdu at degree level. Let us know of the books and we will list them here.
I am aware that there are several technical books by Pakistani authors – but most of them are for reference studies. We are looking for names of text books.
So far the list is 16 books long. anymore names? sahibaan aur qadardaan?
List of Degree Level Text Books by Pakistani Authors:
1. bunyaadi Engineering Drawing by Mohammad Iqbal Khan
2. Introduction to Statistical Theory Part I and II by Professor Sher Mohammad Chaudhary, Published by Ilmi Kitab Khana
3. Mathematical Methods by S.M.Yousuf, Published by Ilmi Kitab Khana, 1999.
4. Calculus and Analytical Geometry by S.M.Yousuf
5. Comprehensive Book of Mechanics by Q.K. Ghori published by A.H. Publishers, Lahore
6. Analog and Digital Circuit Design by Shahzad Mahmood. First edition 2003.
7. Amplifiers and Receiver Circuits prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2002
8. Basic Engineering Drawing and CAD prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2002
9. Basics of Engnieering Drawing by Zahid Ahmed, Muhammad Ashraf and Shahid Ahmed. Published by Prince Book Depot, 2005.
10. Electronic Media published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 1998
11. Irrigation and Drainage Engineering by Iqtidar Siddiqui. published by Oxford 2007. ISBN 9780195473568.
12. Surface Water Hydrology by N.M.Awan, 2003
13. Surveying and Leveling – for architecture Technology – with Lab instruction manual. Prescribed by NISTE (National Institute of Science and Technical Education, Islamabad. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2001
14. Theory of Automation and Computation by Sikandar Hayat Khiyal. Published by National Book Foundation, Pakistan. 2004
15. Voice of Civil Engineering by Abdul Hasan and Sarah Haider, 2003
16. Electronic Circuits and Devices by Dr. Manzar Saeed.
17. Fault Diagnosis and Testing of Digital Circuits with an introduction to Error Control Coding by Dr. Altaf Mukati. Published by HEC
References:
1. Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Karachi and Islamabad.
2. National Institute of Science and Technical Education (NISTE), Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan.
3. Oxford University Press, Pakistan – Books Catalog for Higher Education
4. National Book Foundation, Pakistan
Excellent article. If I recall correctly, a book by Professor Abdullah of Peshawar University was also a required text at University of Missouri. The subject was EE (Power engineering)..
There are two important issues with the publication of technical books (based on some contractual discussions I am having with a publisher) and they are 1) uniqueness and 2) adaptability – since publishing is a business and therefore marketing is important. The pre and post manuscript review process itself is fairly long and demanding. I am not sure if such a mechanism exists in Pakistan. Nevertheless, it is important to encourage professionals in Pakistan to authors books.
Hey Owais, what do you think about publishing the article which I sent to you? Do you remember? Off course as per discussed, editing is acceptable. If you want I can send you again.
Education starts at home and parents tell their kids to call them ”Mama and Papa” in Pakistan. I think this is more than enough to say on this topic.
I am really thanful to Mr. Owais that he pointed out very important topic about technical books in our national language. I am 100 % agree with him, but also want to give my feeling according to my little experince without going into detail about other views
1) Basically Iqbal Ahmed book was written for our diploma students and in my opinion in most of diploma based colleges our technical communication language is urdue (please correct, if i am wrong)
2) For our diploma student still many hand written notes, printed, photcopied or even books are available in urde due to severe requirements.
3) As the audience of these books are students, therefore the materials of these books are not upto the marks for most of books in order to get some attraction for undergarduae or master students both in engineering and basic sciences.
4) On the othere hand locally written some B.Sc and M.Sc level books are availabe in basic sciences, but these books are in english medium and no-doubt much some of them are excellent books
but two thing i want to highlight about these books that neither these books are upgrdated according to the requirement of new technological developement in the concerned field, nor the presentation of these books were improved on regular basisly as performed in all over the world (aoidance may be due to cost).
5) Most important thing is that there is no copy right law in Pakistan so that if the book hit in local market than auther get nothing but only name and all the monetary advatages are the right of the book printing press and book distributor.
(severe discourgement for local authers)
6) HEC now a days takes some steps to promote the culture of book writting, but i dont think that professional authers get attracted by these conditioned imposed by HEC. These condition only suit for adventurist auther in the field of science and technology.
Regards
S.A.Moiz
Khadim saheb. thanks for your detailed comment. You’ve raised very valid points. I’ve changed the title a bit at your suggestion.