The nomination of Mohammad Ahmed Shah, President of the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, to the Senate of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto University of Law (SZABUL) deserves attention beyond routine administrative announcements.
Nominated by the Chief Minister of Sindh for a three-year term under the SZABUL Act, 2013, this decision reflects a growing recognition that arts and culture are not peripheral to public life; they are central to how societies think, argue, and evolve.
For long, the governance of higher education institutions in Pakistan has largely remained confined to bureaucratic, technical, and strictly academic perspectives.
These voices are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Legal education in particular is deeply intertwined with lived social realities — language, identity, freedom of expression, dissent, and collective memory.
These are shaped not just by statutes and courts but also by literature, theatre, film, and cultural discourse. In this context, the inclusion of an arts and culture practitioner in a university’s governing body is not symbolic; it is substantively relevant.
Mohammad Ahmed Shah’s association with festivals, literary gatherings, theatre and spaces of creative dialogue positions him to bring a broader societal lens to academic decision-making.
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If this experience is positively channeled, it can encourage law students to understand the human stories behind legal principles. It can help them see rights not merely as text in books, but as lived realities affected by cultural context.
Yet, the value of this nomination will depend on how actively it is translated into practice. Universities do not need honorary decorations; they need contributing voices willing to challenge narrow visions, open doors to interdisciplinary exchange, and defend intellectual pluralism.
The real test will lie in whether this appointment leads to collaboration between artists and legal scholars, wider campus spaces for cultural expression, and critical conversations on freedom, identity, and social cohesion.
Pakistan’s universities face shrinking intellectual spaces and financial constraints. At such a time, the convergence of arts and academia offers both opportunity and responsibility. It can make legal education richer, more humane and more connected with society.
The hope is that this nomination becomes more than an announcement — that it helps bridge the distance between law and life, doctrine and experience, classroom and community.
