Contemporary South Asianists have increasingly drawn attention to the problem of conceptualizing the logics of colonial and postcolonial governance and the circumstances that led to particular forms of political and cultural expressions. With the intervention of so-called postcolonial theories, concepts such as knowledge/power relationship, colonial governmentality, enframing, ethnographic state, everyday resistance have greatly helped the historians to explain various peculiarities of precolonial, colonial and postcolonial societies. This seminar has brought together scholars to explore innovative ways of critically engaging with the question of identity, marginality and the process of state formation in South Asia. Our speakers will explore practices developed by empires and states in order to govern the behaviour of their subjects. How South Asian societies maintain their political structures, social groups, cultural and religious identities? How contemporary historical theories and methodological tools allow or disallow the voices of peoples? What are alternate ways of perceiving the experiences of colonial/postcolonial societies? To explore such perspectives, Department of Humanities, COMSATS, Lahore Campus organized a History Seminar, “South Asia: Religion, State and Society” on Monday 8th December 2014. What binds together most of the papers in this seminar is the sense of our historians to generate a discourse which gives respect to insider’s view and people at margins.