“The Ghost of Comilla”: Authoritarian Biopolitics and Global Development in Rural East Pakistan

In the decades following decolonization, South Asia became a key arena for developmental planning and postcolonial state formation.Historians have shown how new forms of "technopolitics" and statecraft emerged through experiments in community development, rural training academies, and population control campaigns, where technical expertise, bureaucratic authority, and visions of modernity converged. 1These interventions were shaped not only by the agendas and development goals of national elites, but also by broader geopolitical dynamics.Scholarship has highlighted how this technopolitics was shaped through transnational networks, influenced by Cold War rivalries, and racialized logics of development.These processes drew in diverse actors, including foundations, international organizations, and foreign experts, which created complex entanglements between domestic state-building efforts and shifting international alignments. 2 Amna Qayyum's article makes a compelling and innovative contribution to this field by examining one site of such technocratic experimentation: the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development in Comilla, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).Her analysis centers on the Academy's Family Planning Action and Research 1 Foundational texts on technopolitics and the role of knowledge and expertise in postcolonial state formation include