Born in Lahore on 24 February 1947, Ishtiaq Ahmed holds a PhD in political science from Stockholm University. He is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University, and Honorary Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He was Visiting Professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences during 2013–15 and at Government College University Lahore during 2015–19.
The Punjab: Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed won the Best Non-Fiction Book Award at the Karachi Literature Festival, 2013, and at the Lahore Literary Festival, 2013. It won the Best Book on Punjab Award at the Baisakhi Festival, Lahore, in 2016.
His book Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History won the Best English Non-Fiction Book Award at the Valley of Words Literary Festival, Dehradun, 2021.
His latest book is Undivided Punjab’s Contribution to Indian Cinema, published in 2022.
His research interests cover diverse fields such as political Islam, ethnicity and nationalism, human and minority rights, Partition studies and pre-Partition Punjab’s contribution to Indian cinema.
