Exactly.
Our basics aren't even aligned. It's a new 'elite' (not an intellectual elite with higher consciousness, but an 'establishment elite') that has simply replaced the British colonizing elite. The same exploitation continues.
As Noam Chomsky says about the US: it is one of the most free but also one of the most indoctrinated nations in the world. That means that everybody is "allowed" to publish such a thesis, but would find it incredibly hard to find an advisor willing to supervise it. So, these subtle mechanisms result in thought control and what he calls 'miseducation.' Essentially, these universities want to produce 'excellent sheep' who are what Nassem Taleb (of black swan fame) calls "intellectual-yet-idiots." They can't access a higher consciousness and see the world for what it is. They buy into the poster themes and superficial crap that they've been fed, and come out as conformist robots despite being highly intelligent individuals.
Long story short: if you can back up your claims intellectually, some departments are more sympathetic to such theses. There is nothing stopping anyone from going forward with this --- the tragedy is that 100% (note that I did not say 99.99%) of Pakistanis doing social science dissertations at top US/UK universities are ALL towing the narratives that they're being fed. Imagine how intellectually enslaved a nation has to be for its top minds (the undergraduate kids at Harvard from Pakistan, who are the best of the best academically from across Pakistan's best schools) called Hussain Haqqani as one of the main speakers for an event on Pakistan's challenges and future. A man who even most goraz privately acknowledge is a sellout and snake! Ye haal hai.
But it shouldn't be surprising. There is no compelling, competing narrative. There is no urgency felt by those in power to get a new 'intellectual elite' with a higher consciousness (by this I mean the ability to look beyond post colonial tropes and Western indoctrination) into government. There is no human capital strategy. Religion itself has been left to a market-based laissez-faire system where the more well-funded and virulent strains seem to take over (as they more acutely embody the resentments of the masses).
Our constitution sucks. This form of representative democracy can't deliver anything except to keep us plodding along while the elites come and go --- judge, general, bureaucrat, politician --- with their major achievement being keeping Pakistan barely alive. And, believe me, they pat themselves on the back (genuinely) for this, thinking it's some kind of HUGE milestone. Pathetic. Great nations rise to complex challenges. Pathetic nations make excuses and lower their standards. We can still choose.
