The Pakistani Studies curriculum was hurriedly introduced in 1972, a year after the loss of East Pakistan. With the aftermath of a disastrous war with India, a frenzy of panic gripped the nation and the powers that be in Pakistan feared that its raison d'etre was crumbling. Teaching contorted and fabricated history to impressionable children is their attempt at nation-building.
1) Introduction
All students in Pakistan are required to take courses called Pakistan Studies and must pass standardized tests. There are numerous textbooks published under this title for the 9th class to the BA level. The curriculum is a composite of patriotic discourses, justification of the Two-Nation Theory, hagiographies of Muslim heroes, and, endemic in the discourse, polemics about the superiority of Islamic principals over Hinduism. The rubric in these textbooks must be learned by rote in order for students to pass the examination.
The social studies curriculum in Pakistan, as both product and propagator of the “Ideology of Pakistan,” derives its legitimacy from a narrow set of directives. The textbooks authored and altered during the eleven years of General Zia-ul-Haq’s military rule between 1977 and 1988, are still in use in most schools—they are decidedly anti-democratic and inclined to dogmatic tirades and are characterized by internal contradictions.
In the thirty years since the “fall of Dhaka” the government controlled curriculum still does not include a historically circumspect version of the causes of the civil war that dismembered the nation. It is no wonder that during and in the aftermath of the Kargil crisis in the summer of 1999, newspapers ran stories referring to the occupation of the heights above Kargil as “revenge for 1971.” There is a chronic shortage of objective information available to the majority of Pakistani citizens that can adequately explain the actual events that led to the three wars with India. Kashmir in 1948, the war with India in 1965, and the Bangladesh War of Independence have become national metaphors for betrayal within and a reminder of the constant threat looming from Hindu India. The split-up of the nation and the creation of Bangladesh remains a potent symbol of Pakistan’s disempowerment and a constant reminder of what will happen if the Muslim ummah does not remain vigilant.
During the war-like situation in the summer of 1999 at the Line of Control near Kargil, the Pakistani government claimed that the Mujahideen were not physically supported by Pakistan, that the combatants were indigenous Kashmiri freedom fighters. However, the presence of satellite television, the internet, and newspapers that are now more connected to international media sources, offered the possibility of broader exposure than during the two previous wars fought over Kashmir. Perhaps there is at least one positive outcome of the tragic Kargil crisis where hundreds of young men lost their lives; in the aftermath there was an outpouring of newspaper and magazine articles in Pakistan that attempted to analyze the brinkmanship from various angles.
Although some of the essays in Pakistani newspapers prophetically called for the military to take over the government in the wake of Nawaz Sharif’s sell out to Clinton, most of the discussions were more circumspect and many authors looked at the Kargil debacle through a lens of history, trying to understand the cause of Pakistan's repeated failures arising from military brinkmanship. Many of the observations made after Kargil, such as the inadequacy of Pakistan’s international diplomatic missions, are interestingly, also cited in Pakistan Studies textbooks regarding India's perceived manipulation of world opinion during the 1971 war and Pakistan's inability to counter it.
2) Manipulation by omission
Pakistani textbooks are particularly prone to historical narratives manipulated by omission, according to Avril Powell, professor of history at the University of London, such erasure can have its long-term negative repercussions.
Another example of this is the manner in which the Indo-Pak War of 1965 is discussed in Pakistani textbooks. In standard narrations of the 1965 War there is no mention of Operation Gibraltar, even after four decades. In fact, several university level history professors whom I interviewed claimed never to have heard of Operation Gibraltar and the repercussions of that ill-planned military adventurism which resulted in India's attack on Lahore.
In Pakistani textbooks the story is told that “the Indian army, unprovoked, inexplicably attacked Lahore” and that “one Pakistani jawan (soldier) equals ten Indian soldiers,” who, upon seeing the fierce Pakistanis, “drop their banduks (rifles) and run away.” Many people in Pakistan still think like this, and several mentioned this assumed cowardice of the Indian army in discussions with me while the fighting was raging in Kargil. The nation is elated by the valiant victories on the battlefield, as reported in the newspapers, then shocked and dismayed when their country is humiliated at the negotiating table. Because they were not fully informed about the adventurism of their military leaders, they can only feel betrayed that somehow Pakistani politicians once again “grabbed diplomatic defeat from the jaws of military victory.” Operation Gibraltar, the recent debacle in Kargil, and especially the tragic lessons that could have been learned from the Bangladesh War are products of the same myopic processes. The Kargil crisis was a legacy of the lack of information that citizens have had about the real history of their country.
3) Fabrication of geography
Pakistani textbooks have a particular problem when defining geographical space. The terms South Asia and Subcontinent have partially helped to solve this problem of the geo-historical identity of the area formally known as British India. However, it is quite difficult for Pakistani textbook writers to ignore the land now known as India when they discuss Islamic heroes and Muslim architectural monuments in the Subcontinent. This reticence to recognize anything of importance in India, which is almost always referred to as “Bharat” in both English and Urdu versions of textbooks, creates a difficult dilemma for historians writing about the Moghul Dynasties. It is interesting to note that M.A. Jinnah strongly protested the Congress’ appropriation of the appellation “India,” but his arguments were dismissed by Mountbattan. Because Pakistani textbook writers are constrained by the imperative to represent all facts and events in the historical record of South Asia so as to prove the inevitability of the Two Nation Theory, there are, by necessity of this agenda, numerous misrepresentations. Geography also falls prey to this ideological orientation, as can be seen in this quote from one of the many textbooks titled, Pakistani Studies:
During the 12th century the shape of Pakistan was more or less the same as it is today. Under the Khiljis, Pakistan moved further south-ward to include a greater part of Central India and the Deccan. In retrospect it may be said that during the 16th century “Hindustan” disappeared and was completely absorbed in “Pakistan.”
4) Editing political narratives on the fly
Another recent example of alterations made in textbooks to conform the narrative to the current political jargon can be seen by comparing two editions of the textbook Pakistan Studies for Secondary Classes, published by the Punjab Textbook Board. First, the 1997 edition states on page 206-207:
India is very advanced in its nuclear energy program and has performed an atomic test in 1974. To divert world attention from its nuclear plans, Bharat launched a propaganda campaign against Pakistan to the effect that Pakistan was manufacturing nuclear weapons. Pakistan categorically contradicted these baseless allegations and proposed that both the countries should adopt such limitations with mutual consent as may be acceptable at international level, putting an end to the possibility of proliferation of nuclear arms in South Asia. Bharat is not prepared to accept any restriction in this respect and desires that Pakistan should give up its peaceful nuclear energy program. Obviously this is an unrealistic demand.
After the nuclear tests in May of 1998, pages 206-207 of this textbook were changed in the 1999 imprint and the substituted comments added in a different font:
India is very advanced in its nuclear energy program and has performed an atomic test in 1974. To divert world attention from its nuclear plans, Bharat launched a propaganda campaign against Pakistan to the effect that Pakistan was manufacturing nuclear weapons. Pakistan categorically contradicted these baseless allegations and proposed non-proliferation of nuclear arms in South Asia. On May 11 and 13, 1998 India detonated five nuclear explosions and threatened the strategic and security balance in the region. Pakistan was compelled to respond in the same language and it conducted its six nuclear explosions on May 28 and 30 of 1998 at Chagai.
The day following the nuclear tests, public servants in Pakistan, without their consent, were docked a day’s pay to help offset the cost of exploding nuclear devices. Subsequently, Yome Takhbeer Day is celebrated in Pakistan on May 28. The revised curriculum guide suggests that school children draw posters and march in parades to mark the date of Pakistan’s ascendancy to nuclear status.
