The murder of history in Pakistan

[MadDog]

Come on guys...as many people claim that there has been a murder of history..its a wrong perception. In Olevels, Nigel Kelly's book was being taught back in 2005 when i did it....it was absolutely neutral even mentioned the fact that establishment did a lot of injustices in Bangladesh in 1971.

The books referred here might be the ones being used in metric exams.

 

[Zarvan]

Just wanted to start this thread and let people know about a great book by K.K.Aziz plus Kill the myths and absurd false glorification of Pakistan's miserable historical moments and the way our Text books have been systematically distorted.

Myths, fables and lies: The murder of history in Pakistan​

KK Aziz’s seminal study, ‘The Murder of History’ is essential to understand what went wrong inPakistan. The most worrying sign of an insecure and fissured polity is when it reinvents, twists and lies about its history especially relating to its genesis and progress. K K Aziz was not an Indiannationalist, nor a screaming ideologue who wanted Pakistan to fritter away. In fact his early work The Making of Pakistanremains an essential reading on how Pakistan came into being. He believed in Pakistan despite his emotional links to the separated eastern part of the Punjab. However, at the zenith of his career he could not conceal his deep anguish and disappointment with the way ‘History’ in his beloved country had turned into sham-narratives comprising fables, myths and outright deceit.

Three brutal realities by the end of Zia era were clear: Pakistan’s military-bureaucracy complex had reinvented an ideological state based on a sectarian worldview; History was an instrument of propagating this ideology; and the jihad factories were flourishing. Jinnah’s Pakistan had been irreversibly shattered and perhaps destroyed. For K K Aziz’s generation this was nothing short of a great betrayal.

Published in the early 1990s, ‘The Murder of History’ for the first time documented a meticulous analysis of the history books taught in Pakistani schools and colleges. The book revolves around the main argument that History and Pakistan Studies curricula was nothing more political propaganda aimed at indoctrinating young minds through half-truths and blatant falsehoods.In this study, Aziz scrutinized over 65 textbooks, which have been promoting prejudice, xenophobia and discrimination in our young children (who have grown up now). According to the Aziz, the publication of suchtextbooks was the responsibility of the provincial textbook boards but the National Review Committee of the Federal Education Ministry had appropriated the role of approving the ‘ideological’ content.

Aziz starts with how the Pakistan movement is disfigured. How lies about Jinnah are perpetrated (for instance about his education, leanings etc.) and how military rule and wars are glorified that too without credible facts. The most incisive part pertains to the events of 1971. Aziz questions this obviously false account found in one of the textbooks: “In the 1971 war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery, and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere.” He further traces how the Pakistani Hindus in East Pakistan are blamed for engineering anti-Urdu demonstrations during Jinnah’s time. This movement started by ‘Hindus’ had sowed the seeds of separation of EastPakistan, if the disingenuous sham-historians of the state were to be believed. Aziz questions how the great surrender of Pakistan Army in December 1971 happened apparently when our troops were bagging so-called victories on all fronts. Furthermore, Aziz also dismisses the notion that accepting Bengali cultural values, as a part of national heritage, was some sort of a national humiliation.

A textbook, as Aziz notes, mentions Maulana Maudoodi among the “founders of the ideology of Pakistan”, when in fact the right-wing leader bitterly opposed the creation of Pakistan

A textbook, as Aziz notes, even mentions Maulana Maudoodi among the “founders of the ideology of Pakistan”, when in fact the right-wing leader bitterly opposed the creation of Pakistan and called Jinnah a non-Muslim. Zia ensured that an unconstitutional overthrow of Bhutto’s government was due to an ‘un-Islamic system’. Little wonder, Al-Qaeda and its partners are busy telling us why democracy should be rejected in the Islamic Pakistan. The greatest lie as detected by Aziz’s meticulous pen relates how the arrival of Zia-ul-Haq was celebrated: “General Zia ul Haq was chosen by destiny to be the person who achieved the distinction of imposing Islamic law…. The real objective of the creation of Pakistan, and the demand of the masses, was achieved.”

Aziz also records major omissions and makes a robust effort to correct them in the later chapters. The last parts of the book analyse the impact of such chicanery on the students and on the nation at large: Assuming that three students come from one nuclear home, we have at least eight million households where these books are in daily use … Eight million homes amount to eight million parents (father plus mother), not counting other family members… In this way the nonsense written in the books is conveyed to another sixteen million persons.

After reading Murder , one is left distressed with the unethical principles that the governments and thetextbook boards follow while preparing textbooks. This is not just a matter of school curricula as Aziz rather presciently argues: Some of the people bred on these books become journalists, columnists and editors of popular magazines and digests … making all possible allowances for’ the margin of duplication, we are still left with a very conservative figure of say thirty million people being told what they should not be told and hearing what they should not hear. When we recall that this group contains within itself the social and intellectual elite and the actual or potential leadership of the country, we have nothing but stark despair staring us in the face and promising rack and ruin.

The rot has already set in. Popular media and generations raised on lies are now a formidable reality of our national discourse. Sections of print media and some TV anchors churn out such half-truths on a daily basis. Above all, the youth (as noted by many surveys) are confused about their identity with an ingrained anti-India sentiment and a vague sense of Pan-Islamic identity.

A decade and a half later when Musharraf tried to reform the curricula his attempts were foiled by powerful ideologues within the Establishment and very soon he lost the will to drive this reform. When the Aga Khan Foundation took the initiative in Karachi, the Mullahs threatened and roared. The current PPP government’s education policy makes no concrete commitment to the textbooks. Aziz’s last line remains relevant: “Is anybody listening?”

Pakistan’s existential battle is inextricably linked to the poison of these textbooks. Without a concerted effort to purge our curricula of xenophobia, jingoism and Islamo-fascism, we are simply doomed. The political elites have a small window of opportunity. If they are not going to forge a consensus on textbooks’ reform, their relevance in the long term remains uncertain. This is why K K Aziz’s legacy is formidable and needs to be reiterated every now and then.

Raza Rumi is a writer and policy expert based in Lahore. He blogs at Jahane Rumi - Raza Rumi's website. Email: razarumi@gmail.com

Their is noting such as history it is just point of view of different people groups and nations about their past and most of them have different point of views so discussing it is just waste of time and nothing else

 

[Hyde]

Very interesting video - saying the history is murdered in every nation and few examples

 

[Android]

Our history books are also distorted they are all filled with congress propoganda

 

[Armstrong]

Our history books are also distorted they are all filled with congress propoganda

Dude history is always written with a subtle bias at best and outright revisionism or indoctrination at worst ! Heck even the Historians, who are supposed to be unbiased and uncompromising in their pursuit for the truth, express their written thoughts with bias !

 

[Jango]

Very interesting video - saying the history is murdered in every nation and few examples

He isn't wrong.

 

[Armstrong]

He isn't wrong.

But neither is he right !

 

[Paan Singh]

Very interesting video - saying the history is murdered in every nation and few examples

yeas...Gandhi was an a##hole and he is shown as father of nation....and heroes like patel,bhagat singh are ignored...

congress destroyed india but our present youth knowing slowly...

 

[INDIC]

But neither is he right !

Which part you don't agree with.

 

[Splurgenxs]

yeas...Gandhi was an a##hole and he is shown as father of nation....and heroes like patel,bhagat singh are ignored...

congress destroyed India but our present youth knowing slowly...

Gandhi was a genuine man,u may have different ideologies. Cmon brah, dont disrespect someone who u couldn't even dream of matching. try walking a mile and ull know what im talking about. There are both hippies and anarchists on two opposing fronts.

The biggest disaster is th Children's day and Nehrus/Gandhian familiy glorification.

 

[angeldude13]

Wait - Aren't they forgetting where Hinduism originated from? Forgetting both where the actual religion comes from and the name for it as well

i've asked this question from every pakistani and now i ask you.
if hinduism originated in present day pakistan then why we don't have any holy cities from pakistan.note there are 7 holy cities in india and none is present in pakistan.if hinduism has been originated in takshila or any other place then iam sure we would have that city in our holy cities..................
and it's SANATANA(the eternal law).hinduism is a name given by farsis.hindu are the people who live on the baks of sindhu river

 

[livingdead]

yeas...Gandhi was an a##hole and he is shown as father of nation....and heroes like patel,bhagat singh are ignored...

congress destroyed india but our present youth knowing slowly...

I dont see even an alternative historian showing gandhi as villian. I dont like people worshipping him, he was a politician after all, he had to make compromises, device tactics but he sided with what he considered to be truth.

 

[aakash_2410]

Every single country distorts the truth to certain extent to fit their goal but this!!

Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.131
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things -- Hindus did not respect women...132
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter the temple at a time. In our mosques, on the other hand, all Muslims can say their prayers together.133
This division of men [among Aryans] into different castes is the worst example of tyranny in the history of the world. In course of time the Aryans began to be called the Hindus.134
‘the social evils of the Hindus’135
“The Hindus lived in small and dark houses. Child marriage was common in those days. Women were assigned a low position in society. In case the husband of a woman died, she was burnt alive with his dead body. This was called ‘sati’. … The killing of shudras was not punished, but the murder of a Brahman was a serious crime. … However, the people of low caste were not
allowed to learn this language. The caste system had made their life miserable.”136
Muslim children of India wear shalwar kameez or shirt and pajama and Hindu children wear Dhoti also.137
Hindus thought that there was no country other than India, nor any people other than the Indians, nor did anyone else possess any knowledge138. [Amazingly, this sentence, meant to denigrate Hindus, describes the response of the local people to Al Beruni’s visit to India. This is despite the fact that Alexander the Greek had come to this land many centuries earlier, that the rule of the Mauryas and the Guptas stretched to the lands from where Al Beruni had come, that the Arabs had conquered Sindh before Al Beruni’s visit, that the Arab conquest was also aimed against the Ismailis who had settled in the area around Multan much earlier, and that the Arabic mathematics was deeply influenced by the Indian mathematics, etc., etc.]
Hindu pundits were jealous of Al Beruni. Since they could not compete against Al Beruni in knowledge, they started calling him a magician.139
The Sultans of Delhi were tolerant in religious matters. They never forced the non-Muslims to convert to Islam. The Hindus embraced Islam due to the kind treatment of the Muslims.
The caste system of the Hindus had made the life of the common people miserable. They were treated like animals. Nobody could claim equality with Brahmins.140
The Hindus who have always been opportunists cooperated with the English.142
The Hindus praised the British rule and its blessings in their speeches The Hindus had the upper hand in the Congress and they established good relations with the British. This party tried its best to safeguard the interests of the Hindus. Gradually it became purely a Hindu organization. Most of the Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent. They demanded that the Muslims should either
embrace Hinduism or leave the country. The party was so close to the Government that it would not let the Government do any work as would be of benefit to the Muslims. The partition of Bengal can be quoted as an example.143
…but Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the [1857] rebellion.144
The British confiscated all lands [from the Muslims] and gave them to Hindus.145
In December 1885, an Englishman Mr. Humes … formed a political party named Indian National Congress, the purpose of which was to politically organize Hindus.146
Therefore in order to appease the Hindus and the Congress, the British announced political reforms. Muslims were not eligible to vote. Hindus voter never voted for a Muslim, therefore, …147
[A shear distortion, and a blatant lie that the Muslims were ineligible to vote]
The height of Hindu-Muslim amity was seen during the Khilafat Movement, but as soon as the movement was over, the anti-Muslim feelings among Hindus resurfaced.148
Nehru report exposed the Hindu mentality.149
The Quaid saw through the “machinations” of the Hindus.150
Hindus declared the Congress rule as the Hindu rule, and started to unleash terror on Muslims.151
At the behest of the government [during the Congress rule], Hindu “goondas” started killing Muslims and burning their property.152
The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilisation. Hindi-Urdu controversy, shudhi and sanghtan movements are the most glaring examples of the ignoble Hindu mentality.153
The British, with the assistance of the Hindus, adopted a cruel policy of mass exodus against the Muslims to erase them as a nation The British adopted a policy of large scale massacre (mass extermination) against the Muslims The Muslim population of the Muslim minority provinces faced atrocities of the Hindu majority
[The Muslims] were not allowed to profess their religion freely
Hindu nationalism was being imposed upon Muslims and their culture All India Congress turned into a pure Hindu organisation
The Congress was striving very hard to project the image of united India, which was actually aimed at the extermination of the Muslims from the Indian society
The two Hindu organisations [Congress and Mahasabha] were determined to destroy the national character of the Muslims to dominate and subjugate them perpetually. 154
While the Muslims provided all type of help to those wishing to leave Pakistan, the people of India committed cruelties against the Muslims (refugees). They would attack the buses, trucks, and trains carrying the Muslim refugees and they were murdered and looted.155
The Hindus in Pakistan were treated very nicely when they were migrating as opposed to the inhuman treatment meted out to the Muslim migrants from India. (Musalmanon nein Pakistan se janay walay Hinduon ko her qissam ki sahulatein deen , lekin Baharat ke logon nein Musalmnon per bohat Zulm kiyay).156
After the Cripps Missions, Congress raised the “Quit India” slogan, which meant the British should leave, handing over the rule to Hindus.157
After 1965 war India conspired with the Hindus of Bengal and succeeded in spreading hate among the Bengalis about West Pakistan and finally attacked on East Pakistan in December 71, thus causing the breakup of East and West Pakistan.158


131 Urdu Class V, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 108
132 Muasherati Ulum for Class IV, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, 1995, p 81
133 Muasherati Ulum for Class V, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, 1996, p 109
134 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 59
135 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 59
136 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 67
137 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, p 79
138 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 82
139 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 82
140 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 109
141 Urdu Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 221
142 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 141
143 Social Studies Class VI, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002: p 143
144 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 90
145 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 91 [This is stated despite the fact that all the large feudal lords in the part that later formed Pakistan were Muslims]
146 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 94
147 Social Studies Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 94-95
148 Social Studies, Class VIII – Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. March 2002, p 100
149 Social Studies, Class VIII – Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. March 2002, p 102
150 Social Studies Class-VII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, ?, p 51
151 Social Studies, Class VIII – Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. March 2002, p 104
152 Social Studies, Class VIII – Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. March 2002, p 104-105
153 M. Ikram Rabbani and Monawar Ali Sayyid, An Introduction to Pakistan studies, The Caravan Book House, Lahore, 1995, p 12
154 National Curriculum English (Compulsory) for Class XI-XII, March 2002, pp 6, 13, 31, 45, 7, 25, 8, 46, 48, 50
155 National Early Childhood Education Curriculum (NECEC), Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, March 2002, p 85
156 Social Studies Class- IV, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, p. 85
157 Social Studies, Class VIII, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, March 2002, p 110
158 Social Studies (in Urdu) Class- V, Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore, p 112

Source: http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...-murder-history-pakistan-4.html#ixzz22cD1nwPq

This is actually mind-boggling and also justifies some Pakistani members unnecessary hatred.

 

[angeldude13]

How many of your books talk proudly of Arungzeb or Babar or Tipu Sultan?

History is a narrative of the people. Pakistan's narrative is that of a proud Islamic people. We don't need to go into tiny details of things outside that narrative.

sorry brother our education system is not ignorant.
i remember i first read about mughals in 8th standard.you don't even know how much i admired mughals for their bravery and war tactics.
abraham lodhi,qutubuuddin aibak,babar our education system covers every muslim king.
people with common sense understands ashoka killed more people then aurangzeb.
but yes ashoka and aurangzeb are hated in india and the likes of chandragupta maurya and jalaluddin akbar are liked.

and tipu sultan??seriously??we have a tv program on tipu sultan's life.tipu sultan is also taught in our text books.
for more information you can check C.B.S.E website.history come in social studies in india

 

[IND151]

Just wanted to start this thread and let people know about a great book by K.K.Aziz plus Kill the myths and absurd false glorification of Pakistan's miserable historical moments and the way our Text books have been systematically distorted.

Myths, fables and lies: The murder of history in Pakistan​

KK Aziz’s seminal study, ‘The Murder of History’ is essential to understand what went wrong inPakistan. The most worrying sign of an insecure and fissured polity is when it reinvents, twists and lies about its history especially relating to its genesis and progress. K K Aziz was not an Indiannationalist, nor a screaming ideologue who wanted Pakistan to fritter away. In fact his early work The Making of Pakistanremains an essential reading on how Pakistan came into being. He believed in Pakistan despite his emotional links to the separated eastern part of the Punjab. However, at the zenith of his career he could not conceal his deep anguish and disappointment with the way ‘History’ in his beloved country had turned into sham-narratives comprising fables, myths and outright deceit.

Three brutal realities by the end of Zia era were clear: Pakistan’s military-bureaucracy complex had reinvented an ideological state based on a sectarian worldview; History was an instrument of propagating this ideology; and the jihad factories were flourishing. Jinnah’s Pakistan had been irreversibly shattered and perhaps destroyed. For K K Aziz’s generation this was nothing short of a great betrayal.

Published in the early 1990s, ‘The Murder of History’ for the first time documented a meticulous analysis of the history books taught in Pakistani schools and colleges. The book revolves around the main argument that History and Pakistan Studies curricula was nothing more political propaganda aimed at indoctrinating young minds through half-truths and blatant falsehoods.In this study, Aziz scrutinized over 65 textbooks, which have been promoting prejudice, xenophobia and discrimination in our young children (who have grown up now). According to the Aziz, the publication of suchtextbooks was the responsibility of the provincial textbook boards but the National Review Committee of the Federal Education Ministry had appropriated the role of approving the ‘ideological’ content.

Aziz starts with how the Pakistan movement is disfigured. How lies about Jinnah are perpetrated (for instance about his education, leanings etc.) and how military rule and wars are glorified that too without credible facts. The most incisive part pertains to the events of 1971. Aziz questions this obviously false account found in one of the textbooks: “In the 1971 war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery, and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere.” He further traces how the Pakistani Hindus in East Pakistan are blamed for engineering anti-Urdu demonstrations during Jinnah’s time. This movement started by ‘Hindus’ had sowed the seeds of separation of EastPakistan, if the disingenuous sham-historians of the state were to be believed. Aziz questions how the great surrender of Pakistan Army in December 1971 happened apparently when our troops were bagging so-called victories on all fronts. Furthermore, Aziz also dismisses the notion that accepting Bengali cultural values, as a part of national heritage, was some sort of a national humiliation.

A textbook, as Aziz notes, mentions Maulana Maudoodi among the “founders of the ideology of Pakistan”, when in fact the right-wing leader bitterly opposed the creation of Pakistan

A textbook, as Aziz notes, even mentions Maulana Maudoodi among the “founders of the ideology of Pakistan”, when in fact the right-wing leader bitterly opposed the creation of Pakistan and called Jinnah a non-Muslim. Zia ensured that an unconstitutional overthrow of Bhutto’s government was due to an ‘un-Islamic system’. Little wonder, Al-Qaeda and its partners are busy telling us why democracy should be rejected in the Islamic Pakistan. The greatest lie as detected by Aziz’s meticulous pen relates how the arrival of Zia-ul-Haq was celebrated: “General Zia ul Haq was chosen by destiny to be the person who achieved the distinction of imposing Islamic law…. The real objective of the creation of Pakistan, and the demand of the masses, was achieved.”

Aziz also records major omissions and makes a robust effort to correct them in the later chapters. The last parts of the book analyse the impact of such chicanery on the students and on the nation at large: Assuming that three students come from one nuclear home, we have at least eight million households where these books are in daily use … Eight million homes amount to eight million parents (father plus mother), not counting other family members… In this way the nonsense written in the books is conveyed to another sixteen million persons.

After reading Murder , one is left distressed with the unethical principles that the governments and thetextbook boards follow while preparing textbooks. This is not just a matter of school curricula as Aziz rather presciently argues: Some of the people bred on these books become journalists, columnists and editors of popular magazines and digests … making all possible allowances for’ the margin of duplication, we are still left with a very conservative figure of say thirty million people being told what they should not be told and hearing what they should not hear. When we recall that this group contains within itself the social and intellectual elite and the actual or potential leadership of the country, we have nothing but stark despair staring us in the face and promising rack and ruin.

The rot has already set in. Popular media and generations raised on lies are now a formidable reality of our national discourse. Sections of print media and some TV anchors churn out such half-truths on a daily basis. Above all, the youth (as noted by many surveys) are confused about their identity with an ingrained anti-India sentiment and a vague sense of Pan-Islamic identity.

A decade and a half later when Musharraf tried to reform the curricula his attempts were foiled by powerful ideologues within the Establishment and very soon he lost the will to drive this reform. When the Aga Khan Foundation took the initiative in Karachi, the Mullahs threatened and roared. The current PPP government’s education policy makes no concrete commitment to the textbooks. Aziz’s last line remains relevant: “Is anybody listening?”

Pakistan’s existential battle is inextricably linked to the poison of these textbooks. Without a concerted effort to purge our curricula of xenophobia, jingoism and Islamo-fascism, we are simply doomed. The political elites have a small window of opportunity. If they are not going to forge a consensus on textbooks’ reform, their relevance in the long term remains uncertain. This is why K K Aziz’s legacy is formidable and needs to be reiterated every now and then.

Raza Rumi is a writer and policy expert based in Lahore. He blogs at Jahane Rumi - Raza Rumi's website. Email: razarumi@gmail.com

what??????????? what a height of lying

he greatest lie as detected by Aziz’s meticulous pen relates how the arrival of Zia-ul-Haq was celebrated: “General Zia ul Haq was chosen by destiny to be the person who achieved the distinction of imposing Islamic law…. The real objective of the creation of Pakistan, and the demand of the masses, was achieved.

this is new to me.