The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan

[rubyjackass]

Thanks for the videos mann!!
Really nice

 

[Skeptic]

The situation on textbooks and the 'myths' article have been discussed on several other threads. Please look them up.

I never saw a single thread quoting from very authentic courses. All the discussions have been about general perceptions, but things like excercises for promoting Jihad are really startling.

Historical distortions are nothing specific to Pakistan - after all most Indians go around repeating the 'Pakistan lost all wars with India', Pakistan started all wars with India, 'Genocide in East Pakistan and millions killed' canards ad infinitum.

Expected better response from you. All you could come up with was India does it as well??? Although I clarified in the first post, read the article without an eye on the flag.

Kindly quote from an Indian textbook stating that India as won all the wars with pakistan. This is a stawman you come up with whenever you feel cornered (although no need to).

In addition, the impact of the inaccuracies in Pakistani textbooks does not seem to be reflected in the polling data, or else the Indians have similar issues, since opinion polls on the attitudes of Pakistanis towards Indians, and Indians towards Pakistanis are almost identical, with Pakistanis having slightly more favorable views of Indians.

Irrelevant and off topic rant.

Anyways, I was planning to start another thread based on Krishna Kumar's "Prejudice and Pride" by Krishmna Kumar comparing inaccuracies of Indian and Pakistani text book. See you there...

 

[Skeptic]

There lies the problem, “if we are wrong, so are the Indians”. We are so much into this India-phobia that even though we know we are wrong, we try to justify our wrong by comparing it with the wrongs of the Indians instead of simply accepting the fact and trying to rectify it.

If the logic “I am wrong so is he” is correct than all the judicial and law-&-order institutions must be closed down. Everyone can getaway with his wrongdoings by simply comparing himself with another. I am a liar so what, Mr X is also a liar…I am a murderer so what, Mr X is also a murderer…I am distorting history so what others are doing the same...So there is basically no possibility of fixing up things – So is this a news for Pakistanis? Why are we in the current state of turmoil? Is it because of the Indians or the Americans or because of our own fantasies and habit of living in denials?

Until and unless we get rid of this India-phobia, we will never be able to fix things and our descent into chaos will continue.

Absolutely agree 100%. I think India does it too or Pakistan does it too is the most pathetic reply possible. It works both ways.

Self improvement begins with self realization. I was expecting some intelligent counters and justification / reasoning behind continued existence of these inaccuracies, The best I got was so does India (that too without sighting any particular example).

I think if both nations corrected these errors and we studied a common and real history, the animosity and tensions would also be greatly reduced. If Indians are taught how exactly the two nation theory came around and Pakistanis were taught that Muslims and Hindus fought shoulder to shoulder in the freedom struggle, a better understanding would prevail and also providing for a generation of better informed individual. We would be able to better understand where the person from across the border is coming from.

Specially at an impressionable state if a student is taught that India is Evil and Pakistan broke away from India, the notion stays with the kid and even later when he studies from wider sources, chances are that his views would be prejudiced and these kinds of silly justifications (He did it first, They do it too) creep in.

Hoping for a better, prosperous and peaceful tomorrow.

 

[vandemataram]

Absolutely agree 100%. I think India does it too or Pakistan does it too is the most pathetic reply possible. It works both ways.

Self improvement begins with self realization. I was expecting some intelligent counters and justification / reasoning behind continued existence of these inaccuracies, The best I got was so does India (that too without sighting any particular example).

I think if both nations corrected these errors and we studied a common and real history, the animosity and tensions would also be greatly reduced. If Indians are taught how exactly the two nation theory came around and Pakistanis were taught that Muslims and Hindus fought shoulder to shoulder in the freedom struggle, a better understanding would prevail and also providing for a generation of better informed individual. We would be able to better understand where the person from across the border is coming from.

Specially at an impressionable state if a student is taught that India is Evil and Pakistan broke away from India, the notion stays with the kid and even later when he studies from wider sources, chances are that his views would be prejudiced and these kinds of silly justifications (He did it first, They do it too) creep in.

Hoping for a better, prosperous and peaceful tomorrow.

At the outset I owuld like to thank Skeptik who really deserves the credit to bring this out of the closet. It is something which is always there yet no one dares talk about it.

I came across the pdf document about a year back on the internet. It seems to a collection of references where history has been distorted by the rulers of the day. and unfortunately it continues even today.

qsaark has made some excellent observations and I think the way out for all people of the sub-continent is to shed the baggage of history as has been taught to them.

Just a couple of small anecdotes

1) I have a Pakistani chat friend who I interact with almost everyday, almost a year now. Apart from being able to know each other better through open communication, I think I got a personal taste of what is being discussed here.

She had asked me "Why you guys (Indians) do not eat meat".

I know it rings a bell for many Pakistanis over here, who have moved out of Paksitan or have shown different preferences in terms of gathering information. Many Indians here, again, probably also have to think for a while to answer a question of this sort.

Instead of going into describing the probable answer to the question, I think it is better to discuss how can this be changed for once and for all, so that millions of innocent children are not exposed to the Anti-India/Anti-Hindu propaganda

2) When she comes online she says Salaam and while going she retorts Allah Hafiz. Now I cannot fathom why she finds it difficult to understand that I do not mind telling her Salaam!!! or for that matter when we are parting for the day saying Allah Hafiz.

The explanation that she gives me tells me that she has been taught to see people who are same as her. That is purely from the point of view of religion. She knows that I am a Hindu and Hindus do not use words like these.

Now how do I tell her that I can use appropriate words for people belonging to different religions/linguistic groups. Or the fact that I have not been taught everything to be looked at from the PoV of religion.

She is much younger than me and I feel really sad and that is because I can never be angry in innocent people like her, who have been moulded in a particular fashion over the years.

The scope is very limited here. I expect good rationalising discussions from my Indian and Paksitani brothers.

Best,

Just two cents

 

[Nemesis]

Firstly Skeptic let me congratulate you on this thread. Reading it was illuminating.

The argument that India does the same does not hold ground. While propaganda may have been inserted into Indian textbooks against Pakistan (this is debatable), no Indian textbook denigrates an entire religion like shown by skeptic above. Nor is any part of our history ignored or is history fabricated. The BJP did try to do it, however they failed miserably.

I think this phenomenon in Pakistan can be attributed to the insecurity of Pakistani nationhood. To justify the two nation theory, textbooks in Pakistan have to show the "hindus" as the other. The uncivilized to the civilized muslims. This is also why, if the report is to be believed, our shared history is ignored in Pakistan. Just my opinion on the matter.

By in large, Indian textbooks on history are as fair as they can be. This is in large can be attributed to great leftist historians like Romilla Thapar.

 

[ice_man]

lol

Sir! Plz Excuse the language but i cant stop myself from saying that...
this "Gimme Proof" disease is endemic in Pakistan... and i guess you are not the only one with that problem...
How can you reject straight facts... and come up with... "gimme proof"???

We have seen it time and again... from recent Mumbai attacks (where i guess you needed a Pakistani passports of the ppl responsible in pakistan in those dead terrorists pockets to accept that they were indeed involved)... to since i donno when...

Coming back to that article...
1. Its anyways a factual discussion... stating facts you can cross check with just a lil bit of googl-ing... and not just Wikipedia... (For example: see myth 1... telling that there exists remains of mohenjo daro.. alexander did invade... et al..---- now if you deny that as wel then... )

2. Its written by a pakistani Professor... in a pakistani magazine... not an Indain (No RAW-Mosaad conspiracy)

hmmm you stepped on the lions tale my friend! firstly MUMBAI attacks before they were over indian media had started pakistani war mongering! secondly this whole myth and proof thing well like i said let's discuss jaswant singhs book as well while we at it shouldn't we!

 

[R.A.W.]

Even i found it amazing when my fren from Pakistan was surprized when i use to wish her Allah Hafiz. I did not understood at first was wrong with it. In India you grow up in society where you have all religons in one place. If you go to aligarh you will find everyone greeting with salaam walikum despite being a Hindu or a Muslim.

The level of education is like people are still taught that sati is practised in India at the regular basis. People are more intersted in getting separated from India rather than creation of Pakistan.

While interacting with people from other Islamic nations mainly middle east and Iranians which hold a noble view about Pakistan had just one negation against Pakistan that these people lack confidence in themselves and their culture and try to identify themselves with other cultures.

In fact it can be seen from the naming of missiles themselves. Majority of them have been named after the aggressors in India rather than those who signify Pakistan or its people.

 

[ice_man]

Myth 1
Our history begins from 712AD, when Mohammad bin Qasim arrived in the subcontinent and conquered the port of Debal.

Take any social studies or Pakistan studies book, it starts with Mohammad bin Qasim. What was there before his arrival? Yes, cruel and despotic Hindu kings like Raja Dahir and the oppressed and uncivilized populace anxiously waiting for a ‘liberator’ to free them from the clutches of such cruel kings. And when the liberator came, he was welcomed with open arms and the grateful people converted to Islam en mass.

Did it really happen? This version of our history conveniently forgets that the area where our country is situated has had a long and glorious history of 6,000 years. Forget Moenjo Daro. We do not know enough about it. But recorded history tells us that before Mohammad Bin Qasim, this area, roughly encompassing Sindh, Punjab and some parts of the NWFP, was ruled by no less than 12 different dynasties from different parts of the world, including the Persians (during the Achamaenian period), the Greeks comprising the Bactrians, Scthians and Parthians, the Kushanas from China, and the Huns (of Attila fame) who also came from China, besides a number of Hindu dynasties including great rulers like Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka.

During the Gandhara period, this region had the distinction of being home to one of the biggest and most important universities of the world at our very own Taxila. We used to be highly civilized, well-educated, prosperous, creative and economically productive people, and many countries benefited a lot from us, intellectually as well as economically. This is something we better not forget. But do we tell this to our children? No. And so the myth continues from generation to generation.

well see the thing is human history starts of with ADAM not what was before ADAM right or wrong? why do we need to teach our children about the world before QASIM nothing wrong in that is their!!! infact what i say is aftr qasim we should skip everything and come and start at 1939 when the resolution of pakistan was passed! because after all we are pakistanis!


Myth 2
Mohammad Bin Qasim came to India to help oppressed widows and orphan girls.

Because of our blissful ignorance of history, we don’t know, or don’t bother to know, that this period was the age of expansion of the Islamic empire. The Arabs had conquered a large portion of the world, comprising the entire Middle East, Persia, North Africa and Spain. Therefore, it defies logic that they would not seek to conquer India, the land of legendary treasures.

In fact, the Arabs had sent their first expedition to India during Hazrat Umar Farooq’s tenure. A subsequent expedition had come to Makran during Hazrat Usman’s rule. But they had been unsuccessful in making any in-roads into the region. Later on, following the refusal of the king to give compensation for the ships captured by pirates (which incidentally included eight ships full of treasures from Sri Lanka, and not just women and girls), two expeditions had already been sent to India, but they proved unsuccessful. It was the third expedition brought by Mohammad Bin Qasim which succeeded in capturing Sindh, from Mansura to Multan. However, because of the Arabs’ internal dissension and political infighting, Sindh remained a neglected outpost of the Arab empire, and soon reverted to local kings


well like i said before if Qasim & the muslims really did "neglect" this "outpost" of the muslim world then islam would have died out as a religion or if qasim & his men were barbaric it would have died out.....like it did in SPAIN...(even though in spain muslims were not barbaric)


Myth 3
The myth of the idol-breaker.

Mahmood Ghaznavi, the great son of Islam and idol-breaker par excellence, took upon himself to destroy idols all over India and spread Islam in the subcontinent.

Mahmud, who came from neighbouring Ghazni, Central Asia, invaded India no less than 17 times. But except Punjab, he made no attempt to conquer any other part of the country or to try and consolidate his rule over the rest of India. In fact, the only thing that attracted him was the treasures of India, gold and precious stones, of which he took care and carried back home a considerable amount every time he raided the country. Temples in India were a repository of large amounts of treasure at the time, as were the churches in Europe, hence his special interest in temples and idols.

Contrary to popular belief, it was not the kings, the Central Asian sultans who ruled for over 300 years and the Mughals who ruled for another 300 years, who brought Islam to the subcontinent. That work was accomplished by the Sufi Sheikhs who came to India mainly to escape persecution from the fundamentalists back home, and who, through their high-mindedness, love for humanity, compassion, tolerance and simple living won the hearts of the people of all religions.

well ghaznavi myth don't know much about it....because he might have or might not have had a religious motivation....so no comments on this one


Myth 4
The myth of the cap-stitcher.

Of all the kings who have ruled the subcontinent, the one singled out for greatest praise in our text books is Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals. Baber built the empire; Humayun lost it and got it back; Akbar expanded and consolidated it; Jahangir was known for his sense of justice; Shahjehan for his magnificent buildings. But it is Aurangzeb, known as a pious man, who grabs the most attention. The prevalent myth is that he did not spend money from the treasury for his personal needs, but fulfilled them by stitching caps and copying out the Holy Quran. Is there any real need for discussing this assertion? Anyone who’s least bit familiar with the Mughal lifestyle would know how expensive it was to maintain their dozens of palaces. The Mughals used to have many wives, children, courtiers, concubines and slaves who would be present in each palace, whose needs had to be met. Could such expenses be met by stitching caps? And even if the king was stitching caps, would people buy them and use them as ordinary caps? Would they not pay exorbitant prices for them and keep them as heirlooms? Would a king, whose focus had to be on military threats surrounding him from all sides and on the need to save and consolidate a huge empire, have the time and leisure to sit and stitch caps? Let’s not forget that the person we are referring to as a pious Muslim was the same who became king after he imprisoned his won father in a cell in his palace and killed all his brothers to prevent them from taking over the throne.



this myth is the best!!!!! because it is definitely been written down by Aurengzeb's historians so it is not true & is written to portray a just and good image of Aurengzeb!!!

now if we establish this that this was written down by historians who favoured Aurangzeb or this piece of history was "CHANGED" then we also are made to think how about rest of the history following the MOGHUL rule couldn't that have already been changed by BRITISH or the powerful people who supported the british!



Myth 5
It was the Muslims who were responsible for the war of 1857; and it was the Muslims who bore the brunt of persecution in the aftermath of the war, while the Hindus were natural collaborators of the British.

It is true that more Muslim regiments than Hindu rose up against the British in 1857. But the Hindus also played a major role in the battle (the courageous Rani of Jhansi is a prime example); and if Muslim soldiers were inflamed by the rumour that the cartridges were laced with pig fat, in the case of Hindus, the rumour was that it was cow fat. And a large number of Muslims remained loyal to the British to the very end. (The most illustrious of them being Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.)

Furthermore, the Muslims did not lose their empire after 1857. The British had already become masters of most of India before that time, having grasped vast territories from both Hindu and Muslim rulers through guile and subterfuge.

The Mughal emperor at the time was a ruler in name only; his jurisdiction did not extend beyond Delhi. After 1857, the Hindus prospered, because they were clever enough to acquire modern education, learn the English language, and take to trade and commerce. The Muslims were only land owners, wedded to the dreams of the past pomp and glory, and when their lands were taken away, they were left with nothing; their madressah education and proficiency in Persian proved to be of no help. As a matter of fact, it was a hindrance in such changing times.



ok this is a very crazy one and incorrect! muslims suffered equally as other religions! and the moghul saltanat as well as all other princely conrtolled states were annexed under the british rule!



Myth 6
The Muslims were in the forefront of the struggle against the British and were singled out for unfair treatment by the latter.

Not at all. In fact, the first ‘gift’ given to the Muslims by the British was in 1905 in the form of partition of Bengal (later revoked in 1911). The Shimla delegation of 1906 has rightly been called a ‘command performance’; the Muslims were assured by the viceroy of separate electorates and weightage as soon as their leaders asked for them. After that, he Muslim League came into being, established by pro-British stalwarts like the Aga Khan, Justice Amir Ali, some other nawabs and feudal lords. And the first objective of the Muslim League manifesto read: “To promote feelings of loyalty to the British government.”

The Muslim League never carried out any agitation against the British. The only time the Muslims agitated was during the Khilafat Movement in the early ‘20s, led by the Ali brothers and other radical leaders. Not a single Muslim League leader, including the Quaid-i-Azam, ever went to jail. It was the Congress which continued the anti-British non-violent and non-cooperation movement in the ‘30s and ‘40s, including the famous ‘Quit India’ movement, while Muslim League leaders continued to denounce such movements and exhorted their followers not to take part in them.


yes very true Muslim League was a farce until the congress came into power in the 30's and carried out such atrocitites that support for muslim league started to rise....and Jinnah was a member of congress till mid 30's so i don't know what is the myth i think all pakistanis agree to the fact that Jinnah was in congress & moved into Muslim League much later....ofcourse because of well because of can be read IN JASWANT SINGH's book!




Myth 7
The Muslim League was the only representative body of the Muslims.

It is an incontrovertible fact that it was only after 1940 that the Muslim League established itself as a popular party among the Muslims. Prior to that, as evident in the 1937 elections, the Muslim League did not succeed in forming the government in any of the Muslim majority provinces. In those elections, out of the total of 482 Muslim seats, the Muslim League won only 103 (less than one-fourth of the total). Other seats went either to Congress Muslims or to nationalist parties such as the Punjab Unionist Party, the Sind Unionist Party and the Krishak Proja Party of Bengal.

don't know what is wrong here.... this is exactly what i said first congress came to power carried out atrocities to such a great level that in the next election the MUSLIM LEAGUE started looking like the better of the two evils!!!!! no "myth" here guys...



Myth 8
Allama Iqbal was the first person to come up with the idea of a separate Muslim state.

This is one of the most deeply embedded myths in our country and the one which has been propagated by all governments. In fact, the idea that Muslim majority provinces of the north-west formed a natural group and should be considered a single bloc had been mooted by the British as far back as 1858 and freely discussed in various newspaper articles and on political platforms. Several variations of the idea had come from important public personalities, including British, Muslims and some Hindus. By the time Allama Iqbal gave his famous speech in 1930, the idea had been put forward at least 64 times. So, Iqbal voiced something which was already there, and was not an original ‘dream’. After his speech at Allahbad was reported, Allama Iqbal published a ‘retraction’ in a British newspaper that he had not been talking of a separate Muslim sate, but only of a Muslim bloc within the Indian federation.

well the idea might have been put forward but in such a way as a two nation theory it never came up...but ya its a myth to believe that iqbal was the first one to come up with the idea of a muslim state!!!


Myth 9
The Pakistan Resolution envisaged a single Muslim state.

The fact is that none of the proposals regarding the Muslim bloc mooted by different individuals or parties had included East Bengal in it. The emphasis had always been on north-western provinces, which shared common frontiers, while other Muslim majority states, such as Bengal and Hyderabad, were envisaged as separate blocs. So, it was in the Pakistan Resolution. The resolution reads: “The areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”

Leaving aside the poor and ambiguous drafting of the entire resolution, the part about states (in plural) is very clear. It was only in 1946, at a convention of the Muslim League legislators in Delhi, that the original resolution was amended, which was adopted at a general Muslim League session and the objective became a single state.

well this is not a myth again....Pakistan was going to be the north western block....

Hyderabad deccan area was going to be usmanistan and begal was going to get its seperate independence! basically india was going to be divided up into many bits and pieces!




Myth 10
March 23, 1940 is celebrated because the Pakistan Resolution was adopted on that day. The fact of the matter is that the Pakistan Resolution was only introduced on March 23 and was finally adopted on March 24 (the second and final day of the session).

As to why we celebrate March 23 is another story altogether. The day was never celebrated before 1956. It was first celebrated that year as the Republic Day to mark the passage of the first constitution and Pakistan’s emergence as a truly independent republic. It had the same importance for us as January 26 for India. But when Gen Ayub abrogated the constitution and established martial law in 1958, he was faced with a dilemma. He could not let the country celebrate a day commemorating the constitution that he had himself torn apart, nor could he cancel the celebration altogether. A way-out was found by keeping the celebration, but giving it another name: the Pakistan Resolution Day


lol this myth i had no idea this is a good one!!! i like most pakistanis always thought that March 23 was actually the day of the resolution!!! so damn this myth is kind of really bust now...

 

[Skeptic]

Another report is summarized herewith
ScienceDirect - Futures : Enemies within and enemies without: The besieged self in Pakistani textbooks

Inherently evil: the Hindu other

.the Hindu and Muslim nations of the sub-continent have been, throughout the whole history and society of India, like two rivers which have flowed parallel to each other, but have never met or merged into one. These differences between the Hindu and Muslim nations which have characterized their whole history, social life, culture, customs, religious beliefs, world-views and lifestyles in the past and in the present, are the basis of the Two Nation Theory [11].

The idea of the complete otherness of Hindus and Muslims receives the most vehement articulation in a Civics textbook for Intermediate Classes by Mazhar-ul-Haq who writes:

The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literatures. They neither intermarry nor intermingle together, and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their views on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussulmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is the foe of the other, and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority nd the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state [12].

Mazhar-ul-Haq’s explication of the two nation idea is strongly representative of the way in which it appears in most social studies, civics and Pakistan Studies textbooks. The emphasis is on two completely different and conflicting civilizations that seem to have nothing in common. However, the description of this difference does not tell us anything about either civilization. The differences in their conceptions, philosophies or literatures are not elaborated upon as the intention seems to be to emphasize that they are different, but not on how they are different. Detailed knowledge of the other, even as an enemy, is missing.

The erasure of complexity arising from multiple and contradictory voices, for example Muslims who were opposed to the two nation theory and partition, and Hindus who were sympathetic to the Muslim perspective, enables the story of the two irreconcilable nations to achieve a coherence that the idea lacked in reality.
Right from the beginning of the educational ladder, children’s national memory is shaped into a binary mould by suppressing the multiplicity of voices that formed part of the discourse.

In support of the claim that it had become imperative for the Muslims of India to create a separate homeland, the Hindu ‘other’ is represented as racist and fundamentalist. One sub-heading in Mazhar-ul-Haq’s book on Civics is ‘Hindu Revivalism and Fundamentalism’. The intentions of the Hindu other are described in the following way:

The Hindus had become very ambitious during the 19th century. They were dreaming of making this vast sub-continent and Hindu land by driving out the British rulers and exterminating the Muslims whom they called Malichchas or dirty people. It was the same kind of racialism and race-hatred that is found in all aggressive peoples and nations, like the ancient Aryans who called the non-Aryans as Dasyus or black-demons, or like Americans and Europeans who call the nonwhite peoples of the world as ‘gooks’, etc. [13].

One fails to see how the author discovered that all the Hindus had become ambitious during the 19th century, and how did he have access to what they were dreaming about. Nonetheless, these assertions are made in the text along with the claim that the same kind of racialism and race-hatred is found among all aggressive peoples and nations. The examples given are the Aryans, Americans and Europeans. Here all the perceived ‘others’ are lumped together and provided with the attribute of aggression which allegedly ‘all of them’ possess as a natural trait. Since the construction of the ‘other’ is simultaneously a construction of the Self as the absence of all that the ‘other’ represents, it is implied that Muslims are not aggressive or ambitious and do not have expansionist dreams. The history of the sub-continent gives the lie to such a suggestion, but then what is often missing from this kind of history is History itself. Once again detail is absent to prove the points that all ‘others’ are aggressive and racialist. The writer next asserts that

‘There were many Hindu leaders in the 19th century who preached revivalism and fundamentalism among the Hindus’ [14,15].

A few pages later in the same text, the writer presents Gandhi as a Hindu fundamentalist leader ‘who skillfully twisted the Khilafat Movement of the Indian Muslims, to his own ends’ [16]. This discourse continues in the tone that Gandhi played political tricks upon Muslims and was clever in his manipulation of their sentiments. By dealing in this perfunctory way with the vast complexity that was Gandhi, the text manages to deprive the reader of the rich texture of the freedom movement. It blunts any possible curiosity that may arise in the student to know more about why and how the freedom struggle ultimately bi-furcated into two separate states. It would not suit the formation of national memory to provide the details of Indian Hindu and Muslim leaders and their actions that fed into the separatist agenda.

The rest of the pages of the Civics text are filled with words such as perfidious, extremist and intransigent for Hindu leaders with no mention of those who dissented or of those among Muslims leaders who did not agree with the Muslim League. The entire text suffers from the compression, speed and sketchy formulation of historical

As the text reaches close to the end of the chapter on the Pakistan Movement, the Hindu ‘other’ takes on increasingly sinister aspects. With regard to the issue of Kashmir and the plebiscite that was never held, the writer’s words take on a harsher tone. According to him, ‘Hindu Machiavellianism, or better still, Chanakyanism, had come into operation’[17] because plebiscite was to be held in Muslim majority areas only after British left. As a result the Indian army entered Kashmir and ‘the gates to Hindu Machiavellianism were thus opened’ [18]. The collapse of the categories ‘Indian’ and ‘Hindus’, and their interchangeable usage throughout the text, is a denial of the multiplicity of India where a large Muslim minority lives alongside other religious communities.

India is declared as ‘our most hostile neighbour’ and the writer passes the judgement that while the Pakistani nation can be united with any other nation or people living outside its boundaries, it cannot do so with India if ‘we are to remain a distinct nation’ [19]. The fear of merger, of losing a distinct and separate identity is evident here. The fear that India will engulf or devour us is rooted in the national psyche that India has never accepted our existence and wants to destroy us as it partially did in 1971. This is the corollary of the Indian national story that Pakistan sends militants into India to break it up as a revenge against India breaking up Pakistan in 1971. According to the writer, ‘India is our closest, but most hostile neighbour. This unfortunate relationship is only due to the hostility and
antagonism which India has shown towards Pakistan from the very first day it came into being or rather before Pakistan came into being. The Hindu majority community of this sub-continent and its militant parties and leaders always dreamed of establishing a Hindu State over the whole sub-continent called Akhand Bharat where the Hindu culture and Hindu language will dominate and the traces of Muslim culture, civilization and language will be wiped out’ [20]. All hostility is attributed to India based on its designs to wipe out Pakistan. Pakistani hostility towards India is silenced.[/B]

The curriculum prepared by the National Curriculum Committee, Ministry of Education in 1984 requires that the spread of Islam and Mohd. Bin Qasim’s invasions in India be taught to students [37]. Under ‘Affective Objectives’ the curriculum includes ‘aspirations for Jehad’, love and regard for Islamic values, and among the concepts to be given to students, the curriculum includes martyrdom, valour and the idea of a cannon [38]. The activities suggested for students include drawing the picture of a cannon, tracing Mohd. Bin Qasim’s conquest route and discussing Islam’s advent into the sub-continent. The following passage from the social studies textbook for Class VI illustrates how the curriculum of 1984 is realized in a textbook of 2002:

In the middle of the city of Dabel there was a Hindu temple. There was a flag hoisted on top of it. The Hindus believed that as long as the flag kept flying, nobody could harm them. Mohd. Bin Qasim found out about this belief. The Muslims began to catapult stones at the temple and at the flag, ultimately making it fall to the ground. The whole city became tumultuous and the Hindus lost heart. Some Muslims clambered up the walls of the temple and forced open the door. Qasim’s army entered the city and after conquering it, announced peace. The Muslims treated the vanquished so well that many Hindus converted to Islam [41].

This description of breaking down the barriers of the sacred space of the ‘other’ and making a forcible entry to take over is typical of several other depictions that appeared in the textbooks of the era of General Zia. A very similar account of the forced and violent entry of Mahmud of Ghazni into a Hindu temple, along with the defeated and begging postures of Hindus, appears in a Class V textbook produced in 1987 [34]. The scene in this story starts with the idea of a flag hoisted atop a temple and the belief that as long as it keeps flying nobody could harm the Hindus. This description is akin to the maintenance of virginity and its public announcement.

The next image is one of Muslims catapulting stones at the temple and the flag making it fall down, and then clambering up the walls of the temple and forcing open the door. The connotation of rape by Muslims and the loss of Hindu ‘virginity’ is unmistakable. Sacred and protected space is violated by force and then desecrated. A number of descriptions of conquest and victory bear resemblance to rape. However, immediately after this triumph of the Masculine Muslim Self, the posture of peace is assumed. The feminine side re-emerges and the kind treatment of the Hindus is announced. The sudden shift from a violent act against the Hindus, to the announcement of peace and good treatment is not explained. One fails to understand how such a scenario could have led to peace and such good treatment that many Hindus voluntarily embraced Islam.

During the Khilafat Movement the Hindus and Muslims were completely united and like brothers and they started to co-operate and live in peaceful togetherness. But as soon as this movement ended, Hindu hatred of the Muslims re-emerged [59].

In the quotation above, the Hindu hatred of the Muslims allegedly ‘re-emerged’ as soon as the Khilafat Movement ended. Re-emergence implies that some kind of primordial hatred was always there ready to be mobilized. It was temporarily suspended during the movement for political purposes, but this hatred is somehow a part of being Hindu. The assumption is that we know them, and we know how the real ‘Hindu mind’ works.

The Civics textbook for Classes IX and X produced by the Punjab Textbook Board in March 2001 claims that there were two nations residing in South Asia, Hindus and Muslims—by a single sleight of hand the Buddhists of Nepal and Sri Lanka, and the Christians residing in all of South Asia are vanquished [1].

The British were excellent at conniving with the Hindus to humiliate the Muslims, our children are told. Here is how the British ‘other’ appears in the Civics textbook by Mazharul- Haq:

.the British rulers decided to humiliate and suppress their Muslim subjects by all means at their disposal. They showered favours upon the Hindus, while they denied all opportunities for education, employment, wealth and progress to the Muslims [22].

As no explanation is offered for the showering of favours upon the Hindus, the Britishcome through as merely prejudiced. There is no historical explanation based on politics, economics or culture or the dynamics of Indian politics. The child has to just believe that the British, for some deeply mysterious reason, favoured the Hindus. Most of the textbooks are littered with phrases about British–Hindu imperialism as though this were some kind of joint project. The Class VIII social studies textbook narrates the stories of Muslim suffering by stating that ‘the English seized all Muslim lands and gave them to the Hindus’, that the English had destroyed Muslim cultural spaces, welfare institutions, education and employment opportunities [61], that the Hindus had convinced the British that only the Muslims had fought against them in 1857 [62], and that it was ultimately
Syed Ahmad Khan who convinced the English that the Muslims had protected them by risking their own lives [63]. An almost identical account of English atrocities appears in the Pakistan Studies textbook prepared in March 2002 by the Punjab Textbook Board, but it adds that the English engaged in genocide of the Muslims in which the Hindus cooperated with them in return for financial benefits [25]. This discourse creates the impression that the Hindus were not fighting imperial rule and thus cancels the entire Indian struggle for freedom. What is excluded here is Muslim imperialism which usually tends to fall under the categories of ‘conquest’, ‘glory’, ‘greatness’, and the holy duty for the ‘spread of Islam’.

Desire to tell children that Muslim nation and culture are far superior to all others, appears in the Class VI social studies textbook also:

The Muslims ruled the sub-continent for over a thousand years. They were, therefore, superior to all other nations residing there. In terms of Knowledge, art, technical expertise, civilization, no other nation could compete with them. After the war of independence, the English took revenge upon the Muslims and confiscated their property, harmed their businesses, threw them out of jobs and over a short period of time, destroyed their lives and they started to lag behind in every field [44].

The English and the Christian ‘others’, jealous of Muslim superiority, destroyed the Muslim due to vengefulness. The Muslims lag behind only because of the English, not because of historical dynamics within their own community. The curricular objective to instill ‘pride in being a Muslim’ is fulfilled in the construction of the self in terms of superiority. All forms of nationalism seem to partake of the ideas of the superiority of the self as the basis for the hostility of the ‘other’ towards the self. In the process, one’s own conscious or unconscious hostility is elided.

The first type of appearance of the Sikhs, as invaders of the Punjab, is exemplified by a social studies textbook written for Class IV in 1998. According to this representation:

After the death of emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal dynasty became weak and mutinies began in several provinces. When the government of the Punjab became weak, the Sikhs began to increase their influence and started plundering the larger cities of the Punjab. Lahore and Multan were plundered and looted several times by the Sikhs who murdered the people and unleashed terror and violence upon them. Finally, the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh established his hold over the Punjab and the Sikhs and the Hindus together committed many atrocities and cruelties upon the Muslims. They particularly desecrated Muslim holy places and shrines [39].

When the hero of the textbook story, the Muslim assailed from all sides, becomes weak, the Sikh butcher enters the stage as plunderer, looter and murderer.

T

he second appearance of the murdering, knife-wielding Sikh around the time of partition can be viewed in the following depiction taken from the Pakistan Studies textbook for Classes IX and X produced in March 2002:
When the Hindus and Sikhs realized that Pakistan is being established, they started riots in parts of the Punjab. As a result hundreds of thousands of Muslims were wounded and murdered. In this difficult time, the Muslims of the Punjab did not let go of fortitude and strength and welcomed the refugees from Indian territory and were generous to them. They proved that Muslims always help each other [27].

In the gory tale of wounding and murdering at partition, the story of killing and murdering by Muslims is a silence in the text. It has been recorded by many noted scholars, that during partition violence, rape and murder were committed by all religious communities against all others [32].
There is intense moral ambivalence among Pakistanis regarding the events of 1971. When the quarrel is with a Hindu, Christian or Jewish ‘other’, religious justifications are easily invoked in support of the besieged self. When the quarrel is with fellow Muslims, not only does the story of the two nations become transparently fictional, the religious basis of holy war cannot be invoked. Bangladesh becomes a gaping hole in national memory. The only way to speak about it is through silence. This ‘other’ is a part of the self, is not really an other. It is not really the self. The only way to define it is to not define it.

The compulsion to not remember requires the expenditure of energy on the different story. Here is how the untold story of Bangladesh appears in the Civics textbook for Classes IX and X produced in 2001:

Certain political elements began to propagate that nation depends on language and ethnicity instead of religion. This led to an increase in provincial prejudices. Shaikh Mujib-ur-Rehman took full advantage and started telling the people that the people of West Pakistan were exploiting them. He had the support of India and other enemies of Pakistan to break Pakistan up into pieces. He started to sow hatred into the hearts of the Bengalis. The Bengalis were influenced by this propaganda and as a result the Awami League won the election overwhelmingly. Mujib started to propagate a confederation and said that East Pakistanis can only develop under his 6 point formula. This was an evil design dressed in the garb of provincial autonomy. The Awami Leaguers and the so-called Mukti Bahini began the mass murder of non- Bengalis. They destroyed public property. In this storm of murder and looting, nobody’s life and property was safe. At every step the law of the land was violated. Bangladeshi flags were flown all over the land. Finally in order to overcome this revolt, the Pakistan army was given authority. India started to pass statements to incite the Bengalis against the Pakistan army. India convinced them that the Pakistani army is inflicting cruelty upon them. Finally Mujib-ur-Rehman was arrested and India, which was fully part of the conspiracy by Mujib, made a great noise over this arrest. India used the insurgents and miscreants and started a poisonous campaign against Pakistan all over the world. When India saw that it is achieving its nefarious designs, it attacked Pakistan. The Pakistan army fought with full courage for the sake of the pure land, they sacrificed their lives. If they had been allowed to go on fighting, the enemy would never have succeeded, but because of incompetent leadership in Pakistan, they had to surrender. So, finally East Pakistan became separate from Pakistan due to treason of Awami League, and Indian aggression. The whole Pakistani nation was tormented and writhing in the pain of this deep wound [3]

The entire episode of the formation of Bangladesh is relegated to the dark and insidious realms of conspiracy. The Bengalis ‘stabbed us in the back’ by joining hands with India. They committed the murder of non-Bengalis, they looted and they destroyed property. The Bengalis started the violence and were responsible, along with conniving and scheming India, for the deeply wounding break of Pakistan in 1971. There is a great deal of silencing in this story. Why were the Bengalis so easily misled and convinced by India’s propaganda? Why did they start killing non-Bengalis? Why did they believe that the Pakistan army was committing atrocities upon them? None of these questions are answered. The brevity and compression used here to describe events that have a long history and background in Pakistani politics and economics, forestalls any critical thinking about what parted us. What is absent here is also the role of the Pakistani military, which receives plaudits for its exploits, but no disapprobation or condemnation of its well-known acts.

The reference to peace, supposedly established by the military, appears in the Intermediate level Civics textbook by Mazhar-ul-Haq which accords the following peremptory treatment to the whole episode:

Awami League’s victory in East Pakistan encouraged the internal and foreign enemies of Pakistan to hatch a conspiracy against the unity and solidarity of the country by inciting a revolt in East ‘Wing’ of Pakistan.This was indeed a scheme of international conspirators.Though the army succeeded in restoring peace and order in East Pakistan, but some of the Awami League leaders fled across the border to India. They were welcomed by the Indian Government which was then preparing its army for the invasion of East Pakistan. The Awami League leaders set up a ‘Bangladesh Government’ at Calcutta in Bharat, which was promptly recognized by India and her friends, like the USSR.A few months later the Indian army launched an aggression against Pakistan and after a month of fierce fighting in East Pakistan, Dacca, its capital, fell to the Indian aggressors on December 16, 1971 [23].

The conspiracy to create Bangladesh is internationalized and there is now a multiplicity of conspirators who collaborate to break up Pakistan. Various ‘others’ are here together in crime against a beleaguered self. The military succeeded in restoring peace and order, says the textbook, but what it does not say is that it was a repressive and unjust peace and an authoritarian order that were restored.

 

[Skeptic]

Pakistan: Do school texts fuel bias?

"My 7-year-old came home from school one day insisting that Indians are our natural-born enemies, that Muslims are good, and Hindus are evil," the widely traveled journalist recalls. "He asked about the relative strength of our air forces and insisted we would win if it came to war.

"It was only when I asked him whether my Indian friends … were also bad," he adds, "that he began to realize that things weren’t quite so simple."

Public schools, though long neglected, are still responsible for educating the vast majority of schoolchildren. Some 57 percent of boys and 44 percent of girls enroll in primary school, and about 46 percent of boys and 32 percent of girls reach high school.

All public schools must follow the government curriculum – one that critics say is inadequate at best, harmful at worst.

According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, the "Islamizing" of Pakistan’s schools began in 1976 under the rule of the former dictator, the general Zia ul-Haq.

An act of parliament that year required all government and private schools (except those teaching the British O-levels from Grade 9) to follow a curriculum that includes learning outcomes for the federally approved Grade 5 social studies class such as: "Acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan," "Make speeches on Jihad," "Collect pictures of policemen, soldiers, and national guards," and "India’s evil designs against Pakistan."

"It sounds like the blueprint for a religious fascist state," says Professor Hoodbhoy. "You have a country where generations have grown up believing they are surrounded on all sides by enemies, they are the only righteous ones, and the world is out to get them."

It is this siege mentality that led to some of the head-in-the-sand reactions by the Pakistani media and public in the aftermath of Mumbai, he suggests.

"There was a flat denial that it could be Pakistanis," he says. "Anyone suggesting the contrary was labeled an enemy of the state or unpatriotic. When I said on television there are groups in this country dedicated to harming India – the furor … was quite astonishing."

Amanullah Kariapper, a young software engineer and cofounder of Young Professionals of Lahore, an informal alliance dedicated to human rights causes, agrees.

Mr. Kariapper says he began revising his world views when he went to college, first at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and later in Grenoble, France. The process came full circle when he was briefly arrested in November 2007 for protesting former President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency and suspension of civil rights.

General Zia’s curriculum was inherited by the successive governments of Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, General Musharraf, and now, Asif Ali Zardari.

An Islamist alphabet chart published in this month’s Newsline shows Urdu letters accompanied by guns, daggers, and a depiction of planes crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The chart is not approved by the government. But it is, the article claims, in use by "by some regular schools as well as madrassahs associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf." The Ministry of Education says there are 1.5 million students in 13,000 madrassahs acquiring a parallel religious education.

Critics also complain about insensitivity toward minorities. A section on Christian festivities in the Federal Ethics textbooks had been removed, according to a Daily Times report from 2006 titled "O Jesus, where art thou?" Hindu and Sikh festivals were mentioned only fleetingly.

In the latest edition of Pakistan Studies for Grades 9-10, approved by the Punjab textbook board, all mention of non-Muslim festivals of Pakistan had been removed. Hindus and Christians make up about 5 percent of the population of more than 170 million.

In 2007, two Pakistani students at Middlebury College, Hamza Usmani and Shujaat Ali Khan, embarked on a review of all state-sanctioned texts in a project called "Enlightened Pakistan."

They enlisted contacts ranging from seniors in high school to teachers. The bulk of their report (Enlightened Pakistan: Home), targets poor teaching in sciences, languages, and math. But in social sciences and history, they found "disturbing" themes like "Pakistan is for Muslims alone," "The world is collectively scheming against Pakistan and Islam," and "Muslims are urged to fight Jihad against the infidels."

The report notes that the textbooks routinely engage in historical revisionism and place questions designed to portray Hinduism as an inherently iniquitous religion: "There is no place for equality in Hinduism. Right/Wrong."

Mr. Usmani says the texts encourage illiberal worldviews and "dumb down" education. "No opposing views are presented, no differing ideas. It makes the population less intelligent," he says.

But Rasul Baksh Rais, a professor at LUMS, argues that every nation has the right to construct its own historical narrative as part of the legitimate process of nation-building. "Perhaps they [the critics] simply don’t want us to be on that track at all or they want us be a very confused nation. It’s a negative attitude toward Pakistan," he says, adding he has yet to see proof of anti-India or anti-Hindu bias.

"The roots of Pakistani resentment toward India lie in causes such as the conflict in Kashmir and the ongoing oppression of Muslims," says Mr. Rais.

Mr. Usmani says it’s a case of how far one goes. "All nations need to support their national fabric. But you have to draw the line somewhere. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia – these are not examples you want to emulate. This debate is about where to draw that line."

Amir Raza Malik, a Ministry of Education spokesman, declined to comment on previous curriculums, but said the Ministry was preparing an overhaul that would be unveiled in 2010. "If there is any objectionable material, it would certainly be removed," he says.

 

[Skeptic]

Unanswered questions

After going through the Herald magazine’s annual issue, which this year included a survey on Pakistani youth, I was compelled to write about the identity crisis plaguing the youngsters of this country today. Pakistan’s turbulent history has widened, rather than resolved, the contradictions present in our society, leaving society as polarised as ever. The young generation is still searching for the answers that previous generations of Pakistanis have failed to provide.

This prevalent identity crisis is spurred at an early school-going age. Text books are written to pursue expedient policies and internalise certain notions of ‘national interest,’ which may come at the expense of imbuing the children with ideologies that promote hate and intolerance. For this purpose, history is twisted and turned to suit petty interests. Few individuals are revered, others are demonised. Accounts of events from history are printed with knowing distortions and glaring omissions. According to a report compiled by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), which examined text books for grades one to 12, most text books “[encourage] or

discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities and other nations.”

War is glorified in the process, while peace is not given the emphasis it needs. War is a breakdown of diplomacy, an utter failure of humanity, one that is often branded and disguised as an expression of bravery and courage in our books. This practice reminds me of a Stephen Fisher dialogue in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), when he says, “they combine a mad love of country with an equally mad indifference to life, their own as well as others. They are cunning, unscrupulous, inspired.”

One may argue that this kind of text book perversion is a standard practice in order to promote nationalism and patriotism. The troubling effects of this ‘standard practice’ are pretty much evident in the increasing social turmoil in our society. If our youth are not aware of our historical follies, how are we planning to ensure that we do not end up travelling down the same cul-de-sac again? Is it really due to our ‘security interests’ that findings such as the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report never see the light of the day? Young individuals, who get the opportunity to read beyond their text books, are increasingly questioning the biased versions of our historical narratives. Others, who are not lucky enough to read widely, have formulated views which are far from the truth.

Many recent surveys, like the British Council’s ‘Next Generation Report’, have also highlighted an alarmingly high ratio of youth that have no faith in democracy and would prefer a totalitarian regime under military rulers. This is not just about the large Facebook following of a former military dictator; rather, it’s about the rampant disillusionment among today’ youth with the present system, which they believe has failed to deliver on countless occasions due to inept policies and politicians.

Moreover, many young people feel that reaffirming their national identity comes at the cost of losing their provincial identity. Concepts such as unity in diversity or multicultural coexistence are very much needed today. In a country like ours, until the voice of every ethnicity and minority is not heard, until their due concerns are not addressed, a true consensus – which is indispensable for a federation to show progress – can not be forged. For instance, it does not amount to lack of patriotism or treason for a Baloch to ask for more provincial autonomy.

This brings me to another disturbing trend. The intricate issues in which we are caught are often very frustrating for the youth. While groping for solutions in this dark period, the youth are exploited by certain individuals who with their oratory skills present a simplistic answer to complicated dilemmas by urging them to focus on a common external enemy. They spit venom, blabber about conspiracy theories, and preach jingoism in the media.

This strategy works, and it is nothing different from our flawed policies of looking at everything through a security prism, which we have already been doing at a larger level. Well, when the rival countries of Europe could be brought under a single banner by highlighting an external threat of communism, many believe same effect can be achieved with the diverse population of Pakistan by the use of a single external enemy. So manipulative minds use a bit of warmongering to unite the nation. Of course, in the process, our own inefficacies can be brushed under the carpet as well.

In the words of Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi, an Islamabad-based youth activist and the founder of the Pakistan Youth Alliance, “we are a nation of 170 million, confused about our ideology, our very basis, our culture and sociology, our religion, our priorities and our enemies.” He points out that it is easier for most Pakistanis to condemn atrocities committed by a Jewish state thousands of miles away, than to raise a voice against extremism which may have claimed more lives in our own backyard. The point is not to underscore Gaza atrocities, but to highlight the reluctance on our part to identify our own failures as well. To do that, our youth will have to rise above bifurcations to call spade a spade and will raise their guard against the chicanery of hate-preaching demagogues.​

 

[ek_indian]

Relax guys, it happens everywhere not in India or Pakistan alone.
While in Pakistan, it may be overtly against a religion. Other have sunbtle ways to do it as well. India too has a fair share of it. This all exercise is a tool to remain in power by misinformation.

(1) We should agree that almost entire media blatantly support one political party here. There is unnecessary and unfair criticism of others.
(2) The history is written in such a fashion that those who belonged to softline approach are given more space than hard liners. Though no one is ctiticised (everyone is praised), other ideologies/views/persons are not discussed much.
(3) The information is not revealed about wars which India fought. Every time any such request are rejected on the ground of national security even after so many years.

There are many examples. Thsi is where we need forums like defence.pk so that we can get idea about other's POV. This might lead to a well balanced and more accurate conclusion and analysis.

 

[jarnee]

BUT HAVING SAID ALL THIS I GUESS OUR TEXTBOOKS are wrong they need to be corrected but INDIAN MEDIA CURRENTLY is spreading all the hate from across the border!

I will agree to you to some extent at leaset it did till First half of 2009 starting from 26/11 onwards.
But it is not talking communal. Anti Pakistan is not Anti Islam.

 

[jarnee]

^^ but again not all channels, AAjtak, India TV , News 24 IBN7 (Yes).
On lighter note:
Please do not include Bal takrey's Saamna as Indian Media. Its is anti - India too.
India TV's
"Das kadam Pakistan khatam" was embarrasaing.

 

[jarnee]

There lies the problem, “if we are wrong, so are the Indians”. We are so much into this India-phobia that even though we know we are wrong, we try to justify our wrong by comparing it with the wrongs of the Indians instead of simply accepting the fact and trying to rectify it.

.

Right!
An Eye for an Eye will make every one blind. (wow. i dont think any one said this before.)