Pakistani textbooks controversy

Pakistani textbooks controversy relates to the reported inaccuracy of some Pakistani textbooks and the existence of historical revisionism in them. The content of Pakistan's official textbooks has often been criticized by several sources including many within Pakistan for sometimes promoting religious intolerance and Indophobia, leading to calls for curriculum reform. __NOTOC__ A “While education appears to make people less favourable toward terrorist groups, there is also a worrying increase in favourability toward these groups at the secondary school level. My analysis of Pakistan Studies textbooks helped explain why that is the case: The books set up a framework of the world in which Pakistan is viewed as the victim of conspiracies of both India and the West, and Pakistanis and Muslims are pitched in opposition to other countries and religions.” Madiha Afzal in her book [ Pakistan under Siege:Extremism, Society, and the State] https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pakistan-imran-khan-education-aurat-march-khaled-ahmed-6400698/ The Progressive Papers had always been an anomaly in Pakistan, where the bulk of the post-Partition intelligentsia was not merely conformist, but engaged in a project to rewrite the history of the struggle for Indian independence in order to provide the new state with a raison d’être. Ali, Tariq - Street fighting years, an autobiography of the sixties (2018) B To this day, the country’s memories about its treatment of its former east wing remain, as one leading Pakistani publication put it, shrouded in “a fog of confusion” or lost in “collective amnesia.” Although upper-level textbooks can be much better, many of Pakistan’s textbooks have whitewashed out the atrocities against Bengalis and falsely claimed that the United States wanted Pakistan divided. Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide. Epilogue E Ironically, one of the few things that Indian and Pakistani textbooks seem to agree on is in fact a falsehood: namely, that Islam grew in precolonial India through the agency of Sufi saints. There is little contemporary evidence for such a thing. Generally speaking, Sufis were not interested in converting Hindus. R Eaton 2015, 'We will never know the number of temples desecrated through India's history': Richard Eaton H "The 'recasting' of Pakistani history [has been] used to 'endow the nation with a historic destiny'." Hoodbhoy, Pervez and Nayyar, A.H. “Rewriting the History of Pakistan,” in Khan, Asghar, (ed.), Islam, Politics, and the State, (Zed Press, 1985), K “...We will, hopefully by next year, introduce a core syllabus for all schools that will be mandatory for students apart from the additional subjects each institution chooses to teach. This is how you create a nation. This is how you end rival cultures from developing. The Aurat March that just happened… a different culture was visible in it. this is a cultural issue and this comes from the schooling system...” Imran Khan Prime Minister of Pakistan https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pakistan-imran-khan-education-aurat-march-khaled-ahmed-6400698/ L History, in the Pakistan school books I looked at, begins with Arabia and Islam. In the simpler texts, surveys of the Prophet and the first four caliphs and perhaps the Prophet's daughter are followed, with hardly a break, by lives of the poet Iqbal, Mr Jinnah, the political founder of Pakistan, and two or three "martyrs," soldiers or airmen who died in the holy wars against India in 1965 and 1971. V.S.Naipaul, quoted in Ibn Warraq, Why I am not a Muslim. 1995. p 200 N Pakistan’s public education system has an important role in determining how successful we shall be in achieving the goal of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan. A key requirement is that children must learn to understand and value this goal and cherish the values of truthfulness, honesty, responsibility, equality, justice, and peace that go with it. [….] However, a close analysis by a group of independent scholars shows that for over two decades the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks in these subjects have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan. "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan," compiled by A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, Our analysis found that some of the most significant problems in the current curricula and textbooks are: • Inaccuracies of fact and omissions that serve to substantially distort the nature and significance of actual events in our history. • Insensitivity to the actually existing religious diversity of the nation • Incitement to militancy and violence, including encouragement of Jehad and Shahadat. • Perspectives that encourage prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially wo men and religious minorities, and other nations. • A glorification of war and the use of force • Omission of concepts, events and material that could encourage critical self-awareness among students. • Outdated and incoherent pedagogical practices that hinder the development of interest and insight among students. "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan," compiled by A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, The books on Social Studies systematically misrepresent events that have happened over the past several decades of Pakistan’s history, including those which are within living memory of many people. This history is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects, and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events, and narrowing the perspective that should be open to students. Worse, the material is presented in a way that encourages the student to marginalise and be hostile towards other social groups and people in the region. "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan," compiled by A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, There is an undercurrent of exclusivist and divisive tendencies at work in the subject matter recommended for studies in the curriculum documents as well as in textbooks. Pakistani nationalism is repeatedly defined in a manner that is bound to exclude non- Muslim Pakistanis from either being Pakistani nationals or from even being good human beings. Much of this material would run counter to any efforts at national integration. "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan," compiled by A.H. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim, R Bangladesh is a majority Muslim country, with a significant, if shrinking Hindu minority—about 25-30% at the time of Partition in 1947, and less than 9% in 2003. The textbooks in Bangladesh are not based on an anti-Indian bias as are state sponsored textbooks in Pakistan. The social studies curriculum in Pakistan is premised on creating a national identity that is distinct from India, whereas Bangladeshi textbooks reflect a more pan-South Asian perspective, though Bengal-centric. Rosser, Yvette Claire (2003). Curriculum as Destiny: Forging National Identity in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Dissertation). University of Texas at Austin. For the past few decades in Pakistan, most educational reforms and curriculum policies have been politically and religiously driven, pedagogy being secondary. Denial and erasure are the primary tools of historiography as it is officially practiced in Pakistan. There is little room in the official historical narrative for questions or alternative points of view. Y. Rosser, Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks, 2003 In contrast, in Pakistan, during the years of General Zia-ul Haq's dictatorship, 1977-1988, textbooks were completely altered to promote fundamentalist Islamic perspectives glorifying worldwide jihad. There was no scope for the textbook boards in the provinces of (West) Pakistan to impact the narrative as it emanated exclusively from Islamabad. (5) Y Rosser, Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh. 2004 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 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 the textbooks, creates a difficult dilemma for historians writing about the Mughal Dynasties. Yvette Rosser, Islamization of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks, 2003 S It appears that Pakistani public school textbooks were not written to serve the pedagogical imperatives of intellectual development and the inculcation of critical thinking. Rather, they were written to perpetually justify a divisive ideology of rupture which had to be continually reiterated in the construction of national memory. Rubina Saigol, ‘Textbooks: An Education in Demonology’, India Today, 11 August 2012, at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rubina-saigol-pakistani-textbooks-divisive-ideology- muslims-are-always-heroic-and-hindus-invariably-diabolical/1/212833.html (Accessed 23 December 2012). also quoted in Behuria: Partition of History in Textbooks in Pakistan: Implications of Selective Memory and Forgetting History of Pakistan: Past and Present, a typical textbook taught in Pakistan’s schools, begins the story of Pakistan with the “Advent of Islam”, giving exactly nine pages to “Pre-Islamic Civilization”, negatively presented as Jahiliya, an important Islamic concept and a name for all pre-Islamic period. Ram Swarup, quoted from the preface by Ram Swarup in Gurbachan, S. T. S., & Swarup, R. (1991). Muslim League attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947. (The Pakistani historian) flees from Indian-ness, and would extra-territorialize even Mohenjodaro (linking the Indus-valley civilisation with Sumer and Elam) as well as the Taj (yet though left in India, the monuments and buildings of Agra and Delhi are entirely outside the Indian tradition and are an essential heritage and part of Pakistani culture, and omits from consideration altogether quite major matters less easily disposed of such as Asoka's reign, and the whole of East Pakistan). W. Cantwell Smith, Historian of India, Pakistan, quoted in Lal, K. S. (2001). Historical essays. New Delhi: Radha.(102) U The University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a directive in 1983 that textbook writers were To demonstrate that the basis of Pakistan is not to be founded in racial, linguistic, or geographical factors, but, rather, in the shared experience of a common religion. To get students to know and appreciate the Ideology of Pakistan, and to popularize it with slogans. To guide students towards the ultimate goal of Pakistan— the creation of a completely Islamized State. University Grants Commission directive, Islamabad: Mutalliyah-i-Pakistan, Alama Iqbal Open University, 1983, p. xi. External links Category:History of Pakistan Category:Controversies Category:Textbooks