Pakistan Ideology

Pakistan is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and a multi-religious society. Non-Muslims are an integral part of it. Many of them have contributed to the country’s image, stature and well-being. However, according to the scholar and educationist, Professor A. H. Nayyar, the culture, the idiom and the manners of Muslim ‘majority-ism’ started gaining currency after 1971 and, in turn, got reflected in the educational process. A certain brand of Muslim sensibilities was imposed on all.

Another educationist, Dr Rubina Saigol, suggests that the attempt to mould the minds of the young through textbooks started in earnest in the early 1980s with the political agenda of Islamisation of the state. The syllabus was redesigned and textbooks were rewritten to create a monolithic image of Pakistan as an Islamic state and Pakistani citizens as Muslims only. According to Saigol, this clearly tells young non-Muslim students that they are excluded from national identity.

In an extensive study conducted by Nayyar and Ahmad Salim, in 2002, the following four themes emerged most strongly in history textbooks in Pakistan: that Pakistan is for Muslims alone; the Ideology of Pakistan is deeply interlinked with faith; one should never trust Hindus and India; and students should take the path of Jihad and martyrdom.

Scholars like Ayesha Jalal and Pervez Hoodbhoy have argued that the term ‘Ideology of Pakistan (Islam)’ is an after-thought; it was absent at the time of the creation of Pakistan. According to them Jinnah never used the words ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ (especially in respect to Islam). For fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody, until in 1962 some members of the Jamat-i-Islami used the words for the first time. The ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ had no historical basis in the Pakistan movement. It was coined much later by those political forces that needed it to sanctify their particular brand of politics — especially those Islamist parties which had earlier been against the creation of Pakistan. Even though in a report the famous Justice Munir strongly noted that Jinnah never uttered the words ‘Ideology of Pakistan,’ the curriculum documents insist that the students be taught the Ideology of Pakistan that was laid down by the Quaid.

No textbook has ever been able to cite a single reference to Jinnah using the term. On the contrary, Mr Jinnah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly on the 11th of September, 1947, completely defies the so-called ‘ideology’, as it has come to be presented in textbooks. It was during the Islamisation era of General Ziaul Haq that the use of the term was consolidated and made to appear in the curriculum documents. It was also firmly turned into an article of faith.

Nayyar, Jalal, Hoodbhoy and Saigol suggest that associated with the ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ is an essential component of hate against India and Hindus. Some time after Pakistan’s defeat in the 1971 war, Indo-Pakistan history was replaced with Pakistan Studies, whose sole purpose was to define Pakistan as an Islamic state. Students were deprived of learning about pre-Islamic history of their region. Instead, history books now started with the Arab conquest of Sindh and swiftly jumped to the Muslim conquerors from Central Asia.

Nayyar and Salim have pointed out the following examples of the expression of hate in post-1971 history textbooks: that: Hindus have always been an enemy of Islam; Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols; Hindus declared Congress rule as the Hindu rule, and started to unleash terror on Muslims; Hindus always desired to crush Muslims as a nation; Gandhi was as an extremist.

What’s more all history in these books is along religious lines while social, historical, material and economic causes are missing. After 1979, the themes of Jihad and martyrdom in textbooks become strong. In this period, history and social study books eulogise Jihad and martyrdom. According to Nayyar, in Pakistan the impression one gets from Pakistan Studies textbooks is that the students don’t learn history, but rather a carefully crafted collection of half-truths, even falsehoods. For example, in these books, Muhammad bin Qasim is declared the first Pakistani citizen. The story of the Arabs’ arrival in Sindh is accounted as the first move towards Pakistan with the glorious ascendancy of Islam. A widely taught history book insists that, ‘Although Pakistan was created in August 1947, present-day Pakistan has existed, as a more or less single entity, for centuries.’

Both Nayyar and Salim conclude that one should not be surprised at the irrational hate and confusion that ensconce Pakistani children after what they have learnt in school.