Three decades later

I am sure I was exuding a combination of ignorance, confusion and a sense of being lost last week when a young man approached me, and asked me what was I looking for. I was in the middle of the Urdu bazar in Lahore, a place I have visited several times in the past, but one that I am still unable to figure out. I told him that I was looking for textbooks of Pakistan Studies (Muta'lia-e-Pakistan) in Urdu for grades 9 and 10 (published by the Punjab textbook board), but every place I had gone to did not have them.

The young man nodded and took me to a side street. Here, from the booksellers I learned that the books for the current year had not yet arrived, and the one from last year were no longer available. However, if I was fine with something from a few years ago, those books could be located. My desire to get Pakistan Studies textbooks was in part due to nostalgia (I had used Punjab Textbook Board books over three decades ago), in part due to curiosity. The fact that the books that were available were from year 2020-21 made little difference to my quest.

With the books in my hand, walking towards my car, I started flipping the pages. I was curious to see what is taught now (or a few years ago for that matter) about 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh. I have clear memories of what my textbook taught - which was basically two paragraphs about a giant conspiracy by the enemies, and that was it.

This time, there were two and a half pages, and a whole section titled 'Causes of Separation of East Pakistan' (page 53). There were nine causes given. The text was in Urdu but the headings were also typed in English. There was some really bizarre stuff in this section. For example, after the first cause (geographical distance), the second most important reason was "Impacts of Hinuds on Trade and Services" (page 53). It was stated that because Hindus were over-represented in public sector jobs, and in trade, they were responsible for the breakup of the country. The third reason had one line on poverty in the region. The fourth reason was quite unbelievable. This one was titled "Role of Hindu Teachers" - once again, the official textbook stated (page 54) that "Hindu teachers were in full control of the education sector" and hence they got the Bengalis to rise up against Pakistan. Other mundane causes - like language, appropriate representation, etc - were much lower on the list!

There was no discussion of xenophobia or any other discriminatory practices against Bengalis. Neither was there any discussion of the horrific tragedies of war. The last bullet point was simply titled "General Elections of 1970".

Perhaps the most important question that was missing in the entire two pages on the breakup of the country was "why?" Why did the elections not result in transfer of power to those who had been victorious? Why were people so aggrieved? Why was East Pakistan so poor? The text was silent on these matters.

I then started going through the 10th grade textbook. There was some rather peculiar stuff here as well. For example, on page 90, there was three-quarters of a page dedicated to what the book calls "Problems of Pakistani society and their solutions". Here four problems were listed (in this order): poverty and unemployment; low literacy rate; health issues; and population growth.

Now I admit that while I have not conducted a statistical sample, but every person - regardless of age group or socio-economic status that I have spoken to - tells me that the real problem is corruption and lack of accountability, and that too across the board. Issues of employment, health or literacy are simply manifestations of a core issue. An issue the book was unwilling to even mention.

As I closed the book, I was troubled to see that not much has changed in thirty something years. There was no joy to realize that our textbooks are still shortchanging our youth through material that is bizarre and inaccurate and lacks serious intellectual depth.