The game of altering the content of textbooks has gone on for a very long time in our country. We see it now in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), where the PTI, under pressure from its coalition partner the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), has agreed to alter the content of school textbooks. This content had been revised under the previous ANP government to make it broader based and to include local heroes like Bacha Khan and Rehman Baba as a part of their history curriculum.
Under the new changes, all girls depicted in books will be shown wearing dupattas, including minor schoolgirls and the greeting ‘good morning’ will be replaced by ‘Assalamualaikum’. Other recommendations made by the JI had included removing images of Christmas cakes, or the Christian cross. It is not quite clear if these have been accepted, but around 18 Islamic verses are, oddly enough, to be inserted in a Chemistry textbook.
While these alterations are questionable given the overall environment in which we live today and the need to create greater tolerance, particularly in K-P, what is most damaging of all is when efforts are made to change history. The JI demands that references to Raja Dahir and Ranjit Singh be removed from the books have also been accepted. We need to remember that sticking with history and sticking with the facts is crucial. Children must be taught a factual, objective version of the past. Ideological grounds must not be used to alter this. We hope the persons responsible for education in K-P will ensure that is not the case. The PTI government had placed a great deal of emphasis on improving education for all in the province. It must now ensure it sticks to this promise and does not give in to pressures to create any kind of misunderstanding about our past in textbooks. Children have been brainwashed for far too long in our country. This process must be ended for the sake of truth and for the sake of our future generations. It is imperative that this opportunity be provided to them.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 28th, 2014.
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I ask the readers how does it make you feel good to be taught lies in school. Is it not insulting. Is Pakistan so fragile that we need to taught lies. Do we feel better to live in a false universe. God help us.
Seriously are there any democratic forces at work when voting through any legislation of any kind.