State of Minorities in Pakistan

Daily Times, July 12, 2006
Minorities in Pakistan: ‘Bigoted education system sows seed of hatred against minorities’

By Zahid Hameed

RAWALPINDI: A report issued on Monday evening by a research group criticises the country’s education system for being biased and prejudiced towards history, politics, society and religion, and providing “controlled” material to students, which, it says, has sown the seeds of hatred against minorities.

The report titled ‘violence, memories and peace building: a citizen report on minorities in India and Pakistan’ has been compiled by the South Asian Research and Resource Centre’s research team. Mushahid Hussein Sayed, secretary general of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), and the Swedish Ambassador to Pakistan Ain Wilkson were present at the launching ceremony of the 264-page report.

The report gives a detailed account of a host of incidents of violence meted out to Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan before and after the partition. It contains the account of actions of individuals such as Hanam Singh who stood up against his community to provide protection to the migrating Muslims –stories, which it said, had never been disclosed in our history and curricula.

The report highlights the role of minorities and their patriotism before and after the independence for Pakistan. The report said that Hindus and Christians had always been victims of human rights violations in the country.

According to the report, textbooks have often served as a tool in the hands of successive governments, for propagating their biased outlook towards history, politics and religion in order to shape a certain national identity. Authoritarian governments and the “ gatekeepers of ideology” have always ensured the deliverance of carefully sifted contents to the students in order to mould them in favour of a reactionary system. The outcome, the report said, was that the system had produced a generation that was prejudiced and intolerant.

The report referred to the textbook statements, which eliminate the claims of any community other than Muslims over the country. The report points out that the lack of different viewpoints in textbooks leads to contempt and hatred for other communities.

“The curriculum document of 1994 lays down the basic aims of Urdu language teaching to be the construction of an Islamic identity. This holds even for those students who are not Muslims, the report says, adding that under the kind of system the equal rights of all citizens and their diverse ways of livings and beliefs have been snubbed.

The report expresses concern over absence of the ancient cultures of the Indus valley in history and Pakistan studies textbooks. “They completely bypass the entire Buddhist and Hindu periods of Pakistan’s history in books,” it says, adding that history curricula was embedded in masculine, war oriented ideals of a nation state.

Highlighting the disparities in textbooks and curriculum of the government and privately managed schools, the report criticises the role of state sponsored textbooks for discouraging critical thinking through books which emphasise more on religion, civic obedience and the duty of the individual to the state.

It says that the intervention of the state in the educational process had distorted historical facts and had encouraged students to be non-critical, submissive to authority and to treat education as a process of selective memorisation. The report said that educating students on these lines could make students only see a world that was limited to Pakistan and Muslim countries. “There is no reference to human unity, human rights and individual freedom in these textbooks”, the report said, adding the outcome manifests itself in the form of violence and intolerance prevalent in the Pakistani society.

For promoting an environment of greater tolerance, the report said that study material on the rights of minorities and the need for tolerance for other faiths be included in the school curriculum.

“Colleges and schools that have not been denationalised yet should be handed over to their previous administrations. They should be returned in their original condition and allowed to function in the way they used to before the nationalisation process began,” the report said.

The report calls for the establishment of a permanent commission for minorities to entertain their complaints and redress their grievances. It also calls for restoration of the civil, political, social and economic rights for minorities, besides the formation of an impartial and independent commission of inquiry at the government level to study the situation of religious minorities in Pakistan and give recommendations to the government and people. It also asks the government to extend an invitation to the United Nations special rapporteur on religious tolerance to visit the country and observe the position of minorities in the society.

The report stresses the need for interfaith dialogue in the country to develop an environment of love, tolerance and acceptance towards other religions. It demands elimination of laws, which are based on religious discrimination. “Personal laws concerning religious minorities need to be reviewed thoroughly. It must be realised that the rights of minority women, men and children have to be protected as well,” the report said, adding minorities of Pakistan had always remained loyal to their country and it was high time that government resolve the longstanding problems of minorities.

Speaking on the occasion, Mushahid Hussein Syed said that the government would introduce changes in the Hudood Ordinance in the next couple of months and that the PML would provide due representation to minorities during allocation of party tickets for the next elections. He praised the minorities, especially the Christian community, for their role in the fields of education and health.