Jehad and The Curriculum

Beena Sarwar
Apr 2, 2004

’s so-called religious parties are up in arms at the rumour that references to Jehad are to be removed from Pakistani textbooks – biology, for example. Never mind the relevance of jehad (and that too, a particular kind of jehad) to biology; the ’s of appeasement continues. “I am a ,” declared Federal Minister Zubeida Jalal in a television discussion recently (‘Capital Talk’, Geo , March 25, 2004), meaning that she believes in the fundamentals of . “But I am not a terrorist.” Good for her. However, the point is not what her personal beliefs are, but what kind of beliefs the Pakistani system is inculcating.

Those who blew themselves up at the Quetta Imambargah, taking dozens of innocent lives with them, would also undoubtedly affirm that they are devout Muslims, and deny that they are terrorists. But actions speak louder than words, and those who think that by killing others they are participating in a jehad, obviously have a very narrow and distorted view of Jehad, its principles and its true spirit. Where does this view come from?

The idea of Jehad was incorporated into the Pakistani Curriculum after the start of the Afghan . This “is not a coincidence”, as Pakistani academic A.H. Nayyar notes. At that point it suited Washington, and its most allied of allies, , to encourage and glorify the “Mujahideen”, or holy warriors, in the against the Soviets – and an American institution of higher was asked to formulate textbooks for Pakistani schools accordingly, says Dr Nayyar. “The institution was University of Nebraska at Omaha, which has a center for Afghan studies which was tasked by CIA in the early eighties to rewrite textbooks for Afghan . The new books included material even in arithmetic. For example, if a man has five bullets and two go into the heads of Russian soldiers, how many are left, kind of stuff. This was exposed in a research thesis from the New School, New York in about 2002.”

Since the Soviets are no more, the “Mujahideen” have not only mutated into “Taliban” but have also outlived their usefulness, the same American university has been given an additional grant to “re-re-write textbooks, taking out material on jehad, etc”, as announced by none Laura Bush, wife of US President George W. Bush in early 2002, adds Dr Nayyar. “But the funny thing is that the books of early eighties were very acceptable to the Taliban, except figures and pictures. So they continued with them, only blackening the pictures. After the rout of the Taliban, because the new books could not arrive in time, the Karzai (read the Americans) was forced to use the earlier books already available, but perhaps now perhaps the newer books have arrived in sufficient quantity to make the older books redundant.”

Meanwhile, Ms Jalal is vehement in her denial that the Pakistani curriculum is being changed at the behest of either Washington, or because of a recent study titled The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in , co-authored by Dr Nayyar and Ahmed Salim (text available at www.sdpi.org). The point is not who is behind the changes being discussed, but the urgent need for such changes, which the of itself is cognizant of.

In the same talk show, columnist Ataul Haq Qasmi argued that if references to Jehad were removed from textbooks, then all Islamic references might as well be discarded. This again is not the point, especially since no one is advocating the removal of all Islamic references from our curriculum. But it is clear that what has been propagated since 1979 is a very narrow view of , taught with the specific aim of getting the to follow a certain path. The result, says the Subtle Subversion study, is that our have been “educated into ways of thinking that makes them susceptible to a violent and exclusionary worldview open” to the “sectarianism and religious intolerance” that President Musharraf identified as a major crisis facing even before the attempts on his life.

Opponents of the report have taken issue with its focus and tried to divert attention from its findings by questioning the ‘agenda’ of its authors. But there is no arguing with the facts and findings it presents in great detail, including textbook references and their page numbers. Going through the study, it becomes clear that it is not just some madrassahs that are spreading hatred, sectarianism and religious bigotry, but also the prescribed textbooks.

Those who are opposed to the SDPI study would do well to examine previous such studies that have been undertaken, most notably the historian K.K. Aziz’s ‘Murder of History’ (Vanguard Books, , 1992). Based on the scrutiny of 66 textbooks used in the schools and colleges of by students of classes of 1 to 14, one of the chapters was published as a series of 11 lengthy articles in The Frontier Post, in April and May 1992.

’The cumulative effect of these shoddy textbooks, as summed up by Mr Aziz, is horrifying and stunning. The inbreeding from these repetitive, incoherent and subjective books compulsorily prescribed in all schools and colleges of the country generates hypocrites, blindfolded zealots, fundamentalists, intriguers, time servers and ignoramuses with the highest degrees,” wrote one Professor M. I. Haq in a letter to the editor (The Frontier Post, May 11, 1992).

This was by no means the last such study until the SDPI work. Dr Rubina Saigol in her book Locating the Self (ASR, , 1994) has scrutinized how Pakistani textbooks construct and Hindus as enemies, and incite hatred, bigotry and alienation with our eastern neighbour. It is another matter that similar activities are being carried out in , where the Sangh Parivar is busy re-writing history to the extent of leaving out the religious and political affiliation (RSS) of Mahatama ’s assassin.

bodies in have not always turned a blind eye to such slanting of history. As Zubeida Mustafa pointed out in a recent article, the National Committee on , constituted under the chairmanship of the federal secretary, in 1999 prepared a report National Curriculum 2000: A conceptual Framework, “calling for a paradigm shift in order to produce ‘involved, caring and responsible ’. This report was stored away in the minstry’s records on some dust-laden shelf.” (Curriculum of hatred, Dawn, March 31, 2004)

Nor is on just on issues of and religious intolerance that one can fault our textbooks - they fare no better on issues, as Ruqaiya Jafri’s study, “ Bias in Pakistani School Textbooks” (presented at the SPELT seminar, , 1993) found. More recently, The Subtle Subversion’s chapter ‘ Biases and Stereotypes in School Texts’ alleges that the producers of Pakistani textbooks “are actively resistant to the idea of ’s and believe in the preservation of the status quo”. It cites the 1959 Report of the Commission on National , in which are viewed not as individuals and equal in their own right, but as wives and mothers only, disregarding all other categories.

Do later textbooks reflect the increasing participation of in the public and professional spheres over the years? The Biases chapter says not. A 1985 study found that girls were shown most often in passive roles, enforcing traditional stereotypes. Matters have not improved over the years - a “ biased division of roles is woven into almost all the exercises and stories in these books, thus we have constant references to men performing active and/or heroic roles and engaged in passive, often frippery activities”.

This mindset is obvious in the Federal Curriculum Wing’s recent refusal to incorporate the late journalist Najma Babar’s article ‘Madam Chairman, Sir’, in a proposed Class Ten English textbook submitted by the Sindh Textbook Board. The article is about the young Najma going to work, while her husband got the ready for school and looked after them, since she had a job and he didn’t. The reason given for censoring this article from the proposed textbook, was that it goes against the of Pakistani society!

Obviously, the Curriculum Wing officials don’t believe in moving with the times, or allowing texts to include views that do not reflect the dominant ideologies and traditions. But how else are our to learn that there are other ways of thinking and seeing?

Little wonder then, that “Instead of being able to acknowledge in points of view, they (students) are likely to look at the world in oversimplified, uncritical ‘black and white’ and ‘us versus them’ terms and to develop single dimensional, exclusivist mindsets”. (The State of , Annual Review, 2002-2003, Social and Development Centre, ).

The English course has not changed in over forty years. Many struggle with English as a second , which they know is still the of power in this country. Accordingly, the senior English (ELT) experts, who were commissioned by then Sindh Minister Prof. Anita Ghulam Ali to formulate new English textbooks for Classes 8-12, tried to include material in these new textbooks that would make English learning more interesting, accessible and student-friendly.

However, the Federal Curriculum Wing rejected much of the new material and provided a list of topics that the new English textbooks should include -- like drug abuse, traffic rules, of and so on. Topics which are hardly likely to excite the of most students…

But it is the material that was removed from these proposed English textbooks that is of particular concern. Besides Najma Babar’s article, a poem by Khalil Jibran was also censored, apparently on the grounds that he is Jewish. Even if he was, should the of a great poet and philosopher be reason enough to remove his work?

Similarly, an essay by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali ’s daughter Dina Wadia about her father was removed. The reason given was that he had disowned her, and in any case she is not a Muslim. Are these reasons valid? Dina Wadia was recently given the status of a State Guest when she visited for the first time since her father’s . She has stayed away all these years because, as she has said, she didn’t want to be didn’t want to be appropriated by anybody for political purposes. One wonders how she would feel about being censored for political purposes.