A whole lot has been said and done (as in the recent bomb attack on federal minister Zobaida Jalal’s native home) regarding the controversy surrounding the government’s planned revision of textbooks nationwide, especially in government schools.

A huge furore has been created by some of the more conservative and obscurantist elements in society who seem very unhappy and believe that the revision is somehow akin to an attack on the faith and culture of Pakistanis everywhere.

Activists of certain religious parties, incidentally the same parties which supported the government on the 17th Amendment, have called for the sacking of the education minister on this count. In fact, their disapproval clearly knows little bounds, as shown in a recent photograph in a national daily where they were holding a placard on which were written profanities and alleging that she was a stooge (a euphemism here) of America.

In the aftermath of the furore, the government promptly went on the back foot. The prime minister huffed and puffed and said that no revision would be allowed which placed the country’s identity and ideology at threat and ordered the minister to direct the provincial textbook boards to re-insert the edited out material. He also formed a parliamentary committee, albeit with
considerable representation from the MMA, to examine the issue further but that has yet to meet and deliberate on the matter.

In the meantime, the Punjab chief minister acted on his own and told his province’s textbook board that they must distribute the textbooks as they were before -- and if this meant reprinting several million of them, so be it. Then, last week, PTV’s khabarnama bulletin at nine pm carried a report in which the education minister was seen chairing a meeting on the issue. PTV
reported that the head of Punjab’s provincial textbook board "admitted" that mistakes had been committed and promised to rectify them.

The next day, this newspaper carried a statement from the Punjab government criticizing PTV for its reporting and clarifying that the head of the Punjab textbook board made no such admission or a promise to rectify the situation. The textbook controversy had created the unusual situation where one provincial government was accusing the federal government, or at
least one of its divisions (PTV being under the information division) of lying on this matter to pass the blame.

So, while a lot has been said over the matter, not much has been written on what exactly are the kinds of questions that have been edited out. As usual, people are indulging in making all kinds of accusations without actually delving any deeper into the issue. For example, what kinds of changes have been made exactly?

The reading public has come to know only of those which the opponents of this whole exercise have talked about and protested against.

The following is a sampling of questions that were deleted from a mathematics textbook prescribed for students of class II in government schools. A closer look at the questions will reveal that their context and the references that they have seem very out of place for a student six or seven years of age. It should be noted that in most cases other than the content and contextual references, the language itself was riddled with wrong diction
and grammatical inconsistencies.

The questions were all in the book’s second edition but have been thankfully deleted from its third edition. The name of the book is ’Afaq Mathematics-2’.

* Question on page 27, exercise (henceforth "ex.") 2.3:
"Mujahid bought two packets of sweets. There are 36 sweets in one
packet and 48 sweets in the other. How many sweets are in the two
packets?" (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 30, ex. 3.4: "Haseeb donated 225 blankets
in the jihad fund and his bhai jan 135 blankets. Find the total
number of blankets donated by them. (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 41, ex. 3.4: Khalid got Rs 16 from his
mother as pocket money. He gave eight rupees to the jihadi-i-
Kashmir fund. How much did he have left? (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 21, ex. 2.1: In the month of Ramadan Ali
spent 327 rupees on Rooh Afza, 123 rupees on dates and 246 rupees
on fruit for Iftar. Find the total amount he spent on Iftar.
(Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 25, ex. 2.3: The Indian army killed 1,424
men, 435 women and 130 children in occupied Kashmir last year.
Find the total killings. (Deleted in new edition)
* Question from the same page, same exercise: In Al Khidmat
hospital 3,405 patients were given free treatment in January,
1,405 in February and 4,311 patients were treated free in March.
How many patients were given free treatment? (Deleted in new
edition)
* Question on page 28, ex. 2.4: In the Afghan jihad 5,678
tanks, 7,860 trucks and 6,735 light vehicles were destroyed by
the Mujahideen-i-Islam. Find the total number of vehicles
destroyed? (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 28, ex. 2.4: The All Pakistan Jihad-i-
Kashmir conference was held in Lahore. Three boxes were displayed
for the collection of Jihad fund. At the end of the conference Rs4,967, Rs 9,735, and Rs 8,977 were found from the first, second
and third box respectively. Find the total amount collected.
(Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 32, ex. 3.2: There are 5,430 seats in
Islamic University Bahawalpur. If there are 4,000 students
studying at the university, how many seats are still vacant?
(Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 46, ex. 4.3: Forty-five bags of rice are
required weekly in a Mujahid camp. How many bags are requited for
4 weeks? (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 49, ex. 4.4: There are 75 students who
need school uniforms but they can not afford them. The Al Khidmat
Trust provides uniform to these students. If the cost of a
complete uniform is Rs 529 find the money donated by Al Khidmat
Trust to help the students. (Deleted in new edition)
* Question on page 52, ex. 5.1: Ninety blankets were
distributed to families in a refugee camp at Kotli. How many
blankets did each family get? (Deleted in new edition)