Brainwash texts

Islamisation of Pakistani Social Studies Textbooks by Yvette Claire Roser; Rupa & Co; Price: Rs.195; 109 pp

Contrary to the claims of professional historians, objective, unbiased and completely accurate writing of history is an impossibility. Since not everything, even of significance, that’s happened in the past can be included in a text, the very process of picking and choosing milestone events of an era is determined by the subjective biases of the writer as well as his/her socio-economic status.

The inherent bias of historians is magnified when history textbooks are — as is the case in almost every country today — commissioned by governments. Every government aspires to mould its citizens in a particular way, to transform them into ‘good’ and ‘law-abiding’ citizens by brainwashing them into accepting the dominant ideology of the State. This process of indoctrination begins in school, where state-sponsored history texts trumpet the propaganda of its ruling class or oligarchy.

This incisive critique of state-sponsored social science textbooks in contemporary Pakistan highlights the writing and imposition of purposively written history and its impact on the citizenry. Although the author Yvette Roser, an American scholar, does not state it explicitly, the turbulent  political scenario in Pakistan, in particular the rise of radical Islamist terrorists, is rooted in officially sponsored social science textbooks.

Roser’s study focuses on the texts used in Pakistani schools for a compulsory subject named ‘Pakistan Studies’, introduced during the dictatorship of US-backed General Zia ul-Haq in the mid-1970s. The teaching of history and geography was supplanted by Pakistan Studies, with the curriculum designed to generate sentiments of unquestioning loyalty to the official ‘ideology of Pakistan’ (nazariya-e Pakistan). This ‘ideology’ is based on the two-nations theory deployed by the Muslim League and its westernised leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that Muslims and Hindus of the pre-partition Indian subcontinent were separate and homogeneous populations, indeed two irreconcilable ‘nations’. Thus the Pakistan Studies texts hammer home the message that Muslims and Hindus have never been able to live amicably together, sharing neither history nor cultural affinities. Hence Pakistan — ‘the land of the pure’ — was carved out of the subcontinent as a home for the Muslims of South Asia.

According to Roser, there are several defining characteristics of these social science textbooks. First is their extreme anti-Indianism. This she attributes to the ‘ideology of Pakistan’, whose theme song is implacable and perpetual hatred of India. India is projected as a mortal threat to the very existence of Pakistan. Thus nationalism is sought to be fostered through texts that are hyper-chauvinistic, and whose constant refrain is that Pakistan is besieged by an evil neighbour intent on revoking the partition of India in 1947.

Secondly, the social studies texts are replete with negative and hostile references to Hindus and their faith. Hinduism is portrayed in wholly negative terms, lacking any ameliorative features. Hindus themselves are projected as mean and cruel, constantly scheming against Muslims and their faith. In these texts for school children, Hindus and Muslims are consistently presented as stereotypes — the former as hostile enemies; the latter as brave soldiers of Islam.

Thirdly, the textbooks present Pakistan’s history as synonymous with the conquests of India by successive Muslim rulers, starting with the Arab commander Muhammad bin Qasim in the mid seventh century. All these invaders and rulers, the books piously claim, were driven by a powerful religious zeal to convert idol-worshipping Hindus to Islam, a mission which is presented as having finally culminated in the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The history of South Asia before Muhammad bin Qasim is barely mentioned at all. The flourishing Indus Valley civilization, the Aryan invasions and the rise of Buddhism have been conveniently glossed over in these texts.

The author quite rightly connects the alarming growth of radical Islam, which threatens to create a third partition (after Bangladesh in 1971), to these texts. Compulsory reading for all Pakistani students, they play a central role in moulding their impressionable minds. More significantly, the skewed perspectives in these social science texts are reflective of the pathetic state of social science research and discourse in contemporary Pakistan.

Yoginder Sikand