Most school text books that are called ‘Pakistan Studies’ usually begin with the words, ‘Pakistan is an ideological state.’
Pakistan Studies was introduced in the national curriculum as a compulsory subject in 1972 by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Over the decades, these books, that are regularly taught at all Pakistani schools and colleges, have gradually evolved into becoming one-dimensional manuals of how to become, believe and behave like a ‘true Pakistani.’
Though the content in these books pretends to be of historical nature, it is anything but.
It’s a monologue broken into various chapters about how the state of Pakistan sees, understands and explains the country’s history, society and culture - and the students are expected to believe it wholesale.
Many detractors have even gone on to call it an indoctrination tool.
It was introduced as a compulsory subject (almost in a panic) by the Bhutto regime soon after the country lost a war with India in 1971 and consequently its eastern wing (East Pakistan).
Murmurings
Pakistan had come into being in 1947 on the back of what its founders called the ‘Two Nation Theory.’
The Theory was culled from the 19th Century writings of modernist Muslim reformists in India who, after the collapse of the Muslim Empire in South Asia, began to explain the region’s Muslims as a separate political, cultural, and, of course, religious entity (especially compared to the Hindu majority of India).
This scholarly nuance, inspired by the ideas of the nation-state introduced by the British Colonialists, gradually evolved into becoming a pursuit to prepare a well-educated and resourceful Muslim middle-class in the region.
Eventually, with the help from sections of the Muslim landed elite in India, the emerging Muslim middle-classes turned the idea into a movement for a separate Muslim homeland comprised of those areas where the Muslims were in a majority in India.
This is what we, today, understand to be the ‘Pakistan Movement.’
However, when the country’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah - a western-educated lawyer and head of the All India Muslim League (AIML) - navigated the Movement towards finally reaching its main goal of carving out a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia, he was soon faced with an awkward fact: There were more Muslims in India than there were in the newly created Muslim-majority country of Pakistan.
Jinnah was conscious of this fact when he delivered his first major address to the country’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947.
CONTINUE READING HERE: http://dawn.com/news/1038961/the-pakistan-ideology-history-of-a-grand-concoction/1
This is a very insightful paper by Nadeem Paracha. A good read. It is highly critical where I believe it needed to be. It is very long and detailed. So grab a cup of chai to go over it. :)
Pakistan Studies was introduced in the national curriculum as a compulsory subject in 1972 by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Over the decades, these books, that are regularly taught at all Pakistani schools and colleges, have gradually evolved into becoming one-dimensional manuals of how to become, believe and behave like a ‘true Pakistani.’
Though the content in these books pretends to be of historical nature, it is anything but.
It’s a monologue broken into various chapters about how the state of Pakistan sees, understands and explains the country’s history, society and culture - and the students are expected to believe it wholesale.
Many detractors have even gone on to call it an indoctrination tool.
It was introduced as a compulsory subject (almost in a panic) by the Bhutto regime soon after the country lost a war with India in 1971 and consequently its eastern wing (East Pakistan).
Murmurings
Pakistan had come into being in 1947 on the back of what its founders called the ‘Two Nation Theory.’
The Theory was culled from the 19th Century writings of modernist Muslim reformists in India who, after the collapse of the Muslim Empire in South Asia, began to explain the region’s Muslims as a separate political, cultural, and, of course, religious entity (especially compared to the Hindu majority of India).
This scholarly nuance, inspired by the ideas of the nation-state introduced by the British Colonialists, gradually evolved into becoming a pursuit to prepare a well-educated and resourceful Muslim middle-class in the region.
Eventually, with the help from sections of the Muslim landed elite in India, the emerging Muslim middle-classes turned the idea into a movement for a separate Muslim homeland comprised of those areas where the Muslims were in a majority in India.
This is what we, today, understand to be the ‘Pakistan Movement.’
However, when the country’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah - a western-educated lawyer and head of the All India Muslim League (AIML) - navigated the Movement towards finally reaching its main goal of carving out a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia, he was soon faced with an awkward fact: There were more Muslims in India than there were in the newly created Muslim-majority country of Pakistan.
Jinnah was conscious of this fact when he delivered his first major address to the country’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947.
CONTINUE READING HERE: http://dawn.com/news/1038961/the-pakistan-ideology-history-of-a-grand-concoction/1
This is a very insightful paper by Nadeem Paracha. A good read. It is highly critical where I believe it needed to be. It is very long and detailed. So grab a cup of chai to go over it. :)
