Educational material insensitive to religious minorities, says report

A decades-long drive to Islamise Pakistani society has resulted in educational material becoming insensitive to religious minorities, says a report compiled by a leading think-tank, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). “The Subtle Subversion - The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan” points out that, in the process of Islamisation, text-book writers have re-written the history of Pakistan, Dr A Nayyer, one of the report’s two authors, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad on Thursday. “And they have re-written it in a manner which has basically impoverished history and taken away from students the material that could be enriching their perspectives, their national perspectives,” he stressed. The first thing the report focused on was that, in the drive on Islamisation of the society, educational material had become insensitive to the feelings of religious minorities and ran the risk of alienating them from society, Nayyer explained. “For example, ‘Islamic Studies’ are not confined to the subject ‘Islamic Studies’ which is a compulsory subject for all Muslims. It has been spread out into other parts of the curriculum, in Social Studies, in Urdu Language, in English Language, everywhere - and those are compulsory for students of all religions. Hence, it basically hurts their sensibilities,” he maintained. In some classes, the curriculum forced non-Muslims to learn passages from the Koran by heart, to learn some of the other Koranic passages, to learn Islamic modes of prayer and ablutions and rituals through a text-book which is called the Integrated Curriculum for Classes 1-3, Nayyer said. “This we’ve pointed out as contravening the rights that the constitution provides to the minorities. We’ve said that it contravenes the constitution and constitutional protection and hence these things should be taken off,” he said. “They have not only defined the origin of Pakistan in a very, very distorted and exclusionist manner but they have defined Pakistan as a country of Muslims alone. And in the process of doing this, the identity of Pakistan is defined in relation to India and to Hindus. And therefore, a lot of hate material exists for Hindus in textbooks, and curriculum documents ask people - textbook writers - to actually include such material,” he said. The government’s reaction to the report was the formation of a special committee, Nayyer said. “The committee sat for one week and agreed with our report and made its recommendations. But the education minister has chosen to declare that the committee has rejected the report and therefore the government has rejected the report,” he said. In a televised debate where he was also a participant last week, Nayyer said, the education minister gave the assurance that the government intends to take out hate material and that which forces non-Muslims to read Islamic studies. “So, at least, on these two things, she has declared that she will do this in text-books and curricula. So, there is a commitment on her part to, at least, do these two things,” he said. “On the other hand, on issues like militancy that is inculcated in the educational curriculum, she has not promised anything. In fact, she has gone the other way around in trying to defend herself and her government from attacks from the religious political parties in the parliament and told them that if she has made any more changes, it is in order to include more jehad into the curriculum,” Nayyer said.