What is the most

Blatant Lie Told in

Pakistani Textbooks

Nationalism and patriotism in Pakistan are contested subjects. What makes us Pakistanis and what is it
that makes us love our land and nation?

The answers to these questions vary widely depending on who is being asked. A large part of our
national identity stems from our sense of history and culture that are deeply rooted in the land and in
the legacy of the regions ancient civilisations. Religion has also played a big part in making us what we
are today. But the picture general history textbooks paint for us does not portray the various facets of
our identity.


Instead it offers quite a convoluted description of who we are. The distortion of historical facts has in
turn played a quintessential role in manipulating our sense of self. Whats ironic is that the boldest
fallacies in these books are about the events that are still in our living memory. Herald invited writers
and commentators, well versed in history, to share their answers to what they believe is the most
blatant lie taught through Pakistan history textbooks.

The fundamental divide between Hindus and
Muslims

The most blatant lie in Pakistan Studies textbooks is the idea that Pakistan was formed solely because of
a fundamental conflict between Hindus and Muslims. This idea bases itself on the notion of a
civilisational divide between monolithic Hindu and Muslim identities, which simply did not exist.

The stress on religion ignored other factors that could cut across both identities. For instance, a Muslim
from most of South India had far more in common, because of his regionally specific culture and
language, with Hindus in his area than the Muslims in the north of the Subcontinent.

Similarly, the division of the historical narrative into a Hindu and Muslim period, aside from the ironic
fact that this was actually instituted by the British, glosses over the reality that Islamic empires also
fought each other for power. After all, Babar had to defeat Ibrahim Lodi, and thus, the Delhi Sultanate,
for the Mughal period to begin.

Therefore, power and empire building often trumped this religious identity, that textbooks claim, can be
traced linearly right to the formation of Pakistan.

These textbooks tend to have snapshot descriptions of the contempt with which the two religious
communities treated one another. This is specifically highlighted in descriptions of the Congress
ministries formed after the elections of 1937.

Other factors that contributed historically to these shows of religious contempt in South Asian history
are often ignored. Indeed, Richard Eatons classic study of temple desecrations shows that in almost all
cases where Hindu temples were ransacked, it was for political or economic reasons.

In most cases, it was because the Muslim ruler was punishing an insubordinate Hindu official. Otherwise,
the Mughals protected such temples. Jumping ahead, this sort of inter-communal cooperation aimed at
maintaining political control could also be seen in the Unionist Party, which was in power in Punjab all
the way up until 1946.

As Pakistan was formed barely a year later, the notion that its formation was based on a long-standing
and fundamental conflict between Hindus and Muslims is deeply problematic.

Anushay Malik holds a PhD in history from University of London and is currently an assistant
professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences
Eulogising leaders

In his preface to the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun warned of seven mistakes that he thought historians
often committed. One of the seven is the common desire to gain favor of those of high ranks, by
praising them, by spreading their fame.

This particular mistake, or lie rather, has plagued history writing for school texts in Pakistan since the
1950s and has been used as a political tool to project successive rulers whether civilian or military in
a eulogistic format.

Moreover, another mindless inaccuracy is the absence of the other, where India and Congress are
needlessly ignored and a one-sided version of history is deemed necessary for creating a nationalistic
mindset.

This gap continues in the historical narrative for school students post-partition. Hence, some of the most
blatant lies and subversion of historical facts exist in the textbooks mandated by the federal and
provincial textbook boards.

Furthermore, maligning the enemy is done quite overtly and mindlessly in official history school texts
which, unfortunately, is also the case with some Indian school texts documented by discerning authors
on both sides of the border.

Most nation states during the 19th and 20th centuries used official versions of history in order to create
a homogenous and nationalistic identity. Pakistans first education minister, Fazalur Rehman, set up the
Historical Society of Pakistan in 1948 so that history for the new nation could be rewritten in a fair and
balanced manner using authentic and reliable sources.

Successive governments did not further this goal and history written for schools in Pakistan became the
victim of fossilized textbook boards ratifying the work of unethical and unscholarly authors for public
school consumption. Vested interests continue to triumph despite the open door policy since 2004 for
private publishers to bid for quality textbooks.

Ismat Riaz is an educational consultant and author of the textbook, Understanding History
Excluding and manipulating historical periods

The most blatant lie in textbook accounts of Pakistans history is by virtue of omission, which is in effect
the denial of our multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious past. It is a common complaint that
Pakistans history is taught as if it began with the conquest of Sindh by the Umayyad army, led by the
young General, Muhammad bin Qasim in 711 AD.

Most textbooks in Sindh at least do mention Moenjodaro and the Indus Valley civilization, but it is not
discussed in a meaningful way and there is no discussion about its extent and culture. Important periods
and events during subsequent centuries are also skimmed over, like the Aryan civilization which
introduced its powerful social system and epic poetry (Mahabharata in which Sindh and Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa play important roles), the Brahmin religion, a thousand years of Buddhism with its
universities and the Gandharan civilization which was spread throughout present day Pakistan.

No students of Pakistani schools can tell us that Pakistan was once part of the empires of Cyrus the
Great and Darius of the Achaemenid Dynasty and later of the Sassanian Empire with the legendary rule
of Naushirwan, the Just. Similarly, hardly anyone would be aware that Asoka whose capital was in
Pataliputra in the east of the subcontinent also counted Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab as part
of his domain.

The result of these omissions is disastrous on the minds of the youth in Pakistan. Instead of seeing
themselves as heirs of many civilizations, they acquire a narrow, one-dimensional view of the world. This
is contradicted by what they subsequently see in this global world of information technology and shared
knowledge. That this is also in direct contravention of Islamic teachings does not occur to the
perpetrators of a lopsided curriculum in our schools.

The first assertion in the Holy Quran is Iqra bi Ism I Rabik [and no restrictions are put on the acquisition
of knowledge].

Instead, we have bans on books, digital platforms such as YouTube and even newspapers in this Islamic
Republic of Pakistan.

Hamida Khuhro is a historian and former education minister for Sindh
The other view
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan accompanied by members of Muslim League.

To say a large part of Pakistans history is shared with India would be stating the obvious. Yet it is this
period of both our histories, or the portrayal of such, that is tampered with the most and has been used
as a political tool by either side. The Herald invited renowned Indian historian and currently a Jawaharlal
Nehru Fellow, Mushirul Hasan, to give his take on the lies taught through textbooks on both sides of the
border.

History is only of use for its lessons, and it is the duty of the historian to see that they are properly
taught. Very few in the subcontinent heed this advice. Both in India and Pakistan the intellectual climate
has thrown the historical profession into disarray.

Such is the power and influence of the polemicists that a growing number of people are abandoning the
quest for an objective approach. With the recent appointment of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-
oriented Chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research, liberal and secular historians are
worried about the future of their discipline.

The diversity of approaches has been the hallmark of Indian historiography. As a result, the making of
Pakistan and its evolution as a nation state is interpreted differently in various quarters.

The ghosts of partition was put to rest and not exhumed for frequent post-mortems. Moreover, the
liberal-left historians did not repudiate the idea of Pakistan. On the contrary, they criticised the Congress
stalwarts for failing to guide the movements they initiated away from the forces of reactionary
communalism.

This was true of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Ram Manohar Lohia, the Socialist leader. The Maulana,
in particular, charged Nehru for jettisoning the plan for a Congress-Muslim coalition in 1937 and the
prospect of an enduring Hindu-Muslim partnership.

Tara Chands three-volume History of the Freedom Movement in India held its ground until the Janata
government decided, in 1977, to rewrite the secular textbook. With the establishment of the BJP-led
government in October 1999, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-RSS combination began its subversion of
academia through its time-tested method of infiltration and rewriting of textbooks and fine-tuning of
curricula.

Saffronization of education will breed fanaticism, heighten caste and communitarian consciousness, and
stifle the natural inclination of a student to cultivate a balanced and cautious judgement. Increasingly, it
may be difficult for some of us to establish historical truths or to defend the cult of objective historical
inquiry.

As the radical currents are being swept aside by the winds of right-wing discourse, it is pertinent to
recall the Saidian (Edward Said) dictum that nothing disfigures the intellectuals public performance as
much trimming, careful silence, patriotic bluster, and retrospective of self-dramatizing prophecy.

The story in Pakistan runs on different lines. Starting with I H Qureshi and Aziz Ahmad, scholars in our
neighbours have tenaciously adhered to the belief that the creation of the Muslim nation was the
culmination of a natural process.

They have pressed into service the two-nation theory to define nationality in purely Islamic terms. In
the process, they have turned a blind eye to the syncretic and composite trajectory of Indian society,
which began with Mohammad Iqbals memorable lines Ae Aab-e-Rood-e-Ganga! Woh Din Hain Yaad
Tujh Ko? Utra Tere Kinare Jab Karwan Humara [Oh, waters of the river Ganges! Do you remember those
days? Those days when our caravan halted on your bank?].

The same poet talked of Naya Shiwala, a temple of peace and goodwill. Again, the same poet gave
lessons of religious understanding and tolerance in yet another poet.

Sadly, these thoughts are hardly reflected in our textbooks. We dont emphasize the virtue of living with
diversity and sharing social and cultural inheritances. We dont introduce our students to the vibrant
legacy of Kabir, Guru Nanak, Akbar, and Dara Shikoh. Instead, we dwell on the imaginary kufr-o-imaan ki
jung, on the destruction of temples and forcible conversions. Increasingly, young students are
introduced to the Islamist or the Hindutva world views that have caused incalculable damage to State
and civil society.

Saadat Hasan Manto described an existentialist reality the separation of people living on both sides
who had a long history of cultural and social contact and the paradoxical character of borders being a
metaphor of the ambiguities of nation-building. He offered, without saying so, a way of correcting the
distortions inherent in state-centered national histories.

Ayesha Jalal is right in pointing out that as old orthodoxies recede before the flood of fresh historical
evidence and earlier certitudes are overturned by newly detected contradictions, this is the time to
heal the multiple fractures which turned the promised dawn of freedom into a painful moment of
separation.

In the words of the poet Ali Sardar Jafri:

Tum aao gulshan-e-Lahore se chaman bardosh, Hum Aayein subh-e-Benaras ki roshni le kar, Himalaya ke
hawaaon ki taazigi le kar, aur uss ke baad yeh poochein ke kaun dushaman hai? .. [You come forward
with flowers from the Garden of Lahore, We bring to you the light and radiance of the morning of
Benaras, The freshness of the winds of Himalayas, And then we ask who the enemy is?].
Wars with India

The most blatant lies in Pakistani history textbooks are about the events that are still in our living
memory. Among the many examples, the three given below are about the wars of 1965 and 1971, and
the partition carnage of 1947. The reason for the falsehood lies in our distorted view of nationalism.
Rather than let children learn from our historical mistakes, we show them a false picture. Thus we are
doomed to repeat the mistakes generation after generation.

The following excerpt regarding the 1965 war is taken from fifth grade reading material published by the
NWFP Textbook Board, Peshawar in 2002 The Pakistan Army conquered several areas of India, and
when India was at the verge of being defeated she ran to the United Nations to beg for a cease-fire.
Magnanimously, thereafter, Pakistan returned all the conquered territories to India.

The Punjab Textbook Board published the following text on the causes for the separation of East
Pakistan in 1993 for secondary classes There were a large number of Hindus in East Pakistan. They
had never truly accepted Pakistan. A large number of them were teachers in schools and colleges.

They continued creating a negative impression among students. No importance was attached to
explaining the ideology of Pakistan to the younger generation.

The Hindus sent a substantial part of their earnings to Bharat, thus adversely affecting the economy of
the province. Some political leaders encouraged provincialism for selfish gains. They went around
depicting the central Government and (the then) West Pakistan as enemy and exploiter. Political aims
were thus achieved at the cost of national unity.

While the Muslims provided all sorts of help to those non-Muslims desiring to leave Pakistan [during
partition], people of India committed atrocities against Muslims trying to migrate to Pakistan. They
would attack the buses, trucks and trains carrying the Muslim refugees and murder and loot them. The
latter except was taken from an intermediate classes textbook Civics of Pakistan, 2000.

Some more examples of totally contorted and misleading, yet ingenious and amusing, narrations of the
history of Pakistan can be extracted from a single text, A Textbook of Pakistan Studies by M D Zafar.

Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs led by Muhammad bin Qasim
occupied Sindh and Multan. Pakistan under the Arabs comprised the Lower Indus Valley.

During the 11th century the Ghaznavid Empire comprised what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan.
During the 12th century the Ghaznavids lost Afghanistan and their rule came to be confined to
Pakistan.

By the 13th century Pakistan had spread to include the whole of Northern India and Bengal. Under the
Khiljis Pakistan moved further South to include a greater part of Central India and the Deccan.

During the 16th century, Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan.

Shah Waliullah appealed to Ahmad Shah Durrani of Afghanistan and Pakistan to come to the rescue of
the Muslims of Mughal India, and save them from the tyrannies of the Marhattas

In the Pakistan territories where a Sikh state had come to be established, the Muslims were denied the
freedom of religion.

Thus by the middle of the 19th century both Pakistan and Hindustan ceased to exist; instead British
India came into being. Although Pakistan was created in August 1947, yet except for its name, the
present-day Pakistan has existed, as a more or less single entity for centuries.