Pakistan’s public schools, which educate some 70 percent of the student population….
Prescribed textbooks for
Classes 4 and 5, attended by children aged 8 to 10, are bursting with anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh
themes. By Class 6, when students are typically 10 to 12 years old, anti-Christian, anti-British and anti-European indoctrination begins. Children are taught that the “Christians and Europeans were not happy to see the Muslims flourishing in life.”31 Anti-Jewish postulations are introduced in Class 7. In Classes 9-10, when students are typically 13 to 16 years old, the ‘importance of Jihad’ is cultivated.
It would be interesting to see what school history textbooks in India and Pakistan have to say about the same events.
If there is one event that is bound to have different interpretations, it would have to be the partition in 1947. Textbooks from across the border suggest that there was a real and imminent danger of the subjugation of the Muslim population.
A Pakistani School boy reads a passage from his book. (Photo: Reuters)
In the riots that preceded the partition, between 2,00,000 to 500,000 people were killed on both sides of the newly drawn border. A textbook in Pakistan, however, blames Indians for all the atrocities during the partition.
Both countries claim to have won the 1965 war. The hostilities between the two countries, however, ended after a ceasefire was declared through diplomatic intervention by the Soviet Union and US and the subsequent Tashkent Declaration.
A Pakistani text book, however, says India “begged” for mercy and “ran to the United Nations” for help, according to Dawn.
Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan with the Bangladesh Liberation War. Full scale war between India and Pakistan was declared 8 months after Pakistan’s brutal crackdown against dissenters.
Pakistan’s narrative of the creation of Bangladesh blames India for “instigating” the dissenters. There is little or no mention in the textbooks of the recorded brutalities in 1971.
It is unlikely that both nations will ever look at history from the same perspective though that may be a crucial step towards any intended reconciliation between India and Pakistan.
Answers ( 2 )
Pakistan’s public schools, which educate some 70 percent of the student population….
Prescribed textbooks for
Classes 4 and 5, attended by children aged 8 to 10, are bursting with anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh
themes. By Class 6, when students are typically 10 to 12 years old, anti-Christian, anti-British and anti-European indoctrination begins. Children are taught that the “Christians and Europeans were not happy to see the Muslims flourishing in life.”31 Anti-Jewish postulations are introduced in Class 7. In Classes 9-10, when students are typically 13 to 16 years old, the ‘importance of Jihad’ is cultivated.
It would be interesting to see what school history textbooks in India and Pakistan have to say about the same events.
If there is one event that is bound to have different interpretations, it would have to be the partition in 1947. Textbooks from across the border suggest that there was a real and imminent danger of the subjugation of the Muslim population.
A Pakistani School boy reads a passage from his book. (Photo: Reuters)
In the riots that preceded the partition, between 2,00,000 to 500,000 people were killed on both sides of the newly drawn border. A textbook in Pakistan, however, blames Indians for all the atrocities during the partition.
Both countries claim to have won the 1965 war. The hostilities between the two countries, however, ended after a ceasefire was declared through diplomatic intervention by the Soviet Union and US and the subsequent Tashkent Declaration.
A Pakistani text book, however, says India “begged” for mercy and “ran to the United Nations” for help, according to Dawn.
Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan with the Bangladesh Liberation War. Full scale war between India and Pakistan was declared 8 months after Pakistan’s brutal crackdown against dissenters.
Pakistan’s narrative of the creation of Bangladesh blames India for “instigating” the dissenters. There is little or no mention in the textbooks of the recorded brutalities in 1971.
It is unlikely that both nations will ever look at history from the same perspective though that may be a crucial step towards any intended reconciliation between India and Pakistan.