DENIZENS OF ALIEN WORLDS

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15 CHAPTER-2 EDUCATION POLICIES The first meeting on education was held at Karachi from 27 November to the 1st of December 1947 at a time when South Asia was running red with the blood of slaughtered people on both sides of the borders of the new states---Pakistan and India. Despite the luminaries form the world of policies and bureaucracy who assembled in on that mild winter day in Karachi, the capital of the new state of Pakistan, education, was not a subject of high priority in the new state. It was existence itself which was threatened: the armed forces was inadequate and scattered; Kashmir was a point of dispute with India; there was hardly any money to run the new state and, on top of all this, the refugees kept staggering in while Hindus and Sikhs kept leaving. There was panic and chaos everywhere---not the best of times to think of education. No wonder, besides setting up the infrastructure (Advisory Board of Education, Inter-University Board, Council of Technical Education), the participants set out to consider what should be the ideological basis of education? This was the first point on the supplementary agenda and it is significant enough to be reproduced in full: What should be the ideological basis of education? Whether the Islamic conception of universal brotherhood of man, social democracy and social justice should constitute this ideological basis---cultivation of democratic virtues, i.e. tolerance, self-help, self-sacrifice, human kindliness etc and the consciousness of common citizenship as opposed to provincial exclusiveness (GOP 1947). The question is merely rhetorical because everybody was expected to reject ‗provincial exclusiveness‘. In short, the ‗ideological basis‘ was a thinly concealed mask to contain, oppose and eliminate the ethnic threat---a threat which had not even appeared though some young Bengalis had started talking about their language, Bengali as a candidate for the national language of the country (Rahman 1996: 84-86). Though Islam was to be used to oppose identity-formation on the basis of ethnicity, the Quaid-i-Azam‘s message made it very clear that democracy and not theocracy was what he had in mind. His message said: ‗the impression that Pakistan, being an Islamic State, is a theocratic State, is being sedulously fostered in certain
16 quarters with the sole object of discrediting it in the eyes of the world‘, was not acceptable to him (GOP 1947: 6). He then went on to equate Islam with democracy, freedom, civil rights and rights of property. Ever since then Pakistan‘s ruling elite have used the name of Islam to combat ethnicity; to foster an ideologically based identity opposed to the Indian conception of area based, secular, identity; and to legitimize their rule. Simultaneously they have also interpreted Islam widely to mean democracy, the welfare state, socialism and authoritarian rule from time to time. Both the ethnic leaders and the religious leaders have opposed these uses and interpretation of Islam which, in their view, only they can interpret correctly. Whatever the interpretation of the rulers, the member of the committee had to lay down exact instructions. Among the things they decided was to teach Islamic studies; declare that syllabi would be in conformity with Islam; and make Urdu compulsory for everybody. Urdu was a symbol of unity for the ruling elite. After all, they had used it during the Hindi-Urdu controversy, to mobilize the Indian Muslims into a unified community to oppose the Hindus (Rahman 1996: 65-78). And now Urdu, like Islam, could also be useful to create a unified Pakistani nation out of Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Mahajirs, Baloch and, above all, Bengalis. Moreover, that was the time when the European nation-state was the model. In those days out of the model European states that influenced South Asia all, except Switzerland, had one national language. Indeed, as Benedict Anderson had pointed out, the great European print languages, along with the national flag, the museum, the census etc, had created the ‗imagined communities‘ called nations (Anderson 1983). What the leaders did not realize was that theirs were multiethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural states---states which had been carved out by colonial masters. Moreover, it would cost less if everybody operated in one language. The costs of operations would increase astronomically if many languages were used. For all these reasons, political, ideological, pragmatic and economic, they emphasized the use of Urdu as a lingua franca---something which sowed the seeds of the eventual separation of East Pakistan; exactly the thing the rulers had hoped to avoid. But the rulers only created policies which, according to their lights, aimed at countering ethnic and religious divisions. They did not create educational policies to
Page 1 and 2: DENIZENS OF ALIEN WORLDS: A Study o
Page 3 and 4: 2 List of Abbreviations Glossary Pr
Page 5 and 6: 4 Jihad Madrassa Maktab Maulvi Muns
Page 7 and 8: 6 being unsupported by any institut
Page 9 and 10: 8 CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION There are
Page 11 and 12: 10 Another book, by Naseem Jaffer Q
Page 13 and 14: 12 Let us keep in mind that Pakista
Page 15: 14 ones. There is much new data in
Page 19 and 20: 18 capable of being employed in sub
Page 21 and 22: 20 (GOP 2003: 159). Examples of the
Page 23 and 24: 22 It was in this document that the
Page 25 and 26: 24 Because of such laws, academics
Page 27 and 28: 26 strengthening unity of the ou
Page 29 and 30: 28 Thus, their role in universaliza
Page 31 and 32: 30 whereas provincial government sc
Page 33 and 34: 32 Dr. Qurat began this work in 199
Page 35 and 36: 34 Thus the most representative of
Page 37 and 38: 36 Most of the 25,995,068 (GOP 2002
Page 39 and 40: 38 Class-6 Class-7 Class-8 Class-9
Page 41 and 42: 40 Conclusion: the Muslims from the
Page 43 and 44: 42 B.A (B. Ed) 16 14,099 Headmaster
Page 45 and 46: 44 abroad. Their families are conse
Page 47 and 48: 46 possible that Pakistan and India
Page 49 and 50: 48 Gender-wise Tabulation of Attitu
Page 51 and 52: 50 the madrassas and those whose pa
Page 53 and 54: 52 charge tuition ranging between R
Page 55 and 56: 54 schools, whether the administrat
Page 57 and 58: 56 Box 4.5 Average tuition fees per
Page 59 and 60: 58 non-elitist schools, as we have
Page 61 and 62: 60 parents of the Badin PAF Model S
Page 63 and 64: 62 national language is given at be
Page 65 and 66: 64 Aitchison 196 Kohat 144 Larkana
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66 Militancy Among Cadet College/Pu
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68 These figures should be taken wi
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70 Box 4.14 Tolerance Among Elitist
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72 1997 21 34 1998 20 31 Source: An
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74 children mostly speaking in Khan
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76 world. This war is represented a
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78 This fluency and spontaneity in
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80 believed—that the best ideas w
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82 English novels filling us up on
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84 The Peripatetic Tutor Arif Khan
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86 CHAPTER-5 MADRASSAS The madrassa
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88 Box 5.2 Sect-Wise Increase in th
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90 (Sharia) was the path to mystica
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92 modern subjects in some measure
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94 taught there, even now---and the
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96 controversial issues‘ (Ibid, p
Page 99 and 100:
98 appalling poverty of rural, peri
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100 students and 1000 day students,
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