12-10-2006, 02:38 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Textbook case of 2-nation spin </b>
Pioneer.com
Kanchan Gupta | New Delhi
Six decades after India's blood-soaked partition on the basis of the Muslim League's two-nation theory, passionately espoused by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has ordered the revision of textbooks to bring them in conformity with his thesis of "enlightened moderation".
If carried through, the reason for Pakistan's creation - Muslims cannot live with Hindus - and why lakhs of Muslim families, including that of Gen Musharraf, migrated to the League's 'promised land', will be made to stand on its head.
Pakistani media reports suggest that the Education Ministry, headed by Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, has brought about "drastic changes" in the national curriculum for 'Pakistan Studies', which will be incorporated in textbooks beginning 2007. The new curriculum will have to be followed by all provinces.
The changes, aimed at promoting "enlightened moderation" as opposed to Islamisation that formed the basis of the national curriculum till now, will lead to the inclusion of at least three new chapters seeking to halt Pakistan's spiralling descent into radical Islamism.
Apart from dealing with Gen Musharraf's economic privatisation policies and his "vision of enlightened moderation", they will redefine the two-nation theory, remove "hate speech" and remind minorities of Jinnah's August 11, 1947 speech.
Till now, students in Pakistan have been taught, in keeping with historical records, that the two-nation theory that led to their country's creation was based on the League's assertion that Muslims, as a religious community, were culturally, socially and even racially different from Hindus and thus formed a separate nation.
A senior official, quoted in The Daily Times, says the revised textbooks will now define the two-nation theory and Pakistan's ideology "with specific reference to the economic and social deprivation of Muslims in India" by the then British colonial Government.
"An effort has been made to exclude all such material that promotes prejudice against the non-Muslims of pre-partition India. Pakistan's ideology has been explained with reference to the pronouncements of Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam," the official has been quoted as saying.
Gen Musharraf's spin-masters are obviously trying to make his "enlightened moderation" appear to be an extension of the "enlightened politics" of Iqbal and Jinnah so that the curriculum changes are more palatable for Pakistanis. But history cannot be short-circuited to suit a military ruler's desire to be seen as a reincarnation of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Muslim League, formed in Dhaka a hundred years ago to the month, never wavered from its fundamental belief that Muslims of undivided India were "a distinct and separate nation" from the Hindus, which it preached from its separatist platform.
Its demand for separate electorates evolved into the demand for a separate state whose basis, as League documents show, was "neither territorial, racial, linguistic nor ethnic; but based on adherence to Islam".
Allama Iqbal was the first to articulate this demand on December 29, 1930 at the League's 25th session in Allahabad when he thundered, "I would like to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state... No Muslim politician should be sensitive to the taunt embodied in that propaganda word 'communalism'. We are seventy millions and far more homogeneous than any other people in India. Indeed, the Muslims of India are the only Indian people who can truly be described as a nation in the modern sense of the word."
Ten years later, the 'Lahore Resolution' was adopted by the League on March 23, 1940, providing the ideological basis for India's partition along communal lines in 1947. At that session, Jinnah had declared,<b> "Mussalmans are a nation according to any definition of a nation, and they must have their homelands, their territory, and their state."</b>
<b>A year before Jinnah travelled to preside over the destiny of what he described as a "moth-eaten Pakistan", he called for "direct action" on August 16, 1946, to serve an ultimatum on the colonial Government and the Congress which still nourished hopes of avoiding partition. The horrendous slaughter of Hindus on 'Direct Action Day' had nothing to do with Gen Musharraf's definition of two-nation theory based on the "economic and social deprivation of Muslims in India".</b>
Negating history is not easy, no matter how lofty the purpose. Ironically, emir of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Qazi Hussain Ahmed understands this better than Gen Musharraf. Reacting to the change in curriculum, he told newspersons in Lahore,<b> "Those who are saying that Pakistan came into being not because of Hindu-Muslim differences but social and economic deprivation, are in fact negating the Constitution of Pakistan itself."</b>
The emir was referring to the Objective Resolution of 1949 whose text is the Preamble to Pakistan's Constitution. Perhaps, Gen Musharraf could take a second look at the document that legitimises the existence of his country.
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Pioneer.com
Kanchan Gupta | New Delhi
Six decades after India's blood-soaked partition on the basis of the Muslim League's two-nation theory, passionately espoused by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has ordered the revision of textbooks to bring them in conformity with his thesis of "enlightened moderation".
If carried through, the reason for Pakistan's creation - Muslims cannot live with Hindus - and why lakhs of Muslim families, including that of Gen Musharraf, migrated to the League's 'promised land', will be made to stand on its head.
Pakistani media reports suggest that the Education Ministry, headed by Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, has brought about "drastic changes" in the national curriculum for 'Pakistan Studies', which will be incorporated in textbooks beginning 2007. The new curriculum will have to be followed by all provinces.
The changes, aimed at promoting "enlightened moderation" as opposed to Islamisation that formed the basis of the national curriculum till now, will lead to the inclusion of at least three new chapters seeking to halt Pakistan's spiralling descent into radical Islamism.
Apart from dealing with Gen Musharraf's economic privatisation policies and his "vision of enlightened moderation", they will redefine the two-nation theory, remove "hate speech" and remind minorities of Jinnah's August 11, 1947 speech.
Till now, students in Pakistan have been taught, in keeping with historical records, that the two-nation theory that led to their country's creation was based on the League's assertion that Muslims, as a religious community, were culturally, socially and even racially different from Hindus and thus formed a separate nation.
A senior official, quoted in The Daily Times, says the revised textbooks will now define the two-nation theory and Pakistan's ideology "with specific reference to the economic and social deprivation of Muslims in India" by the then British colonial Government.
"An effort has been made to exclude all such material that promotes prejudice against the non-Muslims of pre-partition India. Pakistan's ideology has been explained with reference to the pronouncements of Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam," the official has been quoted as saying.
Gen Musharraf's spin-masters are obviously trying to make his "enlightened moderation" appear to be an extension of the "enlightened politics" of Iqbal and Jinnah so that the curriculum changes are more palatable for Pakistanis. But history cannot be short-circuited to suit a military ruler's desire to be seen as a reincarnation of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Muslim League, formed in Dhaka a hundred years ago to the month, never wavered from its fundamental belief that Muslims of undivided India were "a distinct and separate nation" from the Hindus, which it preached from its separatist platform.
Its demand for separate electorates evolved into the demand for a separate state whose basis, as League documents show, was "neither territorial, racial, linguistic nor ethnic; but based on adherence to Islam".
Allama Iqbal was the first to articulate this demand on December 29, 1930 at the League's 25th session in Allahabad when he thundered, "I would like to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state... No Muslim politician should be sensitive to the taunt embodied in that propaganda word 'communalism'. We are seventy millions and far more homogeneous than any other people in India. Indeed, the Muslims of India are the only Indian people who can truly be described as a nation in the modern sense of the word."
Ten years later, the 'Lahore Resolution' was adopted by the League on March 23, 1940, providing the ideological basis for India's partition along communal lines in 1947. At that session, Jinnah had declared,<b> "Mussalmans are a nation according to any definition of a nation, and they must have their homelands, their territory, and their state."</b>
<b>A year before Jinnah travelled to preside over the destiny of what he described as a "moth-eaten Pakistan", he called for "direct action" on August 16, 1946, to serve an ultimatum on the colonial Government and the Congress which still nourished hopes of avoiding partition. The horrendous slaughter of Hindus on 'Direct Action Day' had nothing to do with Gen Musharraf's definition of two-nation theory based on the "economic and social deprivation of Muslims in India".</b>
Negating history is not easy, no matter how lofty the purpose. Ironically, emir of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Qazi Hussain Ahmed understands this better than Gen Musharraf. Reacting to the change in curriculum, he told newspersons in Lahore,<b> "Those who are saying that Pakistan came into being not because of Hindu-Muslim differences but social and economic deprivation, are in fact negating the Constitution of Pakistan itself."</b>
The emir was referring to the Objective Resolution of 1949 whose text is the Preamble to Pakistan's Constitution. Perhaps, Gen Musharraf could take a second look at the document that legitimises the existence of his country.
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