| BOOKS AS MEANS OF SOCIAL CONTROL – THE DISTORTION OF HISTORY IN PAKISTAN | GROUP MEMBERS: NADIR SHAHZAD & YOUSAF DILSHAD| | The means by which individuals are induced or compelled to conform to the usages and life values of the group are so numerous and varied that a classification is not possible. Though Informal control is the most effective type of social control, its effectiveness is somewhat lessened in large communities. In modern times the informal methods have given place to formal ones such as laws, education, coercion and codes.
Education is the most effective means of control and the family is the most significant agency.Pakistan is a multilingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. But the Pakistani education system has always maintained the particular ideology which indicates that Pakistan is an Islamic state rather than a country with a majority Muslim population. This ideology has been reflected in the contents of government school textbooks and successive Pakistani governments have used this formal education system as a tool to social control to transmit and legitimize its political intentions (Mesti). METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH The research was carried out through both Primary and Secondary research methods.
The Primary research was conducted by distributing a set of Questionnaires to two groups of research participants. The research participants (samples) were LUMS students. One research group comprised of students who haven’t yet taken the Pak. Studies course in LUMS and the other comprised of those students who have taken the course. The Questionnaires were based on MCQ type questions. The Secondary research was carried out with the help of resources mainly from the internet and included scholarly articles, research papers, and newspaper articles etc.
The secondary research was carried out to support the topic and to obtain relevant information. PRIMARY RESEARCH The questions asked in the Questionnaires were regarding the history of Pakistan as taught to us through text-books. The answers by both the groups differed significantly. By analyzing the answers of both the groups, we found that those who have taken the Pak.
Studies course in LUMS are of the view that the material that we are taught in text-books in schools and colleges is highly misleading and controlled.On the other hand, the other group was completely unaware of the reality and believed that which was taught in the schools and colleges as truth. The answers of both the groups showed how significantly the people of Pakistan (especially students) are controlled through the text-books. The findings are further analyzed in last section of the research paper and the questionnaires have also been provided with the research paper for reference.
The phenomenon of social control through text-books was introduced in early 1980’s in Pakistan.General Zia-ul-haq in order to legitimize his military coup and to socially control the people opted for the manipulation of the textbooks and so-called Islamization of the society by attempting to redesign all the textbooks of pre-university levels to include “distorted narration of history, factual inaccuracies, inclusion of hate material, a disproportionate inclusion of Islamic studies in other disciplines, glorification of war and the military, gender bias” (Mesti). Ministry of Education, the Curriculum Wing, the Textbook Boards and their collaborative writers, are largely from elites, who form a powerful group in Pakistani society.They empower themselves and their intentions through the manipulation of their social status and through the power of access to write textbooks the way they want. In this case manipulation is one of the discursive social practices of dominant groups geared towards the maintenance and extension of their power through providing information aimed at influencing the knowledge and the beliefs of the recipients.
Put clearly, social control is exercised between two social groups: the powerful elites and their victims, the students at recipient level.In order to completely apply their social control through books, government also uses more strong type of formal control such as coercion and punishments. Government uses the coercion to make sure that everyone studies the same textbooks and punishment to those who fail to comply by their rules or refuse to set textbooks. In order to protect their own interests and to continue their governance unquestioned many governments, as well as the army, have utilized the tactic of misinformation along with the omittance of certain data from curriculum texts.
A perfect example of this can be seen in the case of East Pakistan’s separation as Bangladesh in 1971. Most students are unaware of the realities of this era as large amounts of information are missing and the scanty amount of information that is provided is tainted and false. Envisioned in the First Educational Conference 1947 and intensified in the 1980s by General Zia, Islamization of education continues unabated and used by many Islamic fundamentalist groups and sects for the promotion of Jihad, to propagate hatred for non-Muslims and controlling the behavior of individuals (Nazeer).Textbooks are primarily used for these purposes. Especially in Madrassas and Islamic schools textbooks are being used to promote intolerant views of non-Muslim minorities, to promote jihad and hatred against non-muslims.
Following are the main purposes that lie beneath the promotion of such fundamentalist ideas. * Pakistan being a pluralist society required a binding force to promote distinct nationality. Religion was viewed as the main binding factor by many leaders. Religion has often proved to be a powerful binding factor which has merged heterogeneous groups into a distinct nationality.Through appeal to supernatural authority, religion promotes national unity as a divine command.
However, the propagation of hatred for non-Muslims was first used by Zia-ul-haq in order to gain political support from religious parties (Usmani). * In the cold war era, Jihad was promoted by Pakistani military under the leadership of General Zia with the help of religious institutions etc, in order to obtain fighters and military soldiers who would be willing to fight in Afghanistan against Soviets in the name of Islam.Pakistani people were indirectly controlled on the name of Islam by Islamic groups and military. * The Pakistan Studies textbook for Class nine and ten fails to mention Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto or the role of the PPP throughout the essay on Bangladesh and the 1971 War. Instead, the “Fall of East Pakistan” is blamed upon the “Role of Hindu teachers” and “International Conspiracies” (Hussain).
* Pakistani military has always viewed India as its bitter enemy. Pakistan as gone into 3 wars against India and almost all of which were started due to Pakistani military intervention in India. However, in order to gain support both economically and socially, military (which has always proved to be the biggest stake holder of the state) manipulated Pakistani text books and wrong version of history was taught to Pakistani children, in which Hindus were always portrayed as enemies of Pakistan and India as the worst enemy of Pakistan. EXAMPLES FROM THE CURRICULUM: 1.The Social Studies textbook for Class 7 says: “European nations have been working during the past three centuries, through conspiracies on naked aggression to subjugate the countries of the Muslim world. ” 2.
14-year-old students of Pakistan Studies are being taught that: “one of the reasons of the downfall of the Muslims in the sub-continent was the lack of the spirit of jihad. ” 3. 13-year-olds are instructed: “In Islam jihad is very important…..
The person who offers his life never dies….All the prayers nurture one’s passion of jihad. ” 4. An extract from Social studies book for Class 5 states: “When the All India congress was formed, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan realized that the Muslims were much less in number than the Hindus and if the Congress succeeded to get freedom for India from the British, the Muslims would not be able to safeguard their rights because of their minority. Keeping in view this point Sir Syed Ahmed Khan rejected the ‘One nation theory’.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan said that the people of different relations lived in India therefore to call them one nation was incorrect. The Hindus and the Muslims formed two major and different religions of India therefore they were two different nations” (Social Studies Class V, Punjab Textbook Board). A recent study report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has researched the Pakistani school textbooks to discover how textbooks are misused as an instrument of ruling paradigms to develop a particular mind set.The USCIRF study report shows how education can be distorted to construct a particular kind of national chauvinism and a mind set and how ruling regimes intervene in education to promote certain ideologies that suits their own interests. “Textbooks being used in Pakistani public schools and madrassas promote intolerant views of non-Muslim minorities, extol jihad, and portray non-Muslims not at citizens with rights but as infidels, pagans, apostates or subservient dhimmis" ("How Pakistani Textbooks Pollute Innocent Minds - Rediff.
com News").The manipulation of the textbooks, censorship and inclusion of selective material, all these techniques were and still being used by regimes to promote their agenda and to exclude anything they don’t want people to know. The history of Pakistan is so well manipulated that the whole struggle of Pakistan is being portrayed as “the struggle for a Muslim state on the name of Islam”. The popular slogan such as “Pakistan ka matlab kia? LA ILLAH HA ILLALALLAH” (which was coined long after the creation of Pakistan) is being portrayed as the basis of creation of Pakistan (Usmani).Quaid-e-Azam and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who were very secular in their attitude are also depicted as the champions of Two-Nation Theory and formation of an Islamic state. The speeches of Quaid-e-Azam were manipulated and censored to cater the needs of ruling regime.
The irony of the situation is that when students reach to university level and come in contact with the original material and history, some of them are so socially controlled that they don’t accept the material as true and most of them end up confused and without any clue of what to accept and what not to.According to the survey conducted this interaction between students and original text in the university level gives one of the three results. 1. Total rejection of the material by the students.
2. Partial acceptance. 3. Acceptance with confusion.
Upon a further analysis of these results, the hesitance of these students that have been surveyed to accept the new data provided to them can easily be credited to effective social control applied over years. The students that exhibit complete rejection of the new information have internalized the information provided to them through their pre-university education.In these cases, the social control applied through text books coupled with other social control instruments such as media and parenting has been successful in its ultimate aim. The information provided at prior levels has successfully been incorporated as a part of their identity, and to these students accepting the new information as truthful not only seems anti-patriotic but traitor like, not only to their country but also to their nation identity that is often brought to the forefront when questioned.The students that exhibit partial acceptance of the new formation have failed to internalize the information provided to them through their pre university education, however continuous forms of informal social control keeps them from remaining completely untainted by previous information, and thus fail to achieve full acceptance of the text.
The new information they gain coupled with the contrasting information they’ve gained at prior levels results in conflicting identities.These identities confuse and frustrate many of the students, as the strong sense of rejecting all alternative realities that don’t support your country’s righteousness in the name of patriotism that has been embedded into these students fights against the ‘scholarly’ identities that are more subject to reason, which the new texts provide ample amounts of. Finally we can see that the students, who have fully accepted the new information, still remain subject to some confusion. This confusion is a result of accepting the new information and along with it one’s new identity over the previous one.These students are often those who have not been able to internalize the viewpoint provided in their pre university text books. Also, it has been noticed that this internalization process has often been hindered due to contact with contrasting information even before university.
This acceptance although soothing for many students as it affirms the questions they have themselves been able to raise about the prior course material, does lead to the students remaining confused as to why such contrasting information has been provided at these two levels.This sometimes has also lead to personal research by some of these students to satisfy questions linked to their national identity. Work Cited "How Pakistani Textbooks Pollute Innocent Minds - Rediff. com News.
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