Saturday, July 26, 2014

Books of Ethics for Non-Muslim Pakistanis


Books of Ethics for Non-Muslim Pakistanis


Since 2010 Government of the Punjab is publishing textbooks of Ethics for Non-Muslim Pakistanis which is in accordance with 2009 education policy yet other provinces have not publish such books till to date. Some spokesmen of Ideology of Pakistan are not happy with such developments due to obvious reasons.
From 1969 till 2009 there was not any policy recommendation in Pakistan which allowed Non-Muslim Pakistanis to read books according to their faiths. If it happened in any Muslim minority country than we would register our protest and may call it a conspiracy against Muslim world but for 40 years we tried to push our Non-Muslim Pakistanis to wall. Except a tiny minority of liberal, progressive people neither media nor political parties raised their voices in this regard.   Yet Pakistan is changing in post 18th amendment period.
2014 میں جب میں نے پنجاب ٹیکسٹ بک بورڈ کی کتب کا جائزہ لینا شروع کیا تو مجھے یہ خوشگوار حیرت ہوئی کہ بورڈ نے کلاس 3 سے 9/10 تک ماسوائے جماعت 8 کے اخلاقیات کی تمام کتب چھاپ دی ہیں۔ آپ مسلم لیگ (ن) اور میاں شہبازشریف کی حکومت سے لاکھ اختلاف کریں مگر پنجاب حکومت کا 2009 کی تعلیمی پالیسی کی اس شق کا خیال رکھنا یقینا اک مثبت پہلو ہے۔ جب میں نے اپنے کوئٹہ مقیم بلوچ دوست سے پوچھا کہ وہاں کے ٹیکسٹ بک بورڈ نے غیر مسلموں کے بارے میں کتب چھاپی ہیں تو اس نے نفی میں جواب دیا۔
As Punjab is publishing these books so we should pressurize other provincial governments to follow Punjab and produce textbooks of Ethics for Non-Muslim Pakistanis.
These books have lot of short comings and now those who are working in Non-Muslim Pakistanis should check it accordingly. These books are published under Textbook policy 2006 so there are numerous problems in it because of Textbook policy 2006.
As par 1973 constitution Ahmadis are Non-Muslim Pakistanis but in these books you will read positive information about Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsees but not Ahmadis.
1969 education policy penned jointly by General Sheer Ali Patoddi & Air Marshal Noor khan was Partying of Ways and you may call it Preamble of Zia ul Haq yet in our special anti-Ayub syndrome some of our supper intellectuals called it a progressive policy. Policy criticized School System and praised Madrassa system. It introduced Islamyat as compulsory subject till class 10th and compelled Non-Muslims to read it too. The policy recommended either to ban or nationalized foreign funded missionary educational institutions at once. Interestingly, 1972 education policy   nationalized all private and semi government educational institutions except madarass. So there was a back ground of Zia at least in education sector. After the demise of exemplary Sharief Commission report on education (born 1959, death 1969) our education policy documents failed to even mention about religious education of Non-Muslim Pakistanis. Just imagine if Non-Muslim Pakistanis are 5% than in a country of 200 million people Non-Muslim Pakistanis are 10 million. Is it fair enough to push 10 million Pakistanis to wall? Is it a service for Pakistani nationalism?
ان کتب میں غیر مسلم پاکستانیوں کے عقائد کا ذکر تو ہے مگر ان غیرمسلم پاکستانی شخصیات کا ذکر ہی نہیں جنھوں نے وطن عزیز کے لیے گرانقدر خدمات سرانجام دیں ہیں

In 2010, I did a content analysis of Punab Textbook Board books where I found only one book of class 9/10 so it analysis was included in my report What we are teaching our Children. Now in 2014, am doing it again and I found books of ethics for class 3, 4, 6 and 9/10 which is an appreciable job. I read a piece, please read it. Thanks

READ THE ARTICLE HERE


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