A dive into the school textbooks of Pakistan brings out how young students are learning to hate, not only India but also Hindus and Indian Muslims. Far from being rhetoric for extremist propaganda, these feelings are part of state-endorsed educational content.
Only days prior to the Pahalgam attack that escalated Indo-Pak tensions, Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir once again reaffirmed Kashmir as Pakistan’s ‘jugular vein’, something echoed in school education. School textbooks, particularly Class 8 and 9 books brought out by the National Book Foundation, outline Kashmir as geographically and religiously connected with Pakistan. A line says: “Kashmir is like Pakistan’s jugular vein.”. Geographically, Kashmir has always been a part of the region that is now Pakistan. Most importantly, Kashmir is significant to Pakistan because it is Muslim.”
The historical account portrays India as the aggressor in the conflict over Kashmir. As soon as, after partition, the Indian forces took over Kashmir against the wishes of the people of Kashmir… India had a crucial role in the partition of East Pakistan as well,” states the textbook. India is constantly accused of upsetting regional stability and power balances, such as being accused of forcing Pakistan to test nuclear weapons: “India had carried out three nuclear tests at Pokhran on May 11, 1998… Nawaz Sharif took the historic decision to defy all international pressure and go nuclear.”
Depiction of Hindus in Pak Textbooks
The depiction of Hindus in these textbooks is seriously problematic. A Balochistan Class 5 history textbook refers to Hindus as ‘thugs who massacred Muslims, looted their property, and expelled them from India’. The textbook goes on, referring to Hindus as ‘traitorous’, blaming them for Partition violence.
A 2021 BBC Urdu documentary showed how Pakistani Hindu students feel excluded because of state-approved books calling Hindus ‘kafirs’ and attributing ‘all evils that have befallen Pakistan’ to Pakistani Hindus.
Historical leaders are also twisted. Mahatma Gandhi is reduced to merely a ‘Hindu leader’ who had a ‘disregard of Muslims’. Aurangzeb, however, is depicted as ‘heroic’, and textbooks praise his application of Sharia law as well as policies such as the jizya tax. The Indian textbooks, in contrast, depict Aurangzeb as a controversial leader and focus on his repressive actions against non-Muslims.
Congress Portrayed as a ‘Hindu Party’
The textbooks continue to politicize history by casting the Indian National Congress as Hindu-centric. “Indian National Congress (INC), thus, turned more into a Hindu political party than a mouthpiece of the entire India,” states one chapter. It also blames the Congress for imposing policies that alienated Muslims: “Gandhi and his younger followers took control of the Congress and approach of Hindu as a majority and disdain to Muslim rights generated hatred, jealousy and narrow-mindedness.
Again and again, the books contend that Muslims couldn’t believe Hindus or even the British. “The Muslims had learned an important lesson that they could neither trust Hindus nor British… The Khilafat movement in this respect brought in the concept of nationhood for the Muslims of India,” states another passage.
India Blamed for Pakistan’s Post-Partition Struggles
Even the administrative and humanitarian woes that befell Pakistan after Partition are blamed on India. One paragraph states, “Territory of the state of Pakistan was divided into two parts — West Pakistan and East Pakistan; these were separated by thousands of miles of hostile Indian land.”
Issues such as feeding the refugees, unavailability of resources, and government problems are held responsible for India’s supposed hostility. The Indo-Pak relations textbook says: “Because of this problem, the two nations never developed friendly neighbourly relations… Indian propaganda regarding West Pakistan’s exploitation of East Pakistan filled hatred… and led to a full scale rebellion.”
