Contrary to what professional historians might claim, there is
really no such thing as an objective, unbiased and completely accurate writing
of history. After all, not everything, even of significance, of what happened in
the past can possibly be included in a text and history book writers have to
pick and choose from past events that they deem fit be recorded. The very
process of picking and choosing from the past is determined, among other
factors, by the subjective biases of the history writer as well as his or her
own social and institutional location. Then history writing is not simply about
narrating the past but also involves a certain element of evaluating it. Here
again this is strongly determined by the personal biases and preference of the
individual historian.
The element of bias is greatly exacerbated when history
textbooks are – as they are in almost every country today – commissioned by the
state. The state wishes to mould its citizens in a particular way, to make them
what it considers ‘good’ and ‘law-abiding’ citizens who have completely
internalised the underlying logic and ideology of the state. The state, in its
capacity as representative of a country’s ruling class, seeks to impose through
state-sponsored history texts the hegemonic ideas of this class upon its
citizenry. It is thus not surprising that such texts generally parrot the
state-centric view of history that seeks to bestow legitimacy on the state and
the country’s ruling class and ‘normalise’ their logic and world view.
This incisive critique of state-sponsored social science
textbooks in Pakistan highlights the convoluted politics of historiography and
what this means for the production of a ‘social commonsense’ for a state’s
citizenry. Although Rosser does not say it in so many words, the current
turbulent political scenario in Pakistan, in particular the rise of radical
Islamist forces in the country, cannot be seen as inseparable from the narrow
political agenda that the Pakistani state, ever since its formation, has
consistently sought to pursue as is reflected in the social science textbooks
that it has commissioned and through which it has sought to impose its own
ideology on its people.
Rosser’s study focuses on the textbooks used in Pakistani
schools for the compulsory subject called ‘Pakistan Studies’ which was
introduced in the reign of the American-backed military dictator, General Zia
ul-Haq, in the mid-1970s. Pakistan Studies replaced the teaching of history and
geography and was moulded in such a fashion as to instil in students an undying
and unquestioning loyalty to the official ‘ideology of Pakistan’ (called the
nazariya-e-Pakistan in Urdu). This ideology, questioning which is considered
a punishable crime in the country, is based on the far-fetched and completely
bankrupt notion of the Muslims and Hindus of the pre-partition Indian
subcontinent as constituting two homogeneous and wholly irreconcilable
‘nations’. (Incidentally, this is the same perverse logic that underlies radical
Hindutva in India.) It claims that Muslims and Hindus have never been able to
live amicably together, that they have always been opposed to each other, that
they share nothing in common and that hence it was but natural that Pakistan
should come into being for the sake of the Muslims of South Asia.
There are several defining and characteristic features of the
Pakistani social science textbooks that Rosser examines. Firstly, as she notes,
their extreme anti-Indianism. This is a reflection of the fact that the
‘Ideology of Pakistan’, indeed the very rationale for the creation and continued
existence of the state of Pakistan, is premised on the notion of undying and
perpetual hatred of and opposition to India. India thus comes to be presented as
viscerally opposed to Pakistan and as constituting a mortal threat to its very
existence. In this way a form of Pakistani nationalism is sought to be fostered
through the texts that is hyper-chauvinistic and one that is based on a constant
reinforcement of an almost crippling sense of being besieged by what is
projected as an ‘evil’ neighbour.
Secondly, and linked to the anti-Indianism that pervades these
texts, are the repeated negative and hostile references to the Hindus and their
faith. Hinduism is portrayed and projected in wholly negative terms, as if
lacking any appreciable elements at all. Its followers are presented in a
similarly unflattering way: as allegedly mean and cruel and constantly scheming
against Muslims and their faith. Hindus, like Muslims, thus come to be presented
in strikingly stereotypical terms: the former as virulently hostile enemies and
the latter as brave soldiers in the path of god. They are portrayed as two
solid, monolithic blocs and as being without any internal differences
whatsoever, of class, caste, gender, region, language, political orientation and
ethnicity. The only identity that they are projected as possessing is that of
religion which is presented in starkly reified terms that often have little
resonance with empirical reality. In the process the diverse, often
contradictory, interpretations, expressions and the lived realities of Islam and
Hinduism in South Asia are completely ignored in favour of extreme literalist,
‘orthodox’ and textual understandings. ‘Popular’ religious traditions, such as
certain forms of Sufism and Bhakti, that bring people of diverse communal
backgrounds together, are totally ignored because they obviously stridently
contradict the claims of the ‘two-nation’ theory.
Thirdly, the textbooks present Pakistani history as synonymous
with the history of political conquests by successive Muslim rulers, starting
with the Arab commander, Muhammad bin Qasim, in the mid-seventh century. All
these invaders and rulers, so the books piously claim, were goaded by a powerful
sense of religious mission to establish ‘Islamic’ rule in the region. This
alleged religious aspiration of theirs is presented as having finally culminated
in the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Contrary to what is popularly known about
him, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the ideological founder of Pakistan, is presented as
an ‘orthodox’ Muslim allegedly inspired by the vision of establishing an
‘Islamic’ state run by Muslim clerics – something which was not the case at all.
The fact that most of the Muslim rulers and conquerors that
these texts lionise might actually have been inspired by less noble motives – to
plunder or rule – is, of course, conveniently ignored. Religion – in this case
Islam – thus comes to be seen and projected as the sole motor of history with
other factors, such as power and economics, having at best only a minor role to
play. The history of South Asia before Muhammad bin Qasim is hardly mentioned at
all although it was in what is Pakistan today that the Indus Valley civilisation
flourished, that the invading Aryans composed the Vedas and that Buddhism led to
a great flourishing of various arts and sciences.
In other words, every effort is made in the textbooks to present
Pakistan as an extension of ‘Muslim’ West Asia instead of a part of the
Indic-dominated South Asia. Not surprisingly, as Rosser observes, the texts
single out particular historical figures who are known for their battles against
Hindu rulers as heroes, among these the most important being Muhammad bin Qasim,
Mahmud Ghaznavi and Aurangzeb. Other Muslim rulers, most notably Akbar, who
sought to reconcile Hindus and Muslims and promote a generous ecumenism, are
either totally ignored or else reviled as alleged ‘enemies of Islam’.
Furthermore, these figures, of both ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’, are isolated from
their historical contexts, leading to biography turning into hagiography or
demonology, as the case might be, in order to serve the agenda of the advocates
of the ‘two-nation’ theory.
The same holds true in the texts’ depictions of certain key
Muslim religious figures. Thus ‘orthodox’ ulema or Islamic clerics who stressed
the claim of the inferiority of the Hindus and advised Muslim rulers to take
harsh measures against them are hailed as heroes of Islam while others,
including many Sufis, who sought to preach love and tolerance between Muslims
and others and preached an ethical monotheism transcending narrowly inscribed
boundaries of community, are conveniently left out or else branded as
‘un-Islamic’.
A fourth characteristic feature of these textbooks is their
distinctly anti-democratic character. They purport to tell the story of the
Muslims of South Asia from the point of view of Pakistan’s ruling elites. In the
process history comes to be presented as simply a long list of battles and other
‘achievements’ (whether real or imaginary) of a long chain of Muslim rulers.
‘Ordinary’ people have no voice, being completely invisiblised in these texts.
It is as if history is made only by rulers and that the histories of ‘ordinary’
people are not worth recording or commemorating. It would seem as if the writers
of these books are wholly ignorant of new developments in writing ‘people’s’ or
‘subaltern’ histories.
The starkly elitist bias of the texts is also reflected in the
fact that they almost completely ignore perspectives of ethnic groups other than
Pakistan’s dominant Punjabi and Muhajir communities. This is hardly surprising
since, as Rosser notes, most of these texts have been penned by authors who
belong to these two communities. She writes that the absence of the perspectives
and historical experiences of the numerically smaller ethnic and regional
communities of Pakistan, such as the Balochis and Sindhis, also has serious
implications for policymaking, for the demand for smaller provinces for regional
peace in South Asia and equitable local development is not sufficiently
appreciated and incorporated in national policies. This, Rosser comments, is
reflected in the great "tension between official history manufactured in
Islamabad and the historical perspectives of regional ethnic groups" (p. 4).
The anti-democratic thrust of these texts is also reflected in
what Rosser describes as "a radically restrictive brand of Islamic exclusivism"
that they project and propagate. The sort of Islam that these texts seek to
promote is premised on the notion and dream of Muslim political hegemony and a
deep-rooted sense of the innate inferiority of people of other faiths. This is –
and this is important to note – just one version of Islam among many and one
which Muslims who believe in an inclusive version of their faith would
vehemently oppose. However, the texts present this, what Rosser calls
‘authoritarian’, ‘legalistic’ and ‘ritualistic’, brand of Islam as normative and
defining, and completely reject alternate, competing, more democratic and
humanistic interpretations of the faith (p. 9).
Rosser’s findings are of critical importance, particularly in
the context of present developments in Pakistan which is witnessing the alarming
growth of radical Islamist groups impelled by a version of Islam very similar to
the one these texts uphold. Obviously, explanations of the growing threat of
radical Islamism in Pakistan cannot ignore the crucial role of these texts which
are compulsory reading for all Pakistani students thus playing a central role in
moulding their minds and world views. The texts are also a reflection of, as
well as a cause for, the pathetic state of social science research and discourse
in present-day Pakistan.
Rosser’s Indian readers need not have much cause to be
self-congratulatory, however. Although historiography in India is certainly more
sophisticated in many senses than in Pakistan, a significant section of Indian
history writers, particularly of the Hindutva brand, are no different from those
Pakistani writers whose texts Rosser examines. Indeed they speak the same
language of hatred and communal supremacy, propelling the same tired, debunked
myth of Hindus and Muslims being perpetually at odds with each other. Likewise,
they are both profoundly anti-democratic, having no space for the voices and
aspirations of socially, culturally and economically oppressed groups upon whose
enforced silence is premised the artifice of the ‘nation’ (‘Islamic’ or ‘Hindu’,
as the case might be), whose sole representative ruling elites claim to be.
(Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social
Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the National Law School, Bangalore.)