Censorship in Pakistani Urdu Textbooks

By Ajmal Kamal

Saadat Hasan Manto

Suppression of dissent and criticism has always been an active force in Pakistani society. Journalists and creative writers have had to struggle hard to find their way around or across many laws threatening to punish  any deviation from the official line on most vital issues. The authorities’ initiative to impose censorship through legislative means dates back to the Public Safety Act Ordinance imposed in October 1948, and later, in 1952, ratified by the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan as the Safety Act.  Apart from numberless political workers, newspapers, and periodicals, the leading literary journals too fell victim to this oppressive piece of legislation which was only the first in a long series of such laws.  In fact,  Savera (Lahore) has the dubious honor of being the first periodical of any kind to be banned, in 1948, under this very Public Safety Act Ordinance.  This legal device was also invoked to suspend two other Lahore-based literary periodicals—Nuqush and Adab-e Latif—for six months and to incarcerate the editor of Savera, Zaheer Kashmiri, in 1950 without even a trial.[1]

The infamous Safety Act had well-known literary people on both sides. On the one hand, literary critics such as Muhammad Hasan Askari[2] found the law perfectly justifiable—indeed, they even praised it. On the other hand, there were writers and editors who were prosecuted under this law, Sa’dat Hasan Manto perhaps being the most prominent among them.[3] Manto’s writing had had a history of attracting the wrath of the authorities for its downright honest and realistic portrayal of life and its stinging moral and political comment. He had been prosecuted under the British colonial government for publishing the short stories “Dhuvan” and “Kali Shalvar.” Individuals such as Chaudhry Muhammad Husain of the Press Branch, Government of Punjab—immortalized by Manto in the dedications of two successive editions of his collection Lazzat-e Sang—were always eager to assist the authorities in this respect. Having decided on intolerance of any moral or political comment almost from the moment the new state came into being, the Pakistani authorities have since kept it alive and have never felt the need to relax it. Consequently, there has been a long series of unjust laws and practices intended to suppress freedom of thought and expression, irredeemably crippling any tradition of dissent in the society. Especially regrettable is the fact that people like Chaudhry Muhammad Husain and Muhammad Hasan ‘Askari have always come forward to lend a helping hand to the authorities by providing legal and ideological support in stilling any expression of
dissent.

Tablighi Jamaat Coming of Age?

By Waqar Gillani, The News

Cross Posted from Pak Tea House

Ex-servicemen belonging to Tablighi Jamaat meet in Raiwind ahead of its annual Ijtimah to discuss the party’s future agenda

Ahead of the Tablighi Jamaat’s annual congregation in Raiwind near Lahore — one of the largest congregations of Islamic world attended by at least one and half million Muslims — there has been a day-long meeting of at least 50 former officers of Pakistan’s armed forces in Raiwind to discuss the future agenda of the rapidly-expanding movement.

Though party sympathisers term the meeting as ‘routine’, insiders claim these retired officers had travelled from across the country to attend this special meeting of “Halqa-e-Khawas” (group of special people) and were well-taken care of and hosted by the Ameer of TJ, Maulana Abdul Wahab. It may be interesting to note that Wahab is no seminary student but an ordinary landlord.

The annual congregation of TJ, which is considered a non-resistant and non-political Islamic revivalist movement, is scheduled from Nov 5-8, 2009.

The meeting, convened under the driving force of this group in Pakistan armed forces, Lt Gen (r) Javed Nasir, former director general Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), was attended by at least 50 former high-rank officers of the military including many generals, brigadiers and admirals and even top police officers etc. Apart from Lt Gen (r) Nasir, there were Lt Gen (r) Agha Masood Hasan, former naval chief Admiral (r) Karamat Rehman Niazi, Lt Gen (r) Aftab Ahmed and others.

Rewriting the History of Pakistan

by Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy and Abdul Hameed Nayyar

[Source: Islam, Politics and the State: The Pakistan Experience, Asghar Khan (ed.) Zed Books, London, 1985, pp. 164-177.]

From indoctrination’s foul rope
Suspend all reason, all hope
Until with swollen tongue
Morality herself is hung.

Introduction

Education in Pakistan, from schools to universities, is being fundamentally redefined. This development is expected to have profound implications for the future of the country’s society and politics. Most changes are traceable to factors related to the stability of the present government, but there are also others which cannot be analysed as a mere response to immediate threats. A new concept of education now prevails, the full impact of which will probably be felt by the turn of the century, when the present generation of school children attains maturity.

Having pledged to divorce education from liberal and secular ideals, Pakistani rulers view education as an important means of creating an Islamised society and as an instrument for forging a new national identity based on the ‘Ideology of Pakistan’. Important steps have already been taken in this direction: enforcement of chadar in educational institutions; organisation of congregational zuhr (afternoon) prayers during school hours; compulsory teaching of Arabic as a second language from sixth class onwards; introduction of nazara Qur’an (reading of Qur’an) as a matriculation requirement; alteration of the definition of literacy to include religious knowledge; elevation of maktab schools to the status of regular schools and the recognition of maktab certificates as being equivalent to master’s degrees; creation of an Islamic university in Islamabad; introduction of religious knowledge as a criterion for selecting teachers of all categories and all levels; and the revision of conventional subjects to emphasise Islamic values.

The Myth of History

by Prof. Shahida Kazi

DAWN- March 27, 2005

History is a discipline that has never been taken seriously by anyone in Pakistan. As a result, the subject has been distorted in such a way that many a fabricated tale has become part of our collective consciousness

Does mythology have anything to do with history? Is mythology synonymous with history? Or is history mythology?

Admittedly, the line between the two is a very fine one. From time immemorial, man has always been in search of his roots. He has also been trying to find a real and tangible basis for the legends of ancient days — legends that have become a part of our collective consciousness. As a result, we witness the quest for proving the existence of King Arthur, the search for whereabouts of the city of Troy, and many expeditions organized to locate the exact site of the landing of Noah’s Ark.

During the ‘60s and the ‘70s, there was a worldwide movement to prove that the ‘gods’ of ancient mythologies did actually exist; they came from distant galaxies; and that mankind owed all its progress to such alien superheroes. Several books were written on the subject.

We, in Pakistan, are a breed apart. Lacking a proper mythology like most other races, we have created our own, populated by a whole pantheon of superheroes who have a wide range of heroic exploits to their credit.

Signatures on Balochistan Statement

by A. H. Nayyar

Dear friends,

Balochistan is burning and needs our special and urgent attention. For the fifth time the people of Balochistan have been forced to take up arms as an expression of defiance against their continued exploitation. Each time the state of Pakistan embarked on military action to crush the resistance rather than to seek a reconciliation with the Baloch.

The state atrocities on the people of Balochistan have now reached unbearable proportions. So many have faced extrajudicial killings. Thousands of young men have disappeared at the hand of state agencies. Common people are being humiliated everyday by the Pakistani law enforcement agencies. Most young men in Balochistan have become totally alienated from Pakistan. If we continue to keep quiet we will commit a gross injustice to our Balochistani brothers and sisters. We must speak up now.

We the citizens of Pakistan must express solidarity with the people of Balochistan. The enclosed statement is meant to do just that. It also suggests steps that we the citizens feel the government must take in this regard.

We are approaching you to seek your help in this campaign.

A web-based signature portal is also being created. But we are all aware that as a vast majority of Pakistani citizens do not have access to such portals. Hence a need for signatures on a printed statement. The statement is in both English and Urdu, and we would deeply appreciate if some friends translate and print it in other languages, and get signatures.

‘Bring back Jinnah’s Pakistan’

By Ardeshir Cowasjee
DAWN- 01 Nov, 2009

Of late, amidst the murder and mayhem accompanied by an absence of government or any signs of governance, a group of citizens has been circulating an email message exhorting whoever to ‘bring back Jinnah’s Pakistan’.

Now, to bring back something that existed for a mere moment in the life of this nation is more than difficult at a time when the national mindset is what it is.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan was denounced six months after his death when the Objectives Resolution was passed, negating the words he had so eloquently spoken to his constituent assembly on Aug 11 1947: ‘… You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state.’ Thus, willy-nilly, the state was made the custodian of religion.

In the early 1950s, the British writer Hector Bolitho was commissioned by the government to write an official biography of Jinnah. It was published in 1954. Such was the moral dishonesty and hypocrisy that had taken a firm hold and rooted itself in the country’s psyche that the ruling clique of the day perverted Jinnah’s words, and printed in the book was this version of the quoted sentence: ‘You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.’

In a Land Without Music

by Eqbal Ahmad
from The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad

(Editor’s Note: This first hand narrative of Afghanistan during Taliban regime should be read by those who believe in absurd notions of ‘Good Taliban’ and ‘Bad Taliban’)

I have seen the future as envisioned by contemporary Islamists. It horrifies and does not work – anywhere. Today we look at two towns in Afghanistan.

Qandahar, an old city and monument in many ways to Afghan aesthetics, is a vast architectural ruin; its forbidden soul hides perhaps in the rubble. The town’s physical destruction was caused largely during the war between the communist regime and its Russian patron, and their Mujahideen opponents. After their ‘victory’ the latter have robbed it, as they have most of Afghanistan, of hope and proscribed the pursuit of happiness. Music is banned in historic Qandahar which had once been famous for its bards and story-tellers. Play is forbidden.

Several among the Taliban who rule Qandahar marched a boy through the bazaar; a rope around his neck, hands on his shaven head. He had broken ‘Islamic law’. He had been caught red-handed, l was told – playing ball. Football is forbidden under Taliban rule as are basketball, volleyball and other games involving the movement of body. I did not meet any of the Talib leaders. So I do not know what they claim as the reason for this prohibition. People, including those who should know, say that the Taliban’s concern is morality, sexual morality to be exact, and its logic by analogy – qiyas – is the same that prohibits women from appearing unveiled in public: boys playing ball can constitute undue temptation to men.

Allama Iqbal- Is he still relevant?

Muhammad Iqbal

by  Yasser Latif Hamdani

Given the current turmoil, which has made it abundantly clear that the people of Pakistan desire a truly representative democratic civilian order, the question above has become very relevant. Essentially – this begs four
questions that ought to be answered to understand the relevance of Allama Iqbal to Pakistan today.

1. What were Iqbal’s views on democracy and how did they fit into the overall Iqbalian-Ijtehadi Islamic thought ?

2. How and why did Iqbal become the national poet and philosopher of Pakistan ?

3. What has been the nature of criticism of Iqbalian thought in Pakistan?

4. What is the future of Iqbalian thought in Pakistan?

1. What were Iqbal’s views on democracy and how did they fit into the overall Iqbalian-Ijtehadi Islamic thought ?

Iqbal famously said something to the effect that democracy merely counts and does not weigh. No doubt this as well as the distinct glorification of Islam (inter alia his concept of the Islamic Superman i.e. Mard-e-Momin and Shaheen) in his poetry has been used by the military rulers of Pakistan.

On the other hand, Iqbal celebrated the coming of democracy or republicanism in his famous couplet:

“Sultan-e-jumhoor ka ata hai zamana”

or “Dawns the era of republican democratic rule”

The Clash of Ignorance

by Edward Said

Published in The Nation -  October 22, 2001

Edward Said

Samuel Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations?” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction. Because the article was intended to supply Americans with an original thesis about “a new phase” in world politics after the end of the cold war, Huntington’s terms of argument seemed compellingly large, bold, even visionary. He very clearly had his eye on rivals in the policy-making ranks, theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and his “end of history” ideas, as well as the legions who had celebrated the onset of globalism, tribalis m and the dissipation of the state. But they, he allowed, had understood only some aspects of this new period. He was about to announce the “crucial, indeed a central, aspect” of what “global politics is likely to be in the coming years.” Unhesitatingly he pressed on:

“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

The Roots of Violence

by Eqbal Ahmad

Making Enemies, Creating Conflict: Pakistan’s Crises of State and Society. Edited by Zia Mian and Iftikhar Ahmad (Mashal Books, Lahore, 1997).,  1997

Contents

Proliferation of violence has become the most serious soc ial problem in Pakistan today. Not a week, often not a day, goes by without so me terrible act of violence shaking public confidence in the state’s ability to protect citizens, and reminding us that a serious decline in civility has occurred in this country. Officials announce ever stronger measures as th e cure while citizens wonder over the causes which underlie our descent into insensate savagery such as the recent massacre of mourners in a Lahore cemetery. This essay is but one man’s perspectives on the roots of contemporary violence in Pakistan.

I should begin with five simple observations: One, apart from war and aggression as defined under international law, nine forms of violence may be identified as among the most commonly observed world wide. The degree of their incidence differs in place and time. They are: domestic, criminal, official, ethnic, chiliastic, political (protest oriented), religious-sectarian, terrorist, and revolutionary violence. Often these forms overlap. For example, official violence can be as terroristic in nature as revolutionary and criminal violence. Officially sponsored death squads and foreign covert operations are examples. Similarly sectarian violence frequently takes terrorist forms as Pakistan has been witnessing with some frequency. And revolutionary violence nearly always involves a combination of protest, terrorism, and warfare.