Identity crisis of a nation

Some direction, please!

We cannot change unless we discriminate facts from assumptions. The death of the Indonesian Qari while reciting Quran does not signify anything as many pious men have died doing other things. The way Junaid Jamshed died has less to do with his own fate or the fate of the other passengers than with the fault in the airline

It was not long ago when I got trapped in a discussion, with my students, where I had to disclose my disapproving opinion on our education system; I did not know that such criticism would be taken as an affront by those whom we educate. The students are highly critical of all that we offer to them in the name of education; however, they are not willing to admit that they are as unscrupulous as the system in which they were brewed for years. Their defense, built by self-respect, was changing into offense when I asked them about the foundation of our so called western education system. Dissatisfactory and dissuading arguments started to erupt from Pakistan’s first education policy to Sir Syed’s efforts in acquainting Muslims with the western system of knowledge to the negligence of the religious and ethical literature in the contemporary system of education.

Firstly, who was Sir Syed, and how was he educated? Interestingly, many of us mistook Sir Syed’s long, white beard as a sign of being religious and perhaps being raised in a strictly religious environment where he came up with the ideas that were ultimately going to save the Muslims of sub-continent from British wrath. Nevertheless, before joining East India Company in 1838, he did his LLB from the University of Edinburg (more than 180 years ago, i.e., almost two centuries ago). When he came to the aid of Muslims, he gave them a practical solution (he was practical then): if Muslims wanted to survive under the British rule, they had to acquaint themselves with the language and the education of the Empire.

Hindus were already well-versed in western education. Why? Because centuries ago, they learnt: Do in the Empire as the Emperor does. They acquainted themselves with the language of the Mughal court and mastered the order of the day. Muslims, on the contrary, after the fall of Mughal Empire, believed that they (a religious minority), not Mughals (a race), were the rulers. They were too stubborn to change their mindset, and the empire rightfully sensed them as a threat.

Muslim leaders who were educated in England are one type, and the Muslims who never stepped out of their house or India, for getting educated, another. Those who were educated in the local schools and colleges, established by the British or their right arms, embraced western education half-heartedly since it was the pre-requisite of “government job”. Bringing bread was incumbent on them, and there were jobs, other than being the Molvi sahab at a local mosque, out there.

Education changed the economic condition and with it changed the social status. The attitude towards education, however, remained the same; the signs of which can be seen in all that we expect of education today – employment. What Muslim politicians understood then is now understood, two centuries ago, by the rest of the Muslims in sub-continent who still are struggling with the notion that religious education has failed to score them any riches in this world. The years one has wasted in an educational institution, acquiring western knowledge, are worth it if the end means getting hired. The better the job the better the man.

Secondly, it is not the education policy of Pakistan that needs attention but the situation with which the policy makers of that time were dealing: although the century long colonial period emphasised on education, the progress was made in the part that became India, leaving Pakistan with the land of educationally backward, hence conservative, people. Conservativeness has only done us harm as we might be the last to admit that although there is room for us in this new world, we have no say in it.

The land that was Pakistan’s share was, unfortunately, going to resist all the measures taken in the name of education to somehow maintain and, to some extent, retain the absolute faith in Muslim brotherhood that would one day rule the world, without any significant contribution to the field of science, merely with the will of Allah. (He willed otherwise, and the Global Village is ruled by everyone except Muslims!) An evidence of which can be seen in the 0.1 percent decrease in literacy rate from 16.4 percent in 1951 to 16.3 percent in 1960.

What was essentially wrong with the policy was its inability to restore the self-esteem of a dethroned nation before acquainting them with the foreign knowledge that was going to further affect their understanding of the world and their relative position in it.

What I like most about the first Education Policy of Pakistan is its agenda of not making people literate but keeping them literate which brings me to the next part of this discussion where it is relevant to see how the educated elite learns and unlearns her/his lessons.

At the heart of all problems related to education lies one ugly fact: we do not believe in what we are taught, be it Human Evolution by Charles Darwin or the Human Rights Charter given by the UN. (If belief is a strong word in a society infected with misunderstanding of religion, trust could be a better option.)

Being a student I was taught many things, most of which were not related to me in any possible way. Not being able to relate could be more devastating in the prime days of learning than not being able to understand. The most estimable and believable part of the science book remained, for years, the first chapter where the contribution of Muslim scientist was written. It did not add into my insecurities. I could relate with it. All of it.

However, the contribution that Muslims made in the realm of science is very basic. The only laid the grounds for non-Muslim scientists to extend their studies on, providing them with the lab apparatus or with the pin-hole camera. The later Muslims, somehow, failed to contribute anything, and the Muslims, over centuries, turned from pioneers into peasants (not to mention the Muslims of the sub-continent who have almost nothing estimable associated with their name).

There is something inevitably wrong with this land and/or with the people who decided to migrate at the time of partition. They were a people whoperhaps took so much pride in their being Muslim that they decided that living in the land governed by Hindus would be an insult to the centuries of “their” rule. This is just a symptom of the problem that was and is deep seated in the hearts of Muslims of the subcontinent. They do not know who to relate with.

Since most of them were converts, relating with the Jane or Hindumat was out of question. The Mughaldom that they construed to be “theirs” was in fact of Central Asian Turco Mongols. Mughals were as much foreign as British but they happened to be Muslims, a commonality which was sufficient to make the subcontinent’s Muslims believe that they themselves were the ruling body. For them, imprisonment of Bahadur ShahZafar did not mark the end of the great Mughal dynasty but of the golden age of MuslimRule.

The crisis continued along with the Freedom Movement that was initiated with equal zest by Hindu and Muslim politicians, until the Muslims tried to influence the British Raj not to abolish the Ottoman Empire, as they also related themselves with the Muslims of Turkey. It was perhaps then that the Hindus realised that we were more Muslims and less Indian. Conspicuously, the community failed to differentiate the ethnic and religious identities. There has been no way to end this identity crisis which only aggravated with time, and we see its worst forms in today’s Pakistan.

We see Punjab University, the oldest public sector university in Pakistan, established in 1880s to promote higher education in India, becoming a spectacle of ethnic violence. Western education, sadly, could not lift the educated community above religious, racial and ethnic biases, making us an intolerant nation. The mass butchering of Mishal Khan is also an example of Muslims asserting their will in a world where they have lost their voice.

We cannot change unless we discriminate facts from assumptions. The death of the Indonesian Qari while reciting Quran does not signify anything as many pious men have died doing other things. The way Junaid Jamshed died has less to do with his own fate or the fate of the other passengers than with the fault in the airline. Getting ill is not a punishment as prophets also fell ill; our bodies keep giving away symptoms unless the disease is cured. Last, but not the least, sending an SMS or Whatsaap message to twenty others would neither save you from a nonsensical penalty nor entitle you to a house in haven.

KK Aziz, in his book Making of Pakistan, gives the thirteen conditions of being a nation. While common land, history, religion and culture are significant in binding a group of people, it is “common pride in national achievements and a common sorrow in national tragedies” that keeps the nation united. Indeed, army and armaments still lure hearts, but the global village can only be governed by a nation that understands the significance of “scientific competition, economic rivalry and even educational jealousy”. We, undoubtedly, have one of the most accomplished armies in the world, but it has not taken us anywhere as a nation.

It is high time to invest in education, aiming at instilling ideas and theories not as mere information but as deep-rooted concepts to educate and empower the student in a way that s/he contributes something in the field, instead of only taking from it; discovering what is yet to be discovered (and plenty is still unleashed);devising gadgets that would be apt for this part of the world (solar electronic devices for the hot climate, applications for better health and improved lifestyle, software for multiple things from managing traffic control to maintaining the court records, etc);researching areas that are yet to be explored (instead of exploring western ideas and themes in our research work, we must be looking at indigenous works from literature to history, from sociology to mass communication, to develop a comprehensive understanding of how this society and its people work); and investing in industry and agriculture to promote exports and to demote imports so that the influx of volatile youth could be directed in a direction where it could dig fortunes for itself and for the nation.