BBC Urdu printed a video on YouTube on Monday highlighting the inherent prejudice towards Hindus that textbooks in Pakistan advocate. The video options a number of Pakistani Hindus who level out the rampant anti-Hindu propaganda peddled by college textbooks in Pakistan and narrate the painful humiliation they needed to endure by the hands of their associates, colleagues and classmates, merely for being Hindus.
The video additionally demonstrates the normalisation of anti-Hindu bigotry in class textbooks formally sanctioned by the Pakistani authorities. Children, early on from their tender age, are conditioned to hate Hindus as state-sanctioned textbooks demonise them, seek advice from them ‘kafirs’ (derogatory slang for non-believers), and maintain them chargeable for all of the evils besetting Pakistan.
The Pakistani Hindus within the video quote numerous college textbooks to showcase how college textbooks endorse hate towards Hindus and Hinduism. These youths belonging to various fields chalked up the intolerance in the direction of Hindus in Pakistan to the state textbooks that carry prejudicial content material towards Hindus and characterise them because the supply of all evils. They cited excerpts from college textbooks of various requirements that perpetuated anti-Hindu bias and relegated Hindus to second-class residents.
One of them, who recognized himself as Rajesh Kumar, cited a Pakistani college textbook that described Hindus as ‘Kafirs’, which means idolaters or those that worship idols, and alleged that Hindus have been misogynists who buried their newborns alive in the event that they occurred to be ladies.
Kumar cites the eleventh and Twelfth-grade books of the Sindh Text Book Board to spotlight using epithets like “enemies of humanity” to explain Hindus and Sikhs. He additional provides that the e book claims that Hindus and Sikhs killed 1000’s of girls, males, and kids.
Like Rajesh, others interviewed by the BBC additionally felt that Pakistani textbooks portrayed their religion incorrectly. Dr Rajwanti Kumar, a Hindu lady in Pakistan, mentioned she was usually jeered at by her classmates as a result of she was a Hindu. Some of her classmates even requested her to rejoice the independence day not on August 14 however on August 15, India’s independence day.
The books in Pakistan are inclined to push a story that Hindu minorities within the nation are loyal to their neighbouring nation and arch-nemesis India. In this manner, notion is raised among the many Muslim college students that Hindus of their nation are traitorous and haven’t any patriotic feeling for Pakistan.
Dr Kumar cited the ninth and Tenth-grade books to level out how Pakistani books characterise Hindus as treacherous and deceitful. She says the books declare that Muslims and Hindus joined arms to struggle towards the oppressive British regime. However, the affiliation couldn’t final lengthy due to the perpetual hostility displayed by Hindus in the direction of Muslims.
Others who have been interviewed for the documentary additionally highlighted particular excerpts from Pakistani textbooks the place Hindus and Hinduism have been vilified.
Hindus villainised in textbooks to justify the choice of partitioning away from India: Pak Educationist
According to well-known Pakistani educationist AH Nayyar, hatred towards Hindus is couched in a refined manner in Pakistani books. He explains when the historical past of Pakistan is taught, the battle between the Muslim league and Congress is portrayed as a struggle between Muslims and Hindus.
In a way, Nayyar says, Hindus are projected as villains in Pakistani textbooks, in a bid to justify the founding of Pakistan and the politics behind it.
He highlights one other key drawback within the Pakistani textbooks. He says whereas the historical past of Muslim rule is prominently offered in these books, there is no such thing as a point out of Hindu historical past. The historical past of the subcontinent, for instance, begins with the arrival of Muslims within the area. There is not any point out of previous Hindu rulers who preceded the Muslim rule within the area.
Hindus and minorities in Pakistan reside below a continuing risk of persecution
This unadulterated hatred towards Pakistani Hindu finally manifests within the crimes carried out towards Hindus in Pakistan. Minorities in Pakistan, particularly Hindus, reside in a perpetual concern of persecution. Hindus are implicated in faux instances of blasphemy. Their daughters are kidnapped, forcibly transformed to Islam and married off to their captors.
Even the courts fail to do justice for Hindus in Pakistan. In reality, in some instances, the courts have actively participated in perpetuating injustice to the Hindu and Christian minorities. In June 2020, a district Justice of the Peace allowed a Muslim man to maintain his Hindu spouse even after the dad and mom of the lady alleged that their daughter was kidnapped and forcibly married off to the person.