Learning the static way

Learning the static way
Published The MEWS on Sunday Dec 2006
Third in the list of educational systems operating in Pakistan are madrassas -- once the original schools for Muslims

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

The education system in Pakistan caters to three different categories of students. One is for the English-speaking elite class comprising cadet colleges and well-known chains of schools and is almost entirely privately run. Then there are government schools in which charges are minimal but facilities and quality of teaching are poor. Third in the list are madrassas where stress is on religious education and schooling is more or less free.

It has been rightly said that Pakistan is producing three distinctpersonalities through its contrasting systems of education. There aren't many similarities among the graduates churned out by the public schools and cadet colleges, government educational institutions, and madrassas. Most of them would tend to have a different worldview after having studied in a particular environment. Those educated in government and religious schools would have more in common than those studying in the elitist educational institutions because they largely belong to the poor and lower middle classes. Though it is understandable to have different level of schools to cater to students belonging to various socio-economic groups, the implications for the future on account of such a non-uniform educational system are obvious.

Madrassas have been part of life in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, as well as in other Islamic countries. Indeed the madrassas were the original form of schooling for Muslims and were gradually replaced by the more secular and conventional schools over a period of time. While madrassas elsewhere in the Islamic world underwent a change in keeping with the trends of a modernising global environment, those in undivided India and in present-day Pakistan remained largely static. Efforts to effect changes in their curriculum and include modern sciences in the madrassa syllabus faltered because the Ulema running them were suspicious of those pushing for a change. Policy-makers and decision-takers were mostly from the secular establishment and, therefore, they were unable to create the right conditions to convince the clergy controlling the madrassa system that their intentions were sincere and well-meaning.

In the existing scenario, madrassas largely cater to two categories of people. Poor parents send their children to madrassas which offer free education, food and shelter because they cannot afford to educate their wards in conventional schools. Then there are the relatively wealthy families wishing to have one or two kids study religion full-time in a bid to seek Allah's blessings. Students receiving religious education part-time form a significant segment of the school-going children. Most Pakistani families make it a point to impart basic Quranic education to their children by sending them to mosques and homes or asking tutors to visit their residences.

Official figures show the number of madrassas, including both small and big, to be over 10,000. Among them are unregistered religious schools because government plans to register seminaries encountered opposition from the clergy. The seminaries mushroomed following the military takeover of the country by General Ziaul Haq primarily due to government backing and funding. Every clergyman worth his salt set up a madrassa and sustained it either with government funds or donations. Pakistanis are believed to be some of the biggest charity-givers in the Islamic world and most of their donations go to mosques and madrassas. In recent years, madrassas for girls have been set up rapidly and nowadays one often sees seminaries for male and female students existing close to each other under the same management.

Data collected by the security agencies in the NWFP sometime back showed that 1,761 madrassas, including 1,034 that were unregistered, with total enrolment of 223,900 were functioning in the province. The students included a large, unspecified number of Afghan refugees and another 64 from other countries. However, this was before the government banned foreigners from receiving madrassa education in Pakistan. The data gathered by the labour and industries department, NWFP, which is supposed to register madrassas, differed with that put together by the intelligence agencies. Its figures showed that the province had 1,823 madrassas, including 1,433 that were registered before registration of new seminaries was banned in 1994. When the ban was subsequently lifted, another 390 madrassas were registered. According to the security agencies' survey, 228,021 students had graduated from madrassas in the NWFP during the past 10 years. The number of madrassas graduates grew every year and it was 32,177 last year. The green and mountainous Swat district, the favourite destination of tourists, had more madrassas and students than other districts in the province.

Madrassa education has undergone little change over the years. With a few exceptions, most seminaries have stuck to the old syllabus and teaching methods. Government efforts to reform the system of education at the madrassas have been slow and ineffective. The Wifaqul Madaris, an independent, Ulema-run body that oversees madrassa education and conducts examinations, has resisted change suggested by outsiders. Maulana Hanif Jullundhari, one of its top functionaries, recently wrote a series of articles to show that madrassa students unlike their counterparts from conventional educational institutions never resorted to strikes and violence and refrained from teaching in examinations. He argued that the madrassas were performing a specific role by imparting quality religious education and should continue to do so in the same manner in which public schools and colleges were providing secular teaching.

Some clergymen are also fond of quoting Allama Iqbal, who while visiting Spain was saddened by the sight of the old Islamic cities and institutions that Muslim conquerors left behind after their defeat at the hands of Christians. The Allama is reported to have said that the madrassas should remain as they are so that children of poor Muslims continue to study there and become Mullas and Dervishes. "Otherwise, Indian Muslims would meet the same fate as the Muslims in Undulas (Spain) where the ruins of Grenada and Qurtaba and the relics of Al-Hamra are the only remaining signs of Islamic culture in a country ruled by Muslims for 800 long years," Allama Iqbal reportedly observed.

It is obvious that the clergymen see the madrassas as repositories of Islamic learning and fortresses of the religion. They believe the worldview the madrassas offer is aimed at defending the faith from onslaught by non-believers. Critics don't agree with this observation as they feel madrassa education doesn't fully equip the students to meet modern challenges. In their view, madrassas retard progress because there is no teaching of modern sciences or languages at the seminaries. There is also the feeling that madrassas promote religious sectarianism as the seminaries cater to particular schools of thought ranging from Deobandi to Barelvi and Ahle Hadith to Ahle Tashee (Shia). The religious divide inculcated in the minds of young and impressionable minds at the madrassas blocks integration and tolerance and causes strife.

There are bound to be problems in the education sector in Pakistan in future if we continue with the divergent educational systems. There would certainly be clash of ideas between those graduating from elitist educational institutions and the government and religious schools. One could only hope that it doesn't lead to violence.

QK Archives: Facts are sacred

Written by Dr Sher Zaman Taizi
Monday, 12 June 2006

There is a proverb in Pushto that "the lie destroys villages until the truth is revealed ". In the atomic era, this proverb also moved and expanded its sphere as "the lie destroys countries until the truth is revealed." Respectable Wali Khan dusted the truth when the lie first divided India, then bifurcated Pakistan, then put fire to Afghanistan and now working on destruction of Kashmir.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is painted as a preceptor of the two-nation theory. But Wali Khan mentions him to have said in a speech in Gurdaspur on January 27, 1884; "We (ie Hindus and Mohammadans) should try to become one heart and soul, and act in unison... Remember that the words Hindus and Mohammadans are only meant for religious distinctions - otherwise all persons whether Hindu or Mohammadan, even the Christians who reside in the country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation. (A nation is Born by Syed Hassan Mahmood; p.339)" (p.123). Addressing the Indian association in Lahore in 1884, he said; "I heartily wished to serve my country and my nation faithfully. In the word nation I include both Hindus and Mohammadans, because that is the only meaning I can attach to it." He does not stop here, but goes to the extent to say; "These are the different grounds upon which I call both those races which inhabit India by one word i.e. Hindu; meaning to say that they are the inhabitants of Hindustan." (p.124)

Since we have entered the age of discretion, we have been listening to rhetoric that Iqbal saw a dream and Pakistan came into being. Now Wali Khan brought out those references that Iqbal himself was not in favour of Pakistan. He had rather committed to say:

Saaray jehaan say achchha Hindustan hamaaraa,
Ham bulbulayn hayn iskee, yeh gulistaan hamaaraa. (p.124)
(Better than the entire world is our India,
We are its nightingales, its our rose-garden.)
Mazhab nahin sikhaataa aapas mayn berr rakhnaa,
Hindi hayn, ham-watan hayn, Hindustan hamaaraa. (p.125)
(Religion does not teach mutual-distrust,
We are Indian, compatriot, India is ours.)
Dana-e-tasbeeh ba zannar kasheedan aamoz,
Gar nigah-e-too do been ast, ne-deedan aamoz. (p.125)
(String the beads of rosary in the scared threat,
If you see the two (apart), better to be blind.

But who is to be told, and who would believe in this truth which has been buried under the heaps of lies. Here the perennial flow of lies for the last half a century has washed and polished the minds to such an extent that they can not accept any other hue.

This is not a lie or two to be discussed and clarified. After the creation of Pakistan, when the time of distribution of spoils arrived, and those on-the-ground and underground Pakistanis came out to fall out among themselves, a continual and endless series of accusation and counter-accusation started. There may not be such a leader or a party in Pakistan which might have not been accused of treason. It looks as if the government is also in the hand of the traitors, the opposition is also traitor and the subject is also traitor. But the common enemy of all these traitors is one and the same - and that is Bacha Khan, and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement.

Whether it is an official traitor, or traitor in opposition, political traitor or religious traitor, they all sing in chorus the same lilt that:

Bacha Khan is ally of Hindus;
Bacha Khan didn't accept Pakistan.


This lilt had been composed and publicised by the British through their well-wishers. So, why their pet Khans, Maliks, Mullahs, Pirs and Qazi should forget it?

Bacha Khan was awakening the Pukhtun nation to get freedom of the British government and shake off these parasite demons from their shoulders. It happened that when the Pukhtun attained the sense of discretion, those Khans and their Mullahs were stunned and worried. The British government found a ready-made stock of people to counter the threat. The government encouraged them, put turbans on their heads, awarded robes of honour to them and gave them awards and titles. They were given authoritative posts to beat and bleed their own people. And those people received Pakistan in heritage from their masters. They received the record of the British government. So the traitor of the state, traitor of the crown, traitor of the people, ally of Hindus, saboteur and subversionist on the record of the British offices remained as such. Because, these people preached awakening, brotherhood and self-determination of the Pukhtuns, which irritated the rulers.

The piles of lies made the history of Pakistan - a new volume of the romances of the Arabian Nights (Alif-Lyla). This is the story of seven dervish, like this; One dervish presented the two-nation theory, the second saw a dream, the third selected a name for it, the fourth presented a resolution, and the fifth created Pakistan; the sixth terrified India with a towering fist and the seventh cut Pakistan into two. During this period the devil of martial law appeared which disqualified all political leaders and banned all political parties. When another demon of martial law entered the scene, Pakistan staggered and split in two parts; one fell there and the other fell here. Then the imp of civil martial law jumped in the arena and threw out the elected members from the assemblies. Then appeared the white-robed dervish with a wand of martial law to Islamise the state and the people. How and in what a circumstances this dervish disappeared is still a mystery. But as the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan has become a mystery, the elimination of Zia-ul-Haq and his colleagues has also become a mystery. And when these mysteries are solved and the facts are known, the time would have elapsed.

In this Pakistan, many experiments have been conducted, such as one-party rule, democratic government, one-unit, basic democracy, roti-kapra-makan, Islamic socialism, Islamic government and so many others. These experiments are made at the cost of people. The ruling junta does not consider people and their welfare. The condition of people is going from bad to worst.

Let me mention one thing here. On March 30, 1940, a resolution was passed in the Minto Park, Lahore. Who presented this resolution, why it was done and how is matured? These questions have answered and discussed by Wali Khan in detail (p.217), which does not need repetition. The point is that the people came to know about that resolution when, as its consequence, Pakistan came into being. The distance between that resolution and Pakistan was seven years and a little less than five months, which was not known to any body within the limits of the existing area of Pakistan. And since the creation of Pakistan, there has never been a consensual interpretation of that resolution.

On the other hand, even before the creation of Pakistan, Pukhtuns had demanded the name of Pukhtunistan only for their identification. In 1948, Bacha Khan repeated that demand in the legislative assembly of Pakistan, as the representative of the Pukhtuns. Hundreds of meetings and demonstrations were held for the purpose, and hundreds of resolutions were passed. And then, how many resolutions were passed even by the provincial assembly for renaming of the province as Pukhtunkhwa? Every week, a resolution or two are passed for introduction of Pukhto as medium of education and official language of the province. But none of these resolutions has ever been given any heed!

There are too many things to be discussed. But every matter is so much complicated, that it could not be discussed separately. The time is fast. Those people who had followed Bacha Khan to sustain such hardship which would raise the hair on mere hearing, have almost left the world. The new generation would hardly believe in stories of their sufferings. These stories would also sound as stories of Alif Lyla. After all, why these people had sustained so much hardship, and what was the result? Because the youths of the new generation educated under the government policy have been indoctrinated that Pakistan has grown from the two-nation theory, it is interpretation of the dream of a poet, and has been made from one resolution.

There is everything in the textbooks of our schools and colleges but nothing of truth. There is no mention in these books of the heroic struggle and unbearable sufferings of the leaders and soldiers of the century-long movement of freedom. The text books of Pakistan do not teach history and geography of Pakistan. These books may introduce Ghalib and Sir Syed from India, Shakespeare from England and many other poets and writers from other countries but they don�t present the image of native poets and writers. The Pakhtun student may know any poet and writer in any corner of the world but has not information about Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba.

It is a charisma that this important aspect of the national history attracted attention of Khan Abdul Wali Khan who took all the trouble with sore eye and swollen heart and entered the horrifying darkness of papers to snatch some rays of truth out of them, and break the talisman built up by the 60-year long exercise of lies. Bacha Khan had stressed more on education along the struggle for freedom.

The title of the book shields its author from many-sided literary, academic and critical sallies. Wali Khan calls it an attempt in defence of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. So it is not a history, but analytical study of the events leading to the creation of Pakistan, and advocacy in the light of this process to defend the political career of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. On this account, it is strongly recommended that the new generation must read and understand it.

Discussion on events with personal approach and the original aim of the work ie defence of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement have resulted in repetition and literary hyperbole because the author himself has been a character of all these stories throughout his life. At some places, comments and footnotes are not relevant, and at some places sources of information are missing. After-all, it is not the work of a research scholar but of a political leader.

Bypassing the technical flaws and defects, the style shows that had Wali Khan not joined the politics he would have been a writer of high standard. But the Pukhtuns need leadership, too. So Wali Khan did not care for his own self and tried to serve the nation on both the fronts. At a very critical and sensitive juncture of history, he provided all-the-best leadership to his people, and then, with his three books, he was the only political writer among the Pukhtuns to rise and become a light-house for the Pukhtun historians.

Bacha Khan au Khudai Khidmatgar (in two volumes);
Khan Abdul Wali Khan;
Wali Bagh (Ashnaghar) Charsadda;
Vol-I; March, 1993; Pp. 566; Rs 200;
Vol-II; July, 1994; Pp. 622; Rs 200.
Vol-III; March 1998; PP: 744; Rs 250.

The writer is a research scholar and Pushto writer and poet, having 33 books of Pushto and English in credit.

Home: Dr. Sher Zaman Taizi, Usmanabad, Pabbi, District Nowshera, NWFP, PAKISTAN