Cognitive Dissonance: Confusing Discourse in Pakistani Studies Textbooks
by Dr. Yvette Claire Rosser, USA
The teleological nature of the civic responsibility to create patriotic citizens finds a malleable tool in the social studies curriculum where myth and fact often merge. Pakistan Studies textbooks are particularly prone to the omissions, embellishments, and elisions that often characterize historical narratives designed for social studies classes. Discourses about Islam and its relationship to the Ideology of Pakistan comprise the majority of Pakistan Studies textbooks that say, "Namaz prevents a Muslim from indulging in immoral and indecent acts." One textbook states that governmental officers should "be honest, impartial and devoted [and] keep in view betterment of common people and [...] not act in a manner which may [....] cause inconvenience to others."
This discourse does not tally with the tales that the students have heard about corruption and the hassles their parents have endured simply to pay a bill or collect a refund. Several students complained that they felt cheated and pessimistic when they read these things. They were angry because they could not rectify their cognitive dissonance about corrupt officials and wealthy landholders and industrialists buying off court cases, with statements from their textbooks such as, "Islam does not approve that certain individuals may be considered above law." A textbook published by the Punjab Textbook Board states, "The Holy Prophet (PBUH) says that a nation which deviates from justice invites its doom and destruction." With such a huge disparity between the ideal and the real, there is a great deal of fatalism apparent among the educated citizens and the school going youths concerning the state of the nation.
Pakistan Studies textbooks are full of inherent contradictions. On one page the text brags about the modern banking system and on another page complains that interest, riba, is unIslamic. There is also a certain amount of self-loathing written into the Pakistan Studies textbooks, the politicians are depicted as inept and corrupt and the industrialists are described as pursuing "personal benefit even at the cost of national interest."
Bouncing between the poles of conspiracy theory and threat from within, the textbooks portray Pakistan as a victim of Western ideological hegemony, threatened by the perpetual Machiavellian intentions of India's military and espionage machine, together with the internal failure of its politicians to effectively govern the country, coupled with the fact that according to the textbooks, the economy is in the hands of a totally corrupt class of elite business interests who have only enriched themselves at the cost of the development of the nation. Ironically, in textbooks intended to create patriotism and pride in the nation, the country is ridiculed and despised. All of these failures of the state and internal and international conspiracies could, according to the rhetoric in the textbooks, be countered by the application of more strictly Islamic practices.
The Indian and the Indonesian Educational Discourse:
Accommodating Diversity?
by Azra Razzack, India
Both India and Indonesia present themselves as concrete examples of a diverse, multicultural, multiethnic plurality. While in India, Hindus are in a majority, in Indonesia it is Islam which is the religion followed by the majority of the population. However, both these states are not Hindu or Islamic States.
Having gained independence from colonial rule and having created a nation state from people belonging to diverse backgrounds – both India and Indonesia needed to formulate policies which would ensure their continuance for the future. The Indian state declared secularism as its answer to respond to the needs of its vast diversity. In Indonesia, it was the concept of Pancasila, which was put into place for taking care of its diversity. In fact, religious and cultural pluralism has been stated as being the essence of both the Indian and Indonesian societies. The concept of ‘unity and diversity’ is an oft-quoted phrase to explain these societies.
It is in the context of this background, that one needs to look at how and to what extent the affirmation of the pluralist character of both these countries informs their educational discourse and the process of schooling. This paper looks at how the educational discourse addresses the issue of plurality in both India and in Indonesia. An analysis of school texts shows the extent to which pluralism has been incorporated in the process of socializing the children into being Indian /Indonesian citizens with Indian /Indonesian identities.
Some of the issues discussed in the analysis of this discourse are:
- how schooling socializes children into Indian / Indonesian identities
- the content of the identity that is put forward through this educational system
- what space the educational discourse gives to ethnic minorities and diversity
- what the core curriculum means in the context of different social groups in the society of both these countries.
The analysis presents an interesting comparison of both these countries. In the context of education, while India with its Hindu majority and secular state represents one pattern that is trying to negotiate with its plurality, Indonesia, with its search for pluralism and challenges posed from its diversity, presents another pattern.
The Role and Significance of Textbooks in South Asia
by Krishna Kumar, India
South Asia is at best a geographical fact, with hardly any major political or economic meaning. For it to acquire such a meaning, it would first have to become a psychological and ethical reality, and this is where education has a role to play. In all the countries located in this region, the present-day system of education, customarily called modern, originated in the context of colonial rule. Independence from colonial domination enabled the system to become ‘national’ in the context of a distinct sovereign state, but the basic character of these systems remained unaltered. One feature of the basic character was the centrality of the prescribed textbook in the pedagogic process. Textbooks had attained a prescriptive status under the colonial regime. The new system of education marked a transition from indigenous traditions of learning, which emphasized orally communicated knowledge and the supremacy of the teacher’s word. As the icon of a ‘higher’, prescribing authority, the textbook diminished the teacher’s freedom to contextualize knowledge in the child’s ethos. Procedures of examination and inspection also made the teacher’s role subservient, which was accentuated by low salary and status. Long after the colonial rule, classroom life continues to be shaped by the content of the textbook, and the examination system continues to treat the text as refined knowledge.
The quality of education in South Asian countries continues to be judged by the standard of textbooks rather than by the status and self-perception of the teacher. These are serious anomalies that the processes of modernization have to live with. For making South Asia a psychological and ethical reality, the national systems of education in the region need to review the role of textbooks, both in terms of their present character and their potential. As my study of the history textbooks used in India and Pakistan (Kumar, 2001) has demonstrated, textbooks are serving a divisive role. They narrate the past in ways that nurture aggressively rival collective memories, thus helping an ethos of distrust and hostility to sustain despite obvious economic and cultural imperatives to give way to a more congenial ethos. The situation in other countries of the region is similar. In Sri Lanka, textbooks have sharpened internally divisive and violent tendencies. The full picture of the role textbooks have played in making South Asia an area of restless identity-battles would emerge if a large-scale project of textbook-analysis were to be undertaken on a collaborative basis. Such a project would also furnish a space where mutual understanding might evolve, using research as a discourse of collective introspection. Such a project would show the way ahead, pointing towards ways in which the potential of a textbook-centered system of education could be realized in the interest of peace. Analytical research might pave the way for a shared endeavor to reform education, aiming at solutions to systemic weaknesses that originated in the common, colonial past of the region.
View Abstracts
