- What they want are jobs and affordable food
With opinion polls showing a continuous fall in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s popularity, he has decided to make increasing use of religion for political gains. While it might not save his political fortunes, it would strengthen divisive tendencies in society and lead the nation astray from the pluralism and inclusiveness advocated by Founding Father Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Islam is not under threat in the country. Pakistan remains a Muslim-majority state as it was when it came into existence in 1947. The mosques and seminaries have increased. The Objectives Resolution remains a justifiable part of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Under the circumstances, it is incomprehensible why at this juncture the Punjab Assembly has considered it necessary to pass the Tahafuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam bill. What this would do is to raise the alarm that Islam is currently under threat, providing grist to the mills of conspiracy theorists and strengthen the extremist elements.
Under the rubric of introducing a uniform education system, school children are being overloaded with a huge volume of religious material. Thousands of hafizes and qaris would be employed inside normal schools. With Punjab government displaying more zeal than other provincial administrations, it has decided to introduce a new compulsory course based on Urdu translation of the Holy Quran for all graduate and postgraduate programmes. The PTI’s narrow-minded religiosity leaves former dictator Ziaul Haq far behind and is meant to rally the remnants of his erstwhile admirers around Mr Khan. In the 13th century the books of Muslim philosopher Ibne Rushd, who stood for freedom of thought, were taught in Muslim Spain but were condemned by the Catholic Church as subversive and profane.
On Thursday the PTI’s Punjab government banned 100 books, some of them taught in schools and which were published by Oxford and Cambridge for containing “profane, blasphemous and anti-Pakistan content”. This is how a person with an extremist mindset looks at views different from his own. What is needed in schools is to promote a questioning mindset rather than impart learning by rote and reproducing it in the exams. The PTI’s education policy will create a new generation of extremists at odds with the world at large.
