Well that’s what Pakistani text books teach.
Pak textbooks deride Hindus as astute, sly, or manipulative
Lahore, Apr 25 (ANI): The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a Catholic Church body in Pakistan, has said that the country’s media describe India as a ‘hostile neighbour’, and school textbooks teach the students that Hindus were backward and superstitious who assert their power over the weak, especially the Muslims.
“Government-issued textbooks teach students that Hindus are backward and superstitious, and given a chance, they would assert their power over the weak, especially, Muslims, depriving them of education by pouring molten lead in their ears. Pakistan Studies textbooks are an active site to represent India as a hostile neighbour,” the report stated.
It added: “The story of Pakistan’s past is intentionally written to be distinct from, and often in direct contrast with, interpretations of history found in India. From the government-issued textbooks, students are taught that Hindus are backward and superstitious.”
The report further said that students were being taught that Islam brought peace, equality, and justice to the subcontinent, “to check the sinister ways of Hindus”. “In Pakistani textbooks, Hindus rarely appears in a sentence without adjective such as politically astute, sly, or manipulative,” the Daily Times quoted the NCJP report as saying.
The NCJP has come out with the report following an appeal from several minority communities that the media and educational boards were biased against them and that the federal government should take note of this seriously.
Quoting a news article, the report said: “Textbooks reflect intentional obfuscation. Today’s students, citizens of Pakistan and its future leaders are the victims of these partial truths”.
They cited numerous several other media reports and content in textbooks in this regard, which suggested that the country’s socio-political system was against the minorities’ interests and addressed them by derogatory terms.
The NCJP monitored four major national Urdu dailies from August to October 2005 and found extremely provocative news reports, statements and editorials against religious minorities including Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis and even Jews.
The Commission said that a common hate speech method is the use of derogatory terms for minorities. Citing examples, it said that Ahmedis are called ‘Qadiani’ or ‘Mirzai’ while Christians are called ‘Isai’. Until some years ago, these terms were not even considered derogatory, it added.
According to the paper, MP Bhandara, a parliamentarian belonging to a minority community, wrote a letter of protest to an editor of a national daily last year but it had no effect on the newspaper’s policy.
