My nephew from London was concerned about the prevailing atmosphere in Pakistan. It took me some days to draft this instant reply to him and to convey my thoughts to others. Unfortunately, I had deleted his email inadvertently.
The British Prime Minister was informing an MP, Lady Astor, in the British House of Commons that the moral education of the children was not the duty of the Government alone. A similar reply was given to yours truly by my son’s Principal at School when I was discussing the behaviour of the School boys. He told me that the parents’ think that once they had their children admitted to school their responsibilities were over. The British Prime Minister Mr. David Cameron, learnt a lesson that the fault lies with the country’s education system after four days’ of rioting in England this year. Of course that lesson was bitter one and the remedy was the setting up of a Commission .
When I was a young officer in the Civil Service, the youth, fresh from college, then took great pride of their knowledge of European philosophers and political thinkers for example Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Carlyle, Mills, Locke etc and quoted them profusely. The favourites among them were Karl Marx and Engels. They also took immense pride in calling themselves agnostic. They scarcely knew, consciously or unconsciously, that ‘agnosticism’ fell in the domain of ‘apostasy‘. It was the fashion among the educated classes then to call oneself ‘an agnostic’. Then and now, I think like Mr. Cameron, the fault lies with the education system of Pakistan. I refer to the famous quotation of Lord Macaulay 'let us create a class of people, Indians in their origin and blood but English in their tastes and manners‘.
I also refer to Lord Macaulay's address to the British Parliament 2nd February, 1835
'I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is the beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not we would ever conquer...this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore , I propose that we should replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them to be, a truly dominated nation'.
Before the British came to the Indian Sub Continent, India had its own education system based on the knowledge of the Holy Quran (for Muslims only and for the Hindus, Sikhs and other classes of people, their own religious books ), Arabic and Persian ( being the court language). India had her own philosophers and political thinkers, for eg. Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (Mojaddad al Sani), Syed Ahmad Shaheed, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Allama Iqbal, Syed Ameer Ali, Agha Khan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, whose way of thinking was unlike the Europeans’ .The British ruled India for two hundred years. Those Indians who chose to learn English succeeded in becoming civil servants doctors or were called to the Bar. An Indian Lord Sinha, became a Barrister, judge and a Governor.
On the other hand, the Muslims in India were either resting on the Muslims' glory of the past or refused to learn English calling it an alien language. The efforts of an enlightened Muslim, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, made little impact on their way of thinking. In the present day world, those Indian Muslims who acquire a modern education are quite successful in their lives .
For a child the first school is the mother’s lap. However, most parents in urban Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, are guilty of neglecting the children’ moral education because often they have no time to attend to that. In an TV advertisement for a brand of shampoo, a small girl complains to her mother that the latter had no time for the former.
In the past, most parents in Pakistan were unlettered. However, some educated ones living in cities had knowledge of the children’ activities. They would discuss with the latter their subjects at school, college or university. Each had time for the other. The young learnt from the elders’ discussions. We had no TV or the internet. Now, in Pakistan, the parents and the children have no time for each other. We are rapidly aping the west in everything bad they do eg. shisha smoking, like , in India, every movie has dances aping Michael Jackson. When the young are at home, they are glued to the internet. I am not against modern comforts but ‘there is nothing good or bad. But thinking makes it so‘.
The nation’s backbone, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and has been broken. It has lost its bearings. We are confused. The history of the Indo-Pak Sub Continent is not taught to the Pakistani students any longer. They don’t know their heroes. They don’t know the Muslim heroes like Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Hamza etc. The Pakistan youth do not obey their parents.
Before I write further, I wish to pen down three incidents.
- On the evening of December 16, 1971 , the day the Pakistanis surrendered to India, I went to my French class to the National Institute of Modern Languages Islamabad (now upgraded to a university ) where I met a female friend who insisted on reading to me from a book ‘The thoughts of Mao Zedong’ which she was reading. That day I felt as if my body was being sawed. I tried to dissuade her from reading. Finally I told her that if we continue reading such books, Pakistan would have another shameful defeat. She asked me as to what should she read. Unknown to us, the Head Clerk entered the room and told that she should read the Holy Quran for a change. At that she volunteered to explain to me that she was not taught Islam at home .
- A female colleague joined the Ministry of Commerce when I was working there. I came to know she had passed her adolescence in London. She smoked in the office and drank tea by gallons. Initially, she took no notice of yours truly and thought of me as if I was between a moulvi ( a Muslim cleric) and a mister. Gradually she became disillusioned of her other male colleagues. She became my friend much to the others’ chagrin . She once declared her agnosticism. I asked her which religions she had read and discarded. She had no answer. I told her that I would prefer if she would have read, understood and rejected all religions of the world. However, when I was about to leave for Umra, she begged me to pray for her which indeed I did.
- My wife and I once went to our daughter’s parents day. As we entered the class, her class teacher was telling a child’s parents that she did not know the basics of Islam .
The British Prime Minister was informing an MP, Lady Astor, in the British House of Commons that the moral education of the children was not the duty of the Government alone. A similar reply was given to yours truly by my son’s Principal at School when I was discussing the behaviour of the School boys. He told me that the parents’ think that once they had their children admitted to school their responsibilities were over. The British Prime Minister Mr. David Cameron, learnt a lesson that the fault lies with the country’s education system after four days’ of rioting in England this year. Of course that lesson was bitter one and the remedy was the setting up of a Commission .
When I was a young officer in the Civil Service, the youth, fresh from college, then took great pride of their knowledge of European philosophers and political thinkers for example Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe, Carlyle, Mills, Locke etc and quoted them profusely. The favourites among them were Karl Marx and Engels. They also took immense pride in calling themselves agnostic. They scarcely knew, consciously or unconsciously, that ‘agnosticism’ fell in the domain of ‘apostasy‘. It was the fashion among the educated classes then to call oneself ‘an agnostic’. Then and now, I think like Mr. Cameron, the fault lies with the education system of Pakistan. I refer to the famous quotation of Lord Macaulay 'let us create a class of people, Indians in their origin and blood but English in their tastes and manners‘.
I also refer to Lord Macaulay's address to the British Parliament 2nd February, 1835
'I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is the beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not we would ever conquer...this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore , I propose that we should replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them to be, a truly dominated nation'.
Before the British came to the Indian Sub Continent, India had its own education system based on the knowledge of the Holy Quran (for Muslims only and for the Hindus, Sikhs and other classes of people, their own religious books ), Arabic and Persian ( being the court language). India had her own philosophers and political thinkers, for eg. Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (Mojaddad al Sani), Syed Ahmad Shaheed, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Allama Iqbal, Syed Ameer Ali, Agha Khan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, whose way of thinking was unlike the Europeans’ .The British ruled India for two hundred years. Those Indians who chose to learn English succeeded in becoming civil servants doctors or were called to the Bar. An Indian Lord Sinha, became a Barrister, judge and a Governor.
On the other hand, the Muslims in India were either resting on the Muslims' glory of the past or refused to learn English calling it an alien language. The efforts of an enlightened Muslim, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, made little impact on their way of thinking. In the present day world, those Indian Muslims who acquire a modern education are quite successful in their lives .
For a child the first school is the mother’s lap. However, most parents in urban Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, are guilty of neglecting the children’ moral education because often they have no time to attend to that. In an TV advertisement for a brand of shampoo, a small girl complains to her mother that the latter had no time for the former.
In the past, most parents in Pakistan were unlettered. However, some educated ones living in cities had knowledge of the children’ activities. They would discuss with the latter their subjects at school, college or university. Each had time for the other. The young learnt from the elders’ discussions. We had no TV or the internet. Now, in Pakistan, the parents and the children have no time for each other. We are rapidly aping the west in everything bad they do eg. shisha smoking, like , in India, every movie has dances aping Michael Jackson. When the young are at home, they are glued to the internet. I am not against modern comforts but ‘there is nothing good or bad. But thinking makes it so‘.
The nation’s backbone, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and has been broken. It has lost its bearings. We are confused. The history of the Indo-Pak Sub Continent is not taught to the Pakistani students any longer. They don’t know their heroes. They don’t know the Muslim heroes like Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Hamza etc. The Pakistan youth do not obey their parents.
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