Pakistan ka Matlab Kia??*
The advertise of "Parhny likhny k siwa, Pakistan ka matlab kia" on Geo TV always disturb me. It makes me think, how would the education, they talk about in it, be able to change our generation's attitude and help us to work for the betterment of Pakistan? Because our education system is a total failure. It lacks the vision, reforms, and principles which a nation need to teach their young ones. In fact our syllabus has not been changed for like 40 years. I was shocked to discover some 6 or 7 years back that I studied same syllabus which my mother studied in her metric and on-wards. Would this kind of a syllabus make Pakistan a better place? Is it the meaning of Pakistan? Was it what Quaid, Iqbal, Jauhar, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had in mind when they proposed and worked for Pakistan? A stagnant stale rotten education system which doesn't even help students to walk with the rest of the world? Make them slaves of the advanced nation and in inferiority complex with them? Surely not.
I am no expert of education. I am an ordinary student. I have been thinking about refuting this advert but couldn't find a way until yesterday. A blogpost gave me an idea, actually copy pasting material, so to speak. :D
Here is a part of a long article by Allama Iqbal on Islam as a Moral and Political ideal, which he at the anniversary celebrations of Anjuman Himayat-i-Islam on the Easter, 1909. It was subsequently published in Hindustan Review(Allahabad) in July and December the same year.. There's a passage where he talks about Education especially in Sub-continent [when he wrote it] and in Pakistan.
The ideal of our educated young men is mostly service, and service begets, specially in a country like India, that sense of dependence which undermines the force of human individuality. The poor among us have, of course, no capital; the middle class people cannot undertake joint economic enterprise owing to mutual mistrust; and the rich look upon trade as an occupation beneath their dignity. Truly economic dependence is the prolific mother of all the various forms of vice. Even the vices of the Indian Muhammadan indicate the weakness of life-force in him. Physically too he has undergone dreadful deterioration. If one sees the pale, faded faces of Muhammadan boys in schools and colleges, one will find the painful verification of my statement. Power, energy, force, strength, yes physical strength, is the law of life. A strong man may rob others when he has got nothing in his own pocket; but a feeble person, he must die the death of a mean thing in the world’s awful scene of continual warfare. But how [to] improve this undesirable state of things? Education, we are told, will work the required transformation. I may say at once that I do not put much faith in education as a means of ethical training—I mean education as understood in this country. The ethical training of humanity is really the work of great personalities, who appear time to time during the course of human history. Unfortunately our present social environment is not favorable to the birth and growth of such personalities of ethical magnetism. An attempt to discover the reason of this dearth of personalities among us will necessitate a subtle analysis of all the visible and invisible forces which are now determining the course of our social evolution—an inquiry which I cannot undertake in this paper. But all unbiased persons will easily admit that such personalities are now rare among us. This being the case, education is the only thing to fall back upon. But what sort of education? There is no absolute truth in education, as there is none in philosophy or science. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a maxim of fools. Do we ever find a person rolling in his mind the undulatory theory of light simply because it is a fact of science? Education, like other things, ought to be determined by the needs of the learner. A form of education which has no direct bearing on the particular type of character which you want to develop is absolutely worthless. I grant that the present system of education in India gives us bread and butter. We manufacture a number of graduates and then we have to send titled mendicants to Government to beg appointments for them. Well, if we succeed in securing a few appointments in the higher branches of service, what then? It is the masses who constitute the backbone of the nation; they ought to be better fed, better housed and properly educated. Life is not bread and butter alone; it is something more; it is a healthy character reflecting the national ideal in all its aspects. And for a truly national character, you ought to have a truly national education. Can you expect free Muslim character in a young boy who is brought up in an aided school and in complete ignorance of his social and historical tradition? You administer to him doses of Cromwell’s history; it is idle to expect that he will turn out a truly Muslim character. The knowledge of Cromwell’s history will certainly create in him a great deal of admiration for the Puritan revolutionary; but it cannot create that healthy pride in his soul which is the very lifeblood of a truly national character. Our educated young man knows all about Wellington and Gladstone, Voltaire and Luther. He will tell you that Lord Roberts worked in the South African War like a common soldier at the age of eighty; but how many of us know that Muhammad II conquered Constantinople at the age of twenty-two? How many of us have even the faintest notion of the influence of our Muslim civilization over the civilization of modern Europe? How many of us are familiar with the wonderful historical productions of Ibn Khaldun or the extraordinarily noble character of the great Mir Abdul Qadir of Algeria? A living nation is living because it never forgets its dead. I venture to say that the present system of education in this country is not at all suited to us as a people. It is not true to our genius as a nation, it tends to produce an un-Muslim type of character, it is not determined by our national requirements, it breaks entirely with our past and appears to proceed on the false assumption that the idea of education is the training of human intellect rather than human will. Nor is this superficial system true to the genius of the Hindus. Among them it appears to have produced a number of political idealists, whose false reading of history drives them to the upsetting of all conditions of political order and social peace. We spend an immense amount of money every year on the education of our children. Well, thanks to the King-Emperor, India is a free country; everybody is free to entertain any opinion he likes—I look upon it as a waste. In order to be truly ourselves, we ought to have our own schools, our own colleges, and our own universities, keeping alive our social and historical tradition, making us good and peaceful citizens and creating in us that free but law-abiding spirit which evolves out of itself the noblest types of political virtue. I am quite sensible of the difficulties that lie in our way. All that I can say is that if we cannot get over our difficulties, the world will soon get rid of us.
Read this carefully and I think we as a nation should be ashamed that we have not been able to maintain our education system even when the 'national poet' and 'ideological father of a nation' is screaming his heart out to us to change it. Shame on us!
Read full article here.
*What does the name of Pakistan mean? this slogan became famous during Pakistan Movement and Its only answer is, "La ilaha Illallah" (There's no God except Allah)
I am no expert of education. I am an ordinary student. I have been thinking about refuting this advert but couldn't find a way until yesterday. A blogpost gave me an idea, actually copy pasting material, so to speak. :D
Here is a part of a long article by Allama Iqbal on Islam as a Moral and Political ideal, which he at the anniversary celebrations of Anjuman Himayat-i-Islam on the Easter, 1909. It was subsequently published in Hindustan Review(Allahabad) in July and December the same year.. There's a passage where he talks about Education especially in Sub-continent [when he wrote it] and in Pakistan.
The ideal of our educated young men is mostly service, and service begets, specially in a country like India, that sense of dependence which undermines the force of human individuality. The poor among us have, of course, no capital; the middle class people cannot undertake joint economic enterprise owing to mutual mistrust; and the rich look upon trade as an occupation beneath their dignity. Truly economic dependence is the prolific mother of all the various forms of vice. Even the vices of the Indian Muhammadan indicate the weakness of life-force in him. Physically too he has undergone dreadful deterioration. If one sees the pale, faded faces of Muhammadan boys in schools and colleges, one will find the painful verification of my statement. Power, energy, force, strength, yes physical strength, is the law of life. A strong man may rob others when he has got nothing in his own pocket; but a feeble person, he must die the death of a mean thing in the world’s awful scene of continual warfare. But how [to] improve this undesirable state of things? Education, we are told, will work the required transformation. I may say at once that I do not put much faith in education as a means of ethical training—I mean education as understood in this country. The ethical training of humanity is really the work of great personalities, who appear time to time during the course of human history. Unfortunately our present social environment is not favorable to the birth and growth of such personalities of ethical magnetism. An attempt to discover the reason of this dearth of personalities among us will necessitate a subtle analysis of all the visible and invisible forces which are now determining the course of our social evolution—an inquiry which I cannot undertake in this paper. But all unbiased persons will easily admit that such personalities are now rare among us. This being the case, education is the only thing to fall back upon. But what sort of education? There is no absolute truth in education, as there is none in philosophy or science. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a maxim of fools. Do we ever find a person rolling in his mind the undulatory theory of light simply because it is a fact of science? Education, like other things, ought to be determined by the needs of the learner. A form of education which has no direct bearing on the particular type of character which you want to develop is absolutely worthless. I grant that the present system of education in India gives us bread and butter. We manufacture a number of graduates and then we have to send titled mendicants to Government to beg appointments for them. Well, if we succeed in securing a few appointments in the higher branches of service, what then? It is the masses who constitute the backbone of the nation; they ought to be better fed, better housed and properly educated. Life is not bread and butter alone; it is something more; it is a healthy character reflecting the national ideal in all its aspects. And for a truly national character, you ought to have a truly national education. Can you expect free Muslim character in a young boy who is brought up in an aided school and in complete ignorance of his social and historical tradition? You administer to him doses of Cromwell’s history; it is idle to expect that he will turn out a truly Muslim character. The knowledge of Cromwell’s history will certainly create in him a great deal of admiration for the Puritan revolutionary; but it cannot create that healthy pride in his soul which is the very lifeblood of a truly national character. Our educated young man knows all about Wellington and Gladstone, Voltaire and Luther. He will tell you that Lord Roberts worked in the South African War like a common soldier at the age of eighty; but how many of us know that Muhammad II conquered Constantinople at the age of twenty-two? How many of us have even the faintest notion of the influence of our Muslim civilization over the civilization of modern Europe? How many of us are familiar with the wonderful historical productions of Ibn Khaldun or the extraordinarily noble character of the great Mir Abdul Qadir of Algeria? A living nation is living because it never forgets its dead. I venture to say that the present system of education in this country is not at all suited to us as a people. It is not true to our genius as a nation, it tends to produce an un-Muslim type of character, it is not determined by our national requirements, it breaks entirely with our past and appears to proceed on the false assumption that the idea of education is the training of human intellect rather than human will. Nor is this superficial system true to the genius of the Hindus. Among them it appears to have produced a number of political idealists, whose false reading of history drives them to the upsetting of all conditions of political order and social peace. We spend an immense amount of money every year on the education of our children. Well, thanks to the King-Emperor, India is a free country; everybody is free to entertain any opinion he likes—I look upon it as a waste. In order to be truly ourselves, we ought to have our own schools, our own colleges, and our own universities, keeping alive our social and historical tradition, making us good and peaceful citizens and creating in us that free but law-abiding spirit which evolves out of itself the noblest types of political virtue. I am quite sensible of the difficulties that lie in our way. All that I can say is that if we cannot get over our difficulties, the world will soon get rid of us.
Read this carefully and I think we as a nation should be ashamed that we have not been able to maintain our education system even when the 'national poet' and 'ideological father of a nation' is screaming his heart out to us to change it. Shame on us!
*What does the name of Pakistan mean? this slogan became famous during Pakistan Movement and Its only answer is, "La ilaha Illallah" (There's no God except Allah)
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteNoor, thank you very much for this post.
"Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a maxim of fools."
This leads me to think on logic. Logic, by itself, can be used to gain clarity in any number of endeavors helpful to humanity. It can also be used to construct and maintain evil. By itself, it is, seemingly, neutral.
This is what I think about when I think of education. What is it, now, that a society, or all of humanity, needs? If we don't ask the right questions, our answers will remain unchallenged, and we (humanity) will remain on the treadmill going nowhere (though still likely expecting different results).
I share the question raised in the passage above: How is the education system to ignite healthy pride in one's own soul? If it does not do that, it seems to me that we (any country, and each in its own peculiar way) will veer off toward false idols. I am thinking of the west, in which I find myself, as I write this.
All good wishes,
robert
Thanks Robert for your input. :)
DeleteWhat passion about this topic...
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see you are definitely BOTH a poetic - mystical writer as well as an activist who does stirring Op Ed.
I can see you becoming the creative and inspired education you'd like to see in Pakistan...a kind of female Iqbal-mentored dynamo.
Wow!
Connie
Thank you Connie, for your visit. I need lots of prayers and encouragement.
DeleteSpot on! I wanted to write a post trying to debunk this just another campign in that long series of dubious and treachous role played by such media outlets as geo, dawn and friday times. surely a scholarly monograph is due deconstructing these 'native orientalists' who are never tired to "strangulating the very purpose of creation of Pakistan." They are exploiting our love for knowledge, hoping sacrelize worldly and secular knowledge by divorcing it from any Higher Realities, to which they seem to pay no attention...
ReplyDeleteTheir first attack in academia is to forget and eliminate any link of Iqbal who just didn't happen to be 1940s. This is what they do in Pkst Studies courses in such "modernized" unis as LUMS, FC College, etc. Its jaw dropping. Few statements of Quaid which ensure minority is protected by the law supersede 150 pages of "pro-Islamic" quotes, when to Quaid secular state was a non-sense concept.
A counter-campaign on Facebook and Twitter can be a good starter strongly backed with Quranic reasoning and not of these emotional-blackmailing traitors.
Wow! I would love to read what you have got to write about it. And would like to help as well when needed. Thanks so much for visiting.
Deletewe are trying to rectify these attempts over social media. and we can also launch a syndicated activity over there as well. :)
:) JazakAllah. I should reflect and try writing today, Sunday inshaAllah.
ReplyDeleteExcited about syndicated effort too. After all, the real war is of ideas, & attacks are of plane of conceptions of society, individuals, family and all social science institutions, etc. According to scholars, physical attacks are nothing in comparison to these, not to underestimate value of jihad.
I blog here: www.toorumer.blogspot.com and yearn for critical, ruthless feedback!
to be honest i had not read beyond first 2 paras of yours.
ReplyDeletethis article of Iqbal is EXPLOSIVE! just like we don't know about Amir Abdul Qader of Algeria we don't know about these views of Iqbal - although opiniated and argumentative at few points of secondary importance and need re-visiting.
This goes right into the face of notions prevalent in academia which uses the credentials of Iqbal to justify continuation of a colonial mindset. I believe Iqbal criticized Sir Sayyid's ideals too, on which i too have serious reservations as many scholars do...
I've got to print its copies and share with as many people with saleem intellect as possible.
On facebook, beautiful quote pics can be made and shared.
You are dead right about not knowing Iqbal. Believe me we haven't even taught an ounce of his thought/philosophy.
DeleteThere may be few flaws within their writings but they could be taken as human errors. We cannot waste these huge personalities away just because we don't agree with them on some points.
Thank you again, for your input and honest views. :)
Absolutely. We ought to only add and perhaps amend (if needed at all). Thanks for appreicating :)
ReplyDeleteExactly!
Delete