Saturday, March 7, 2009

The amazing anti-India syllabus of Pak madrassas

"India was part of Pakistan before 1947.

In the 1965 war, Pakistan conquered several areas of India and staring at a certain defeat, New Delhi requested the United Nations to arrange for a ceasefire.

During the 1971 war, the Pakistan Army demonstrated great courage and valour and inflicted humiliating blows on the Indian forces on both the Eastern and Western fronts."
This excerpts may puzzle you, but according to some madrasas in Pakistan, it is nothing, but history. Ten year olds in those madrassas are injected with such and more distorted 'facts', says a confidential Intelligence Bureau report.
Besides the impressionable minds are further indoctrinated with a textbook called 44 ways to support Jihad, written by Anwar-al-Awalaki.
The IB report, which is based on textbooks from madrasas and the interrogation of several arrested terror suspects including those involved in the Mumbai terror attacks ,says that the number of such "anti-India madrasas" is on the rise.
The report says that a typical text book for Class 111 starts with chapters on culture before moving on to subjects like the wars with India.
With the context set, and India painted as the enemy, the textbooks swiftly move on the importance of jihad and martyrdom.
The curriculum also lays a bit of emphasis on English. A chapter teaches the letters of the alphabet with examples like: B for bandook, k for knife, R for rocket, T for tank, and S for sword.
Studies on these madrassas also show that these outfits glorify violence. Even the games the kids play involve shooting practice with air guns and war games.
On culture and history, the textbooks, which are not available in the market and are distributed directly in the madrassas mostly run by the Jammat-ud-Dawa, teach how Muslim saints reformed Hindus and helped abolish their superstition and wrong practices.
A chapter on Muhammad Ali Jinnah states that he saved Muslims from being enslaved by the Hindu Congress party, which encouraged slavery.
A select group of children from these madrassas are then inducted into terror outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba ,whose group of children is called the 'White Falcons' ,which begins grooming children for jihad right from when they are 10.
The report says that there are around 6,000 madrasas in Pakistan, most of which, an official said, are rooted in such a culture of hate.
"At least half of the madrassas in Pakistan adopt the Lashkar's curriculum and at present there are around 5,83,000 students studying in such madrassas."
"Though most students are from Pakistan, there are also around 16,000 Afghan children and some 18,000 foreign students," the official said.
The report says that outfits like the LeT are very choosy about the induction into such schools.
"They pick and chose children from very poor families. Till, the education is complete, they are taken care of and the families are given some money each month," the officer said.
The report says that some students realise that they are unfit to take up any vocation after a stint in these schools and by the time they reach Class X decide to join other legitimate madrassas which also teach mathematics, science, medicine and other subjects.

No comments:

Post a Comment