In Pakistani textbooks, which narrate the 65 War with India, Operation Gibraltar is never mentioned..............
a headline in a Pakistani newspaper read, "Kargil: Revenge for '71." This point of view can only be propagated by someone who is unaware of the real facts that led the Bengalis to succeed from the western part of the country, by someone who blames the breakup of Pakistan on India Gandhi and "Hindu influences" in East Pakistan rather than on 24 years of Panjabi-perpetuated internal colonization.......
Denial and erasure are the primary tools of historiography as it is officially practiced in Pakistan.........
In contemporary Pakistani textbooks the historical narrative is based on the Two Nation Theory. The story of the nation begins with the advent of Islam when Mohammed-bin-Qazm arrived in Sindh followed by Mahmud of Ghazni storming through the Khyber Pass, 16 times, bringing the Light of Islam to the infidels who converted en mass to escape the evil domination of the cruel Brahmins. Reviewing a selection of textbooks published since 1972 in Pakistan will verify the assumption that there is little or no discussion of the ancient cultures that have flowered in the land that is now Pakistan, such as Taxila and Mohenjo-Daro, though this lack seems to have been partly addressed in the very recent editions of several history textbooks published for Oxford-Cambridge elite schools. In most textbooks, any mention of Hinduism is inevitably accompanied by derogatory critiques, and none of the greatness of Indic civilization is considered?not even the success of Chandragupta Maurya, who defeated, or at least frightened the invading army of Alexander the Great at the banks of the Beas River where it flows through the land that is now called Pakistan. These events are deemed meaningless since they are not about Muslim heroes. There is an elision in time between the moment Islam first arrived in Sindh and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.....................
accelerating under the Islamized tutelage of General Zia-ul Haq, not only has the history of the subcontinent been discarded, but it has been vilified and mocked and transformed into the evil other, a measure of what Pakistan is not. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's influence on the textbooks was profound?he was furious at India, whom he blamed for the break-up of the country. Though ironically, his mother was a Hindu, a natch-girl (dancer) who had converted to Islam in order to marry his wealthy father, Bhutto vehemently launched an anti-Indian campaign with vituperative anti-Hindu rhetoric. This legacy of his orchestrated hatred is still the basis of Pakistani historical narratives where Gandhi is now usually referred to as a "conniving bania."
Much of the historical discourse and social analysis in Pakistan is based on negative methodologies which seek to justify Pakistan?s failures and shortcomings by pointing out similar problems that also exist in neighboring India. ........................
Within this paradigm, Pakistani scholarship is defined by placing the country?s problems in a less negative light in comparison to India?s problems. This could be called the theory of self justification, but more aptly results in self negation.................
his is not to criticize their nationalist orientation, all nations write nationalist histories, but an observation that historical discourse in Pakistan is dominated by negative images of India and Hinduism....................
there have been several books written about the Bangladesh experience, such as the recent book by Ahmad Saleem, Blood Beaten Track, which does not lay the blame squarely in Indira Gandhi's lap, for conspiring to "Sink the Two Nation theory in the Bay of Bengal"..................
Pakistan Facts - Pakistan's Abuse of History