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'No Muslim other than Jinnah worked for Pakistan'

West Punjab Education Minister Brigadier (retd) Zulfikar Ahmed Dhillon has challenged the history taught in Pakistan's schools and colleges, arguing that no Muslim shed even a drop of blood in the struggle against the British for the creation of the country.

Brig Dhillon made the statement during his presidential address in Lahore at a recent meeting of an organisation comprising those who participated in the movement for Pakistan.

"We say we fought for the creation of Pakistan, but I say only one person, Quaid-e-Azam (Mohammad Ali Jinnah), worked for it... No Muslim shed a drop of his blood for this," he said.

"We became Muslims just because of our hatred for Hindus," he told his enraged listeners. This is the first observation of its kind at a time when frenzied movements are in progress for making the Shariat the supreme law in Pakistan.

The Urdu daily Jang, which reported the incident, also carried an article the next day on the late Pathan leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan's sacrifices for India's independence along with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Scholars in Pakistan have long been aghast at what is being taught in schools and colleges in the name of history. A few years ago, a book entitled The Murder of History by K K Aziz said, "In Pakistani schools and colleges, what is being taught as history is really national mythology, and the subjects of social studies and Pakistan studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination."

UNI

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