Zubair Qureshi
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Thursday withdrew a letter it had issued a day earlier (Wednesday) disapproving the celebration of Hindu festival of Holi at a public sector university of Islamabad.
The HEC’s statement comes in response to the widespread criticism received nationwide after its Executive Director, Dr Shaista Sohail, issued a letter taking exception to the celebration of the festival in the university.
Later in the day, Salman Sufi, the head of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Reforms Unit, clarified that Education Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain had instructed the HEC to retract its controversial letter.
According to the HEC statement, a copy of which is available with Pakistan Observer, the HEC was “highly respectful of all religions, faiths, and beliefs, and the associated festivals and celebrations observed in the country.”
“The message communicated in this regard is in no way intended to hurt the sentiments of any individual or group,” according to the HEC official. The letter clarified that the impression that the HEC had banned any festivity was “out of context.”
The letter portrayed impression and disseminated connotation that HEC has banned celebration of any festivities is out of context to the spirit of the communication made, as HEC has emphasized upon the higher education institutions in the country to focus upon the core reason of their existence i.e., academic excellence, research quality and harnessing the talent of the youth towards a structured, disciplined, and responsible citizen as per the nation’s ideology.
The letter acknowledged that the message conveyed in the communication had been subject to misinterpretation. The HEC said it was withdrawing the notification for the aforementioned reasons.
During Thursday’s session in the National Assembly, too, the education minister informed the Lower House that the HEC had retracted its letter, which imposed a ban on the celebration of Holi. The minister expressed his disapproval, stating, “The HEC should not have written this letter.” He emphasized that the founder of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam, had affirmed the freedom of every individual to practise their religion without hindrance or restriction.
“At 4am, I received a message from the HEC on WhatsApp, confirming the withdrawal of the letter,” he told the House. The minister also conveyed that the HEC had been cautioned against partaking in similar actions in the future. He highlighted the “unfortunate treatment faced by Muslims in India”, stating that it was a well-known fact.”
Furthermore, the minister asserted that in Pakistan, all religions enjoy complete freedom and are safeguarded by the government. Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman also took to Twitter and shared the latest HEC letter, expressing her opinion that the issuance of the directive to mute Holi celebrations should never have occurred in the first instance.
