THE Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) of Pakistan has directed all universities in the country to refrain from celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi on university campuses. The letter giving directions to all universities states’ “The higher education institutions may prudently distance themselves from all such activities obviously incompatible with the country’s identity and societal values, while ensuring that they rigorously engage their students and faculty in academic pursuits, intellectual debates and cognitive learning besides identifying, creating and fostering avenues for extra-curricular activities and rational discourse.”
This was in response to the celebration of Holi by the students of the Quaid-i-Azam University student’s celebration of Holi on 13th June 2023. The festival was organized by the Mehran Students Council (MSC) while five other students’ councils, including Punjab Students Council, Pashtoon Students Council, Siraiki Students Council, Baloch Students Council and Gilgit Student Council, participated in the festival that was organized by the parking area located between International Relations and Anthropology departments.
In the letter written by Dr Shaista Sohail, the executive director of the HEC, she said that: “Unfortunately, it is sad to witness activities that portray a complete disconnect from our sociocultural values and an erosion of the country’s Islamic identity. One such instance that has caused concern was the fervor exhibited in making the Hindu festival of Holi.” “This widely reported/publicized event from the platform of a university has caused concern and has disadvantageously affected the country’s image,” the letter added.
As far as memory goes it appears that Islam and the ideology of Pakistan or Pakistaniat have been under threat since the dawn of independence. The champions of Islam are always ready to defend our ideological boundaries by invoking the religious sentiments of our citizens and an appeal is made to religion, nationalism and traditions to safeguard our regional and cultural values.
Extreme forms of such appeals have also resulted in lynching or burning people alive as it happened recently in the factory in Sialkot when a non-Muslim factory manager was brutally killed on the charge of blasphemy. In all such cases people have been accused of being unpatriotic, un-Islamic and acting against our traditional values and the result has always been violence bloodshed and the death of some innocent person.
In a country replete with numerous examples of religious sentiments being used and abused resulting in killing we have yet another example of a letter written by an executive director of the HEC and of course the letter was subsequently withdrawn but the damage was done. In this latest case of invoking religious sentiments the learned executive director very blatantly invoked religious and nationalistic sentiments and she accused those celebrating Holi to be unaware of “self-serving vested interests who use them for their own ends.” By this letter Dr. Sohail has made it into some terrible event and something that is a great danger to our religion and our independence and we face a terrible threat from some students who are totally unaware that they are being used by enemies of the state to harm and damage Pakistan and Islam.
Somebody should explain and give a rational answer to the question that the great religion of Islam with a history of over 1400 years and religion with over one billion believers all over the world could pose a threat by the throwing of colors or dance and music on a university campus? How could a modern state of 240 million people be in danger and lose our cultural values by song and dance of some students? How strange that such nonsense is believed by many and even responsible leaders in the govt. Islam becomes threatened when the sad and ugly facts of 1971 are exposed or when the exploitation of the people of Baluchistan is discussed in a seminar.
The single national curriculum was launched with great fanfare and it was overloaded with Islamist and Pakistan studies but leaders of minority communities were not invited to take part in any discussions regarding the text books to be used or the hate material against non-Muslim communities of Pakistan. The focus has always been on religious indoctrination and critical thinking and discard of rote learning has never been the priority.
Ironically Islam and our traditions are threatened if boys and girls interact or talk to each other. We have had cases of orders issued by university authorities that male and female students should not communicate and keep a safe distance of some feet from each other during their time on campus. Colleges have placed restrictions on the dress of female students and dresses like Jeans are supposed to be the instruments of grave threat to our religion culture and traditions.
In any academic environment it is just not possible to generate intellectual debates without the freedom to question and to engage and the challenge and this is not going to happen unless people take a different and opposing view. People might think that Holi has got nothing to do with intellectual debate or the dress code or interaction between males and females but it definitely does. It is the mindset that matters for the importance of debate critical thinking and questioning.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
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