Curriculum and History Reflections on the Pakistan Studies Text Books Taught in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Though history as a discipline and historical instances are used for different agendas since centuries, it provided new grounds to ‘nation building’ after the emergence of Nation State in the previous colonies during the 20th century. The academicians and writers started writing and interpreting history to serve ‘national interests’ and promote ‘national sense’. Each State tried to sort out common features in the different ethnic and social groups living in that political boundary. The creation of Pakistan in August 1947 was a sort of unique experience when Islam was used as a common factor to unite heterogeneous ethnic entities. The ideological fathers, with the colonial legacy of identity crisis tried to promote common features for the Pakistani Nation. For this purpose, the new state managers formed different commissions which provided guidelines for textbooks writing. The successive governments followed the policy which developed ‘historical content’ in all textbooks for ‘constructing image’ of different individuals, institutions and creeds. This ‘insertion’ in textbooks might have some positive impact in promoting ‘Pakistani nation’ but the process culminated in alienation of multiple ethnicities on one hand and use of historical accounts as a propaganda tool on the other hand. The present paper is an attempt to scrutinize the historical content in the textbooks of Pakistan Studies taught at secondary level in public schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The scrutiny would be dealing with two aspects: a) authenticity of the material; b) presentation. The paper would cover textbooks for grade 9 and 10, published by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa textbook board.