June 02, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1429

KARACHI, June 1: Sindh Minister for Education Pir Mazharul Haq has said that the government intends to review the curriculum because “doctored and manipulated versions” are being taught to students and this has been done for long and as a result the young generation is absolutely oblivious of historical facts. He was of the view that similar distortion had been done in many other subjects besides History.

He said that the government would approach senior historians, literary figures and academicians to get the curriculum reviewed.

The minister was speaking at the launching of “Taqseem Khan Taqseem Taeen”, a book in Sindhi language on Partition and the post-partition period up to the East Pakistan debacle authored by senior journalist Shaikh Aziz, at the Karachi Press Club on Sunday.

Pir Mazhar said that there were fallacies in the curriculum incorporated by the non-representative governments of the past and he believed that a review was necessary to set the record straight for the new generation.

Regretting that reading habits were declining, he said he had issued directives for the establishment of libraries in educational institutions, adding that additional funds would provided to the institutions for the purpose.

Commenting on Shaikh Aziz’s book, Pir Mazhar said though the writer had narrated many events, he seemed to have left out many a details probably in order to curtailing the size of the book.

“Shaikh Aziz had been subjected to victimization time and again by the agencies and once, he was even kidnapped but he never bowed down to such forces and continued to tell only the truth,” the minister observed, adding that journalists and writers should follow the same policy.

A leading literary figure and writer Amar Jaleel said that the book was an analytical history of the country. He said the truth can be bitter but it had to be accepted. He said that political history of the country had rarely been written truthfully.

Shaikh Aziz said the book was the part-I of the series and two more parts — “From Bhutto to Zia” and “From dictatorship to democracy” would follow. He observed that rulers always hired people to write down history of their liking. “In such books, one rarely finds mention of the atrocities that the Mughals had meted out to the people of Thatta,” he said. He said the historians had not recorded certain events for a variety of reasons in their books but writers, particularly historians, should publish these events as and where it was possible.

Siraj Memon, Saleem Memon, Imtiaz Faran and Fazil Jameeli were among the others who spoke at the ceremony, conducted by Jan Khaskheli.

Shaikh Aziz, whose journalistic career in Sindhi, Urdu and English journalisms spans over four decades, has written 14 books. Some of the books are: Amalee Sahafat (Sindhi), Moon Lenin Jo Deh Ditho (a travelogue in Sindhi), Sindhi Music (English) and The Tribute (a collection of obituaries).