LAHORE: A biography titled Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif — Dastan-i-Hayat, recently approved by the Punjab Archives and Libraries Wing and recommended to libraries and public educational institutes in the province, is being viewed as an overtly sycophantic gesture by the Punjab bureaucracy looking to curry favour with the political party in power.

Back in the 2008 election year, the education department had removed messages and pictures of General Pervez Musharraf and former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi from all school textbooks earlier distributed free of cost all over the province.

A letter issued to public libraries as well as libraries at public schools and colleges on Jan 4 by the Punjab Archives and Libraries Wing of the Services and General Administration Department has approved the book authored by Tariq Ahmad Khan and asked the Punjab Public Libraries director-general and directors of public instruction at colleges and schools to convey the government’s approval to their respective lower formations.

Archives and Libraries Wing Secretary Ahmad Raza Sarwar says the department’s library committee had examined the book and did not find any “objectionable” or “sectarian” material in it. “The book has been recommended to libraries without any instruction to purchase it,” he said, even though a note in the letter adds: “...heads of the institutions to purchase the approved books out of the funds available with them for the said purpose”.

Explaining that Nawaz Sharif is a third-time prime minister and that students should know about him, Mr Sarwar says such books are not generally purchased by all libraries. “The publishers continue running from pillar to post to sell their books in public and educational institutions’ libraries.”

And yet the letter has not been received well in academic circles, many of whom view the move as an effort to get closer to the ruling party and make money, under the government’s umbrella.

“A book aimed at appeasing the rulers is not written for children to read and comprehend,” curriculum expert Amir Riaz says, adding that such efforts confuse students at all levels.

He questions whether successive governments would also follow the trend and try to impress their leaders’ life histories on young students.

A representative of Punjab Teachers Union says such books are not meant to be read but to sell and make money. He says public schools face severe pressure from departments to spend their school budget to purchase such books. “Such books are kept in cupboards,” he adds dismissively.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2017