Daily Times

For a long time, there has been an attempt in Bangladesh to denigrate Islam by raising the smoke of secularism. In a country of 92% Muslims, a class is carrying out various activities while consciously disregarding the culture, history, and traditions of Islam. There is a far-reaching conspiracy to push people towards Islam or secularism by talking about secularism. The terrible thing is that this class is denigrating Islam in the textbooks in a very well-planned manner, as well as ignoring and hiding the glory of Muslims in the subcontinent, their history-tradition, anti-aggression movement-struggle, freedom struggle, and the outstanding role they played in nation-building. It can be understood by reading a few chapters of social science textbooks for classes VI and VII. Recently, the Bangladesh government adopted new curricula for students. These chapters glorify the Hindu kings and their reigns in such a way that the history of the subcontinent is their history. On the other hand, Muslim rulers, sultans, kings, and anti-British Muslim heroes’ movements and sacrifices have been avoided. The Faraji movement, Titumir, and Tipu Sultan’s life-saving struggle against British aggression are omitted. Reading these chapters, it will seem that Hindus have played the most important role in the development and freedom struggle of the subcontinent. Muslim kings only occupied and invaded the subcontinent. It would also appear that the way the present BJP government continues to tarnish the character of centuries of Muslim rule and kings is reflected, directly and indirectly, in the country’s national textbooks. There is no room for doubt that these chapters were added to distort history and create misconception in the minds of young children by hiding or not revealing the real facts. That is, the authors of the book want to build the next generation of Bangladesh with the vision that Narendra Modi wants for India. Worryingly, once such historical distortions and anti-Muslim histories are ingrained or memorized in children, it is extremely difficult to change them because the belief is being inculcated in them that Muslims have no role to play in the subcontinent and Hindus have played the main role. They have to memorize these distorted histories and take the exam. It can be said that various chapters have been added in the textbooks as a ploy to not inform the new and future generations about the glorious history of Muslims in the subcontinent.

For a long time, there has been an attempt in Bangladesh to denigrate Islam by raising the smoke of secularism. In a country of 92% Muslims, a class is carrying out various activities while consciously disregarding the culture, history, and traditions of Islam.

It is well known that the BJP government is on a mission to make India a complete Hindu state. For this reason, they have been oppressing, torturing, and killing Muslims in various ways, starting with enacting laws to evict and expel Muslims from the country. Hatred is being systematically spread against Muslims. Besides, starting from maligning the rule of Muslims in India, the names of important places including historical structures, mosques and mosques of that time are being changed and destroyed. Recently a book titled ‘Tipu Nija Kanasugalu’ was published portraying the heroic Tipu Sultan of Mysore in the Indian state of Karnataka as a ‘fundamentalist and ruthless ruler’. But Tipu Sultan is said to be a symbol of resistance against British colonialism in the South Asian region. Today, Muslims, Sikhs and liberal Hindus celebrate Tipu Sultan’s birthday to commemorate his freedom struggle and rule of law. In the 1980s, a long series of dramas based on his life in India highlighted his extraordinary governance and self-sacrifice. When that serial was dubbed in Bengali and aired on BTV (National tv channel in Bangladesh) at that time, it became very popular. Through that series, people can learn about Tipu Sultan’s bravery, rule of justice and sacrifice for freedom. A book has now been published with the help of the BJP government distorting the history of Tipu Sultan. The Modi government is tarnishing the principles of good governance, rule of law and freedom of religion of Muslim rulers and heroes in India as tyrants and oppressors. India’s radical Hindutva is implementing this policy of the Modi government. The administrative machinery of the country is also helping with this directly and indirectly. As a result, Muslims in India are now living in fear of becoming stateless. Almost every day there are incidents of Muslim torture and persecution somewhere in India. The rule and prosperity of Muslims in India are now being retaliated against by the Modi government. Needless to say, almost a thousand years of Muslim rule in India have become a major obstacle in making India a Hindu state. Due to this, the Modi government is demolishing various institutions rich in the history of Muslims along with portraying the character of Muslim rulers and their governance in a negative light. However, it is not an easy task to erase the history and monuments of the thousand years of Muslim rule throughout India. Because the whole world knows the history of Muslim rule in India. Even among the common Hindus of India, this history is known from generation to generation. As a result, if the Muslim rule is to be erased, the history of India will have to be rewritten, which will be distorted and distorted. No matter how hard Modi tries, there is no chance of changing the inexorable history of Muslim rule in India. Even before Modi, other parties in India have more or less tried this. They were not very successful.

Unfortunately, a class of Modi-thanks in Bangladesh continues to follow him. As part of this, sixth and seventh-class textbooks glorify the achievements of Hindu rulers and landlords in India’s history while ignoring Muslim rule. Through this, some of the authors of the book want to convey the message that Bangladesh should be developed as a country of secular and communal harmony. They are unaware that, despite being in the majority, the Muslims of Bangladesh have been setting a shining example of communal harmony for hundreds of years. Anti-Muslim western countries are also calling Bangladesh a ‘moderate Muslim country’. But the so-called secularists, in other words, atheists, are trying to make Hindus look great by disparaging Islam and its history in textbooks to attack the roots of traditional communal harmony in Bangladesh. They are trying to follow in Modi’s footsteps or see the way he sees Muslims and Muslim rule in India, denigrating Islam and treating Hinduism as secularism. But examples of communal harmony like our country are rare in the world. When we were school students, religion was compulsory in textbooks. When religion classes started, Hindu-Muslim students of the same class would move to separate classes. Muslim students would go to Islamiat and Hindu students to their religious classes. That is, separate classes were taken for Islam and Hinduism. What is an example of communal harmony anywhere else in the world? Sadly, religion has now been made optional. It is not difficult to understand that this is a well-planned process to alienate the next generation from Islam. In the history subject, we have learned about the rule of justice, generosity, struggle, and compassion of the rulers of the Mughal period, their love for Islam, and their encouragement of other religions. Now the Hindutvaists and their supporters are going around maligning the history of Muslim rule. But they don’t take into account that if the Muslim rulers who have been in India for thousands of years wanted, there would not be a single Hindu in India, then it would have been very easy for them to do this. Hindus did not exist in India. They didn’t. It is not difficult to understand that Islam and Muslim rulers were liberal and tolerant of other religions here. Our textbook writers have tried to magnify the Hindu kings and landlords by ignoring the long history of Muslim rule in India. This is not the end, the illustrated information about Charles Darwin’s evolution in the textbook is also the theory of atheism. The basic premise of this theory is that every species of animal changes its body over time and has a common ancestor. While describing the evolution of humans, Darwin showed that the ancestors of humans were monkeys. Humans have evolved from monkeys to their present form over time. No religion recognized his doctrine. In the Holy Qur’an, Almighty Allah has told how He created man in many places. In Surah Qiyamah verses 37, 38 and 39, he said, ‘Wasn’t he a sperm?” “What was thrown into the mother’s womb, then it became clotted blood, then He created the organs, then He created them as human beings, and from them, He created two types of women and men.” If yes, then anyone can easily see this human creation process. Therefore, there is no room to explain that Darwin’s theory of evolution is not correct. This theory is nothing but atheism. If we consider the progenitors and the first people, Hazrat Adam (A.S.) and Bibi Hawa, then can it be said that they were transformed from monkeys (Nauzubillah)? In the Holy Qur’an, Allah tells the story of the creation of Adam (A.) and Eve. In the sixteenth century, the famous British poet John Milton wrote an epic poem called ‘Paradise Lost’ with 10,000 verses about Adam and Eve. The creation of Adam and Eve is also mentioned there. Therefore, only conscious people know that Darwinian evolution is not correct, but is a denial of human creation. It supports atheism itself. It is this theory of atheism that is presented in Bangladesh’s school textbooks. This is a terrible incident. Observers feel that a nefarious conspiracy is being made to nurture Bangladesh’s next generation through atheism with the so-called secularism. Already, the country’s Islamic thinkers, scholars and scholars have expressed strong anger and protest about this. They demanded the cancellation of the syllabus.

Minister of Education, Dr Dipu Moni, said, if there is any disagreement, discomfort, or objection in the textbook, it will be corrected. She said we will constantly take feedback from teachers, students, parents, and educators and refine them accordingly throughout the year. The question is, for those who have been allowed to write these books, why would they add such controversial issues and present a distorted history? Do they not know the sentiments of the majority of Muslims? Why hurt their sentiments in the name of secularism and secularism? By distorting the real history, why should the people of one religion be short while showing the people of another religion? Why should the Ministry of Education give the responsibility for writing textbooks to authors who are controversial or may be controversial? There is no way to deny it, it is not possible to do anything against the sentiments of the majority of Muslims in our country. Those who did, have been thrown into the dustbin of history. Remember, a textbook is not a book of stories. It is a public book. Compulsory syllabus to educate the nation and build it through the traditional values of the country. Here, it is against the country’s history-tradition, ethics, culture and code of conduct, and it cannot be tolerated in any way to highlight the objective opinion and distortion of the history of any group instead of imparting large and common knowledge. The government should immediately scrap the controversial syllabus and formulate a correct and rational syllabus. De-Islamization is a dream of so many counties and communities, but don’t worry, this dream will be crushed and dismantled by the light of Allah.

The writer is a freelance columnist.