BAKHYA-I-CHAAK-I-GRIBAN
Today is a theme day, as you can see. My audio, the Urdu text and this, the English section are on the same track. The manner in which the elites and commons of Pakistan interact to weave the web of Pakistani society. The Urdu title was about the different attitudes and behavior that the two segments of society exhibit. The title in English, is the last part of the couplet, it means: “stitch of the torn shirt front”. I will try and illustrate how this process mends the breach in our society with the help of scenario in our education structure. But first, I must identify the kinds of elites that I believe are accepted as opinion leaders by the varieties of commons. Now there is a challenge if ever I set myself one.
It seems that neither the scheme of elites for the Pakistani society, nor the range of demographics that constitute the commons is easy. But I think you would have guessed that from my earlier post on “No one is a Common Pakistani”. Anyhow, here we go with the elite. Of course the cream of the elites are the “ultramodern”; the ultra-traditionalists should I suppose come next, but here is the first snag, there are the religious ultra-orthodox [also to be subdivided according to each sect of Islam and Christianity, although the latter is a minority], and the ultra-ethnic, to be subdivided for each ethnicity. When there is a race for supremacy in the leadership of an ethnicity, as in the case of the Seraiki, the ultra of that ethnicity becomes a plural, the Riasati-Bahawalpuri, the Multani and the D.I. Khan variety. A similar variety can be added for each zat, biradri, qabila, etc. and in education as shall see.
On the side of the commons, because they are banded together as communities in occupation, a spin-off from the “zat” tradition, there are as many varieties of the commons as occupations, to begin with. Then, the lifestyle segregation and a degree of “immobility” of labour, especially in the pastoral tribes who “stick to the heard”, makes a distinct grouping of the commons in the context of governance on the national level. I mentioned the “divisive-integrators” of Pakistan in an earlier post; well it is at its height in the commons. They will be a community as a biradri till a religious issue arises; and if an economic crisis comes along, both, biradri and sect will be sidelined to bring cohesion to the aid of occupational community’s crisis.
I will not belabor the point, but I hope I have conveyed the complexity of the issue. Now, to turn to the implications for education. It seems conceivable the a person [or set of parents] may decide that they want a specific blend of the varieties of modernity and the tiers of tradition for their child. And it seems like that to me because, living in Harley Street [Chaklala Cantonment, not London], during my walk, I began to be fascinated by the number and variety of schools in the neighborhood.
Out of curiosity, one day I took the entire round and counted. Harley Street had been developed as a residential locality in the hope that the great doctors of CMH Rawalpindi would inhabit it and create an environment like the Harley Street of London. This was one of the early elitist dreams of modernity which failed to materialize. But the area was, for a time the abode of civil and military bureaucratic elite. Gradually it lost its eminence until it became a school district of sorts. There were 27 groups of schools that I counted, some with a single branch, others with several. They ranged from what you might call fundamentalist to those which were now about five or ten levels below the cream of the cream but had been at the top of the range a decade or two ago; and here lies the secret of the mend in the fabric.
Sorry for the flashback, but please follow me to the days of my childhood so that I may explain. Back then, convent and mission schools, the English medium class, was considered the top of the Pakistani spectrum. After eight years of schooling came the next bifurcation, those who did the Cambridge exams and those who took the matriculation. Below them were the government English medium schools and so on till you came to the village schools. Not an impressive range and not a remarkable pattern, except for the linguistic differentiation with the foreign language getting the top billing and the Christian schools getting priority over secular ones. The Islamist schools are outcasts and terrifying realities for the modernists.
For a little more than a generation [thirty years or so] this skewed structure remained steady, with no further mutation. And then came private schools. It was time for several expats to see the need for returning to the roost. Children growing up in a foreign land were losing values of their parent communities. Interestingly, this was not much different from what these expats had done themselves when they rebelled against traditional parents to go abroad. Anyhow, now the need was to provide their children with foreign facilities, a level of education and environment that was compatible with what they had left behind in the “foreign land” but to bring them back to a place where they would treat parents as “expected in their community”.
So the new, private schools began to emerge and fulfil the need of the “Overseas Pakistanis” as they were called. Beacon House, Frobel’s, Grammar School, and so on, these are some of the names that come to mind. Five or seven years later, there was a new wave of ‘expats’ who were making their way back; and they wanted the “latest from the west” because the west had moved on. So the first lot of private schools became ‘traditional’ for those who founded them and those who studied in them; but were devalued for those who brought the new light. So, they are relegated to a zone of transition for the “upwardly mobile”.
In the last thirty-five years the cycle has gone round several times. The ‘devalued’ schools now cater to a mid-level of upwardly mobile people from the marginally Anglicized. Old mission schools are now only good-enough for those who want a Christian or English education but do not have the means or the willingness to expose their children to modernity as it stands today. This scheme of “hand me downs” of schooling and education makes a bond between people of different communities and links the “tiers of the elites” of modernity through English and strata of the “upwardly mobile” through the options in syllabi offered by the schools. Thus the great variety of schools in the market to cater to all tastes.
Somewhere in the middle echelons of this spectrum of schools as it transits to more and more content in Urdu, religious content, particularly in the Islamist circles, begins to become more prominent and receives greater emphasis. Here we come to an “X” like cross road where the lower branches take the English and Urdu content down with less modernity though not more religiosity or tradition. From the middle of the decline in English and modernity, a second leg arises to complete the “X”. This is the leg of a higher religious content with a slight elevation in the standard of English and modern technology, it is palpable. They are angling towards a range of knowledge and skills compatible with, but not equal to the moderns.
This fourfold linkage between English, Urdu, religion and tradition thus provides a fascinating variety of schools and education that bind the urban mosaic in a fabric, structured like appliqué.