Lahore: Hate content in textbooks used in Pakistan`s Punjab province has increased manifold since 2009, a report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) has said.
The study examined 22 textbooks for the academic year 2012-13 in the Punjab and Sindh from classes 1 to 10, reports The Express Tribune.
The report stated that one of the 30 chapters in the general knowledge textbooks for class 1 has content advocating intolerance. It says there has been a ``marked increase`` in hate content in the curricula of classes 7 to 10.
As many as seven lessons with hate content are part of the 8th class Urdu curriculum for 2012-2013, compared to none in 2009, it said. It also says said that the number of such lessons in the Pakistan studies textbooks for classes 9 and 10 had increased to three in 2012 from none in 2009.
Dr Mehdi Hasan, the dean of the School of Media and Communication at the Beaconhouse National University, said Muslims posed a greater danger to their fellow Muslims then to non-Muslims in Pakistan.
"Teaching students that a certain religion teaches `bad things` is not just a violation of human rights but also a severe ethical violation," he said, adding that a religious state was not a democratic state. He said that Pakistan had been established through a democratic process.
Wajahat Masood, an assistant professor at BNU said hate content and distortion of history was evident in curricula as well as in Pakistani literature. Masood said that sectarian and religious discrimination should be recognised as ``vulgar`` and discouraged.
ANI
