The Whiteness Within

Gilly (Musammat Ghulam Bibi on her NADRA card), wife of Perry (Pervez) Khushkhush, chairman of Hyrapheiry Financial Advisors, has been in panic mode since watching Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy’s condemnation of the Single National Curriculum on G For Gharidah on News One.

Finally, a cocktail of antidepressants empowers her to FaceTime her go-to friend, Tilly (Tajaan Bibi on her NADRA card), wife of Bobby (Babar) Bhaanday, chairman of B Trucking, who made a fortune proving logistics to the U.S. military fighting in Afghanistan. Tilly heads the internationally funded NGO, White Within, which has developed apps to help people overcome their origins and act much as White as possible

“Tilly, did you see this Ghareedah program and what Dr. Hoodbhoy was saying about it… scary… you know he has a PhD in nuclear physics…. He was saying burqa and hijab are damaging for the brain and girls who use them don’t have any confidence at all.”

“Oh really… Shinto brought me an Akris scarf as gift from New York… you know, I always Google to check the price of what is given to me… yes, few people know this brand here, but these scarves are like about $900… Nine hundred American dollars. Maybe she gave this gift, so I lose my self-confidence.”

“Tilly, I am saying give it away… I have seen your kitchen maid Naseeban covering her head with dupatta… just give it to her…”

“So, Gilly, Dr. Hoodbhoy is saying that this Imran Khan program will force all schools in the country to use the same curriculum…

“Oh mercy… may God save us… you mean that students whose parents are paying few rupees per month as tuition will read the same books as students at Beaconhouse, where we started by paying Rs. 13000 per month in nursery class… and will be paying Rs 19000 per month by 10th class… Imran Khan is always making speeches about insaf (justice). Now tell me is this insaf that few rupees tuition gets you same education as fifteen or twenty thousand tuitions…”

“Yes, my dear Tilly, yes… your gardener’s daughter will be studying the same textbooks as your Tina…

“You know, my father-in-law… Tony’s father never forgot the British rule. He used to say that the British had class and always reminded the locals where they belong. Indeed, he was right. Today, we reap benefits of that system… none of my servants dare to question me.”

“You are right Gilly. This was the upbringing passed by the British to those who subdued their brownness and acted and thought like the magnificent British people. They had class and for class, you need a strict class system. And what best way is there to enforce class system is education. Imran Khan is dismantling this system that we were lucky to be gifted by the kind British people.

“The English people gave us English, and Imran Khan has ordered that other than English, mathematics and science, all subjects should be taught in the national language, like it is in countries like China and Japan. So, does Imran Khan think that we are China or Japan?

“At least the people of Sindh are lucky that they have used the 18th Amendment to refuse using this Imran Khan curriculum, otherwise, there too all the children would have been brainwashed that corruption is bad for the country and all of us should pay taxes. Do you get it? Pay taxes… so from where do I pay these eight servants and three drivers of mine. This is Pakistan and not America or England that we pay taxes!

“You know Imran Khan has always been a ladies’ man and don’t know from where he has brought this Mariam Chughtai, who of all things has a doctorate in education, I hear from Harvard, and he has made her the director of his National Curriculum Council and she is shooting down arguments by Hoodbhoy and people like Nadeem Paracha… the one who writes in Dawn. Paracha has found that Imran Khan’s system never can produce scientists or economists of any merit or practical use.

“Tilly, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I can affirm that Imran Khan is creating, should I say ‘fodder’ for his Namal College… products of his curriculum output will only find asylum there.”

“Gilly, whatever, but the Imran Khan will dismantle our social system. Imagine your Naseeban’s daughter from Mohalla Public School discussing trigonometry with Tina who is in Beaconhouse. Not only that, Paracha or may be someone else says that this Imran Khan system will attract rural folk towards getting an education. So, who till the lands and grow our food and don’t forget, the cotton for our lawn suits?
“Beware Imran Khan says that the Single National Curriculum will amend the cultural vacuum we face. What! Isn’t it the cultural vacuum that is keeping us in our class? In a word, we cannot shed our brown skins, but education must not dismantle the whiteness within.”