A season of bans in Pakistan

Pakistan has had a history of banning books and social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook. A new wave of banning has started in the country, once again. Recently, the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board banned one hundred school books in a single day for containing content deemed ‘anti-national’ and ‘blasphemous’. PCTB’s managing director, Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir, told Geo TV that they are “currently examining over 10,000 books being taught in private schools”. All of this is taking place under the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Act, 2015, which was passed by the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government. The list of the 100 books that have been banned was tweeted by the journalist, Benazir Shah, on Tuesday. A lot of them were social studies books, some of them were English-learning books, some were Urdu books; there was, apparently, a book where counting concepts were explained to young students by showing them pictures of pigs.
Last week, the Punjab assembly passed the Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam bill, 2020. It gives the Directorate General Public Relations powers to visit and inspect any printing press, publication house, book store and confiscate any book, before or after printing.
On top of banning books, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has blocked an online game, ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’. Dawn’s Ramsha Jahangir reported that as per an order by the PTA, the “impact of PUBG is leading to the issue of ‘moral turpitude’. The term moral turpitude connotes anything done against just, honesty, modesty or good morals. It is deprivation of character and devoid of morality…” PTA also says that PUBG makes people less productive. “Sitting around in one place and playing for long hours is not good for physical health. Staring at the computer screen for long hours can affect eyesight and cause a headache.” Only a week ago, the PTA also banned the live-streaming app, Bigo, and issued a final warning to TikTok for ‘obscene’ and ‘immoral’ content.
In a globalized world, banning online apps or books makes no sense but there is a culture of moral policing in our society. We somehow want to control what others can read or watch or even play. Such bans are another form of censorship. Having banned columns and censored the media, those who are in positions of power now want to ban what our children are being taught at schools. This is a dangerous trend. We have seen some academics being fired from their jobs due to their activism. Critical thinking, it seems, is a threat. One of the books that have been banned had quotes of M.K. Gandhi. So now we don’t want our children to learn or to expose them to history that is different from the State narrative or get acquainted with historical figures who are non-Pakistanis. This is petulant behaviour.
In the 21st century, banning books or apps or games hardly makes any sense. In the age of the internet, one can always read these books online and/or use VPN to access banned apps. What these measures expose is that those with authority want to control our thinking and our actions.
The federal minister for science and technology, Fawad Chaudhry, has been quite vocal on the issue of these recent bans and the new bill that was passed by the Punjab assembly. In a series of tweets, Chaudhry said, “Islam in Pakistan is not threatened by TikTok or by books. What we are threatened by are sectarian divisions and extremism.” Chaudhry is not alone. A lot of people are perturbed by these actions.