The other day, one of my students came to me, visibly excited. With unmistakable pride, he shared a story from his neighbourhood.
The Imam of their local mosque, he told me, had refused to accept the stipend recently announced by the Government of Punjab for mosque clerics. His reason, according to my student, was that sanitation workers—dismissively referred to by the derogatory term chuhra—were to receive a higher stipend.
For a moment, I found myself at a loss for words.
Whether the government’s stipend is adequate is a legitimate matter for debate. People may reasonably disagree on that question. What unsettled me was not the amount of money but the assumption that those who keep our streets and communities clean somehow deserve less dignity than those who lead our prayers.
The irony was difficult to ignore.
The custodian of a faith that teaches that cleanliness is half of faith seemed unable to recognise the dignity of those whose labour makes cleanliness possible.
That brief conversation stayed with me long after the class had ended—not because it was extraordinary, but because it reflected something I have been noticing for years.
Life has allowed me to observe Pakistan from different vantage points. At the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, I learnt that institutions ultimately stand or fall not on regulations alone but on the moral choices of the people entrusted with them. My years in the media taught me that words can illuminate truth or legitimise prejudice. Social work showed me how compassion can heal fractured communities, while teaching has convinced me that societies are shaped less by what they proclaim than by what they quietly teach their children.
Yet another journey has shaped my thinking more profoundly than any professional experience.
It has been my own intellectual journey from extremism to tolerance.
Like many others, I once believed that certainty was a virtue and that questioning inherited prejudices was a weakness. Over time, through reading, reflection, meaningful conversations, and encounters with people whose humanity transcended the labels attached to them, I came to realise that faith grows stronger through humility, not hostility; through compassion, not contempt.
Looking back, I now recognise that hatred rarely begins with violence.
It begins with contempt.
It begins when we convince ourselves that one profession is more honourable than another, one sect more deserving than another, one ethnicity more respectable than another, or one human being somehow less worthy of dignity than ourselves.
Viewed individually, these observations may seem unrelated.
Viewed together, they reveal a troubling pattern.
We have become remarkably comfortable with contempt.
Too often, hatred disguises itself as honour, religious devotion, cultural pride, or moral superiority. By the time we recognise it for what it is, it has already found a home in our language, our institutions, and, most worryingly, in the minds of our children.
Pakistan was envisioned as the Land of the Pure. But purity was never meant to signify superiority over others. It was meant to reflect purity of character—justice over prejudice, humility over arrogance, and compassion over contempt.
Somewhere along the way, however, we have confused piety with pride.
Increasingly, we judge people by their occupation, sect, ethnicity, language, or social class before recognising their shared humanity.
That is how hatred quietly takes root. It rarely announces itself with slogans or arrives carrying a flag. Instead, it finds its way into ordinary conversations, casual jokes, careless labels, sermons, classrooms, and countless everyday interactions. Because it spreads so quietly, we seldom notice when it begins to shape our attitudes—and eventually, our national character.
The conversation with my student reminded me that education neither begins nor ends at the school gate. Every sermon, every television programme, every social media post, every family conversation, and every casual remark teaches someone how to see another human being.
The question Is not whether we are teaching.
The question is what we are teaching.
If a child grows up believing that a sanitation worker deserves less respect simply because of the work he performs, then we have failed that child—not merely as educators, but as citizens and as believers
The lessons we teach without realising are often the ones that endure the longest. Every conversation, every sermon, every classroom, every social media post, and every casual remark is shaping someone’s understanding of what it means to be human.
If we teach contempt, we should not be surprised when hatred becomes ordinary. But if we teach dignity, humility, and compassion—in both our words and our conduct—we leave behind a different inheritance.
Perhaps the future of our country will be shaped less by the ideals we proclaim than by the values we quietly pass on each day.
That, perhaps, was the greatest lesson my student unknowingly brought into my classroom that morning.
Muhammad Rabnawaz Awan is an English language teacher, published writer, and advocate of responsible citizenship. His work explores education, civic responsibility, tolerance, and the ethical foundations of public life. Drawing on his intellectual journey from extremism to tolerance, he writes to encourage dialogue, critical reflection, and a more compassionate society.
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