Last week, I compared the 2013 elections with the 1970 elections, in terms of expected turnout and significance, and the comparison had held fast. The turnout on May 11 was over 60 per cent, nearly the same as in 1970, and the eagerness, excitement and hope people voted with exemplified the importance of this election for them.

However, while in 1970, people voted for “change” both in East and West Pakistan, this time round, people did not do so, and this is a very interesting development. Almost every Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) worker I met over the last few weeks was adamant that they will win over 100 seats, and the leaders, too, were equally sure that their mass mobilisation efforts will bear fruit. But this was not to be. Instead, the cold analysis of veteran commentators that the PTI will only win 30-odd seats has come true. Why? While the exact analysis of voter turnout, perception and trends will take weeks to come out, some preliminary comments can certainly be made. First, whereas people in Pakistan were indeed tired of the previous government on various counts, the exasperation was not so much as to bring about a revolutionary change. Pakistan might have been ill-governed, but some policies of the outgoing government did help certain classes of people, and the Benazir Income Support Programme will remain one of the hallmarks of the outgoing government. Secondly, Pakistanis were frustrated, but also cynical. Without clear policies (the PTI had good ideas, but no clear policies on how to achieve those ideas), their appeal to the electorate was always limited. I met several people at the polls who changed their mind at the last minute because even though they “liked” the ideas of the PTI, they did not know “how” the PTI was going achieve those lofty goals. Thirdly, the PTI failed to realise that there are youth beyond the urban middle classes. As one friend of mine stated: “Pakistan is not one big upper middle-class drawing room. If it (the PTI) chooses to learn from this, then I assure you that change is inevitable.”

This comment reminds me of a comment someone made about the Left, which I often quote: “That you need to afford it to be Left.” This self-explanatory comment also explains the appeal of the PTI, which was comfortable for the middle classes to accept and follow, but for people who are planning their day-to-day survival, grand hopes of change only go so far. Fourthly, it shows that despite the whole PTI campaign, and large parts of the PPP campaign, against Nawaz Sharif, the Nawaz wing of the PML still remains a very popular party. Just this fact should make us stop and think.

There are lots of reasons why the PML-N won, and I hope some academic analysis of the polls further delves into them soon, but let me highlight a couple of them. First and foremost, Nawaz Sharif is pragmatic. This is, in my opinion, his greatest strength and weakness. Strength because he can assess the situation and take decisions accordingly, and weakness because people are not always sure what he is really thinking. Take the example of the Taliban: I am sure that Nawaz is not going to let them grow and take over, but am unsure about how he would deal with them. Secondly, Nawaz is going to be good for the business community. Being a businessman himself, he clearly knows, in the words of Bill Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid!” So, if he focuses on the economy with a good team of party specialists as well as, and this is important, independent technocrats, things might turn around. His statement on good relations with India, especially with regard to trade, are certainly good omens. And thirdly, Nawaz is centre-right. While I might not prescribe to this title, the reality in the country is that a large majority of the country is conservative and cannot be ignored. The recent British Council poll of young Pakistanis also showed that a large majority of the country is deeply conservative, and so this factor cannot be dismissed. It might be counter-intuitive, but I think that we really need to give expression to this conservative majority if Pakistan is to move forward. This conservatism tempered by pragmatism and with a focus on the economy is the panacea Pakistan needs. Congratulations and good luck Nawaz Sharif, you will need it!

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.

By this time next week, Pakistan will, God willing, have had its general elections and the political machinations to form the next federal and provincial governments would have begun (or even ended). In some ways, this general election resembles the first general election of the country in 1970. Then, too, there was a sense of change, both in East and West Pakistan, and the hope that the tide will turn for the better. However, the end was disillusionment, in both wings. While East Pakistan seceded after a bloody civil war and the founder of Bangladesh was killed by an army general within a few years, the remaining “Pakistan” also soon succumbed to another military dictatorship, following the chequered government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto marred by ill-conceived nationalisations and the Baloch revolt, among other things. Soon, Pakistan also emerged as the mujahideen headquarters of the world, where drugs were omnipresent (and rather cheap), the economy was on the decline and the social fabric was tearing apart. So much for the hope of 1970!

The above is not to bring gloom to the people of Pakistan but to warn them that their vote is a serious issue. Whoever they vote in, or help form the government by not voting, will be able to shape the destiny of the country (though obviously not as dramatically as some have been promising!). There is simply no escape from the responsibility of voting! Therefore, in a way, voting on May 11 is a sacred trust, which must not be breached. Hence, it is the responsibility of every voter to seriously think about who to vote for and not just abide by rhetoric and empty promises. Over the past few weeks, I, together with a number of colleagues, have been holding sessions at the College focusing on the analysis of party manifestos — the only clear commitments made by the parties — and it was interesting to note that a large number of students had decided their vote without even knowing that their chosen party had even declared a manifesto! Granted, most parties do not care much about this piece of paper, but they will certainly care if we, the voters, begin to take notice of this document, which at least shows the thinking of the party. An informed voter — no matter for which party — is a good voter.

We are living in very turbulent and confusing times where the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are on a rampage against a democratic Pakistan, where the economy is fast sinking, where the person making the most sense recently is the army chief, and where the common man, increasingly, has no clue about what is happening. In this scenario, after a while, I think, people like me have little to say or to add. Therefore, I shall leave you today with an excerpt from a poem written by the first non-European and the first South Asian Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Today, we celebrate the centenary of the Nobel Prize being conferred on Tagore, a great poet, writer, dramatist, painter — indeed, a polymath — whose renderings we shamelessly banned in East Pakistan. Tagore wrote this for his homeland, India, in about 1900, and I hope and pray the same for Pakistan today:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high/ Where knowledge is free/ Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls/ Where words come out from the depth of truth/ Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection/ Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit/ Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action — into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Amen!

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2013.

With the elections just round the corner, every place is abuzz with election slogans and promises. In all of this, I, in my limited capacity, want to call for a “Thinking Pakistan”.

I have been teaching in Pakistan for just about a year and a half and during this time, have had an opportunity to interact with a wide variety of students. The few hundred students I have taught have come from every province and territory of Pakistan, almost every social and economic background and, at least, half of them hail from rural backgrounds. What has been patently clear from this cross section of students is that our educational system is geared towards the discouragement of abstract thinking. Our students are taught not to question the teacher or the textbook and to just regurgitate material — no processing and thinking is involved. So, the students are very shocked when I say that they are not supposed to write my opinion and have to come up with their own ideas supported by evidence. They also get confused when I simply say, “I don’t know” in answer to a question, since a teacher in Pakistan is always supposed to know everything, no matter if they are even making it up. Similarly, when asked why students would want to study history, I still get, “I want to learn objective and unbiased history”, and often I get very quizzical looks when I have to burst their bubble and tell them that there is no such thing as “unbiased” and “objective” history. All these fallacies exist in Pakistan because “thinking” is never nurtured. One of the most important distinguishing aspects of the early Homo sapiens was their ability of abstract thinking; unfortunately, this is the very ability we are trying to retard in Pakistan.

As mentioned in my article last week, my paper was the only slightly philosophical paper I came across at the Judicial Conference. This, coupled with the fact that there were very few academics present at the conference, again reinforces the point that even in law, there is no real promotion of “thinking.” Law as a discipline or as a practice cannot flourish unless there are legal philosophers who can develop theory, think of new ways of interpretation, argue for different aspects of fundamental rights, etc. In a recent conversation with an eminent lawyer about the judicial history of Pakistan, it became even clearer that except for the first couple of decades, most judges have increasingly become unable to theorise, and hence, major judgments at times have not even been coherent.

Pakistan has an inherent dearth of thinkers. At Partition, a large number of Muslim thinkers remained in India, such as Abul Kalam Azad and Zakir Hussain, while in Pakistan, the coterie of thinkers was limited to Maulana Maududi and a very few others. Hence, while Iqbal is eulogised in Pakistan greatly, philosophy departments in the country are mostly collecting dust and not producing scholars. The very few scholars who do come up, like Eqbal Ahmad and Fazul Rahman, are quickly hounded so that they relocate out of Pakistan. This lack of thinking is also related to the fact that freedom of conscience is not guaranteed as a right in the Constitution of Pakistan. Thinking freely and following your conscience in all matters are important, related matters.

It has been pointed out by several people that while rulers in the Indian subcontinent were busy making tombs, rulers in the West were establishing universities. Most of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are in people’s memories, and even though their tombs are rather simple, their colleges today are well endowed. The difference is so much that today, we cannot even claim the ruins of a medieval madrassa or academy in Pakistan — there were simply very few of those in South Asian history and their dearth is making its mark even now.

In this election, almost all major political parties have vowed to raise education spending to at least five per cent of GDP. Cautiously, I am taking this as an optimistic sign (even though none of the parties has articulated actually how this will be achieved), but in this era of hopes and promises, let me implore the parties to please make “thinking” a central element of their education strategies. Tombs are nice but they house mortal remains; we should focus more on immortal words and ideas.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2013.

Over the last weekend I had an opportunity to speak at the International Judicial Conference organised by the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan and hosted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. I was a bit apprehensive about speaking at such a conference as being a historian, I thought I would be a misfit, and even the people at the entrance were rather confused at a historian turning up! But very soon, I realised the importance of a non-lawyer/judge at such a conference.

Following the works of John Rawls and Amartya Sen, I argued that Pakistan needs to evolve its own understanding, even a theory, of justice. I argued that not only was such a development important for understanding of concepts of justice, but that it was essential for human development. In a society, the constitution is the supreme document, something which Dr Akmal Hussain has called the “grundnorm”. All concepts and powers — legislature, judicial and executive — emanate from it. But the Constitution is not just limited to these obvious powers. It is also the basic economic document, and hence affects economic growth by providing incentives (or disincentives) for growth and development. Charles Beard had argued this about the US Constitution a hundred years ago. Therefore, when one examines the functioning of law and the courts under the judicial system emanating from the Constitution, its realm and effects are quite expansive.

Furthermore, I argued that we need to fully grasp and internalise what justice really means. It is not simply adjudication but something beyond — as Sen argues while explaining the concept of nyaya. This nyaya goes beyond the normative and promotes social justice and equality — something Sen regards as essential. In the Islamic context, we understand this concept as Adl, which means that things are put in their right place, referring to both adjudication and social justice.

Therefore, I argued that we need to think more about evolving a Pakistani conception of justice which not only builds upon our common law and Islamic inheritances, but also does not ignore our South Asian heritage. After all, Pakistan is equally a part of the concepts of governance elucidated by Kautaliya in the Arthashastra, the edicts of Ashoka, and the laws of Manu, for example. These non-Muslim, yet South Asian, theories of governance and justice are still important for us to engage with.

As I spoke and also went to other panels in the conference, I became increasingly aware that Pakistan is seriously lagging behind in legal theory and philosophy. Apart from my slightly theoretical paper, there were hardly any papers even referring to philosophy. This lack of engagement with “ideas” as one learned judge argued in his remarks, was something which is holding us back — and I could not agree more.

In Pakistan, there is scarcely any engagement with the idea of justice. People criticise the bench for some rulings, the judges react, and the story goes on. No one really discusses the “point” behind all of this. Obviously, there is politics and expediency involved; however, we need to also think about where is this all leading to? What is the ultimate end of a judicial system, nay, even a system of governance? What principles, grounded in our past and our multiple and rich inheritances, guide us in making rules and regulations, and how do they promote the progress of our people and our country? These are the critical questions we need to ponder on.

In the end, I was rather impressed by the judicial conference. While the conference did not address all the important issues, which no conference really can, it showed the keenness of the bench to engage with issues, exhibited the eagerness of the bar to engage with them, and the ability of the judicial system to at least begin thinking about them. I was pleasantly surprised to see how gracious all the Supreme Court judges were, how they mingled with literally everyone and how they always listened and engaged. People in Pakistan always talk about change at the top, and this conference was certainly a move in the right direction by the Supreme Court. I am eagerly awaiting the next one!

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2013.

On April 17, Margaret Thatcher or the Iron Lady, as she was dubbed by the Soviets, will be laid to rest. Whether we liked her politics or not, she was undoubtedly the greatest woman politician of the 20^th century and a towering stateswoman of the post-war era. Several obituaries have been written about her and numerous people have commented on how she changed the face of Britain and impacted the world, and so, I will not write something similar, but reflect on why someone like her would have been ideal for Pakistan.

First, Lady Thatcher was a person of principles. Whether you agreed with her or not, you knew what she stood for and almost nothing could change her mind from what she resolutely believed in (not without thought and investigation). While everyone remembers her famous “this lady is not for turning” comment, one statement by her has been resonating with me since her death. Lady Thatcher one said: “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” And this is the crux of the problem in Pakistan. Politics in Pakistan is one of “liking” the leaders and there is little debate on policy. People vote not because Nawaz Sharif has a better economic policy, or because Imran Khan is sound on defence, but mostly on how much they  “like” the person, mainly without much critical thought.

I was further struck by her comments on “consensus politics”, a familiar buzzword in Pakistan these days. In Pakistan, politicians see consensus as something of an achievement. However, speaking in Australia in 1981, Thatcher said: “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects — the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead.” Doesn’t this quote aptly explain our politics of the last several years? In the name of “consensus”, all specific policies have been abandoned and the country left afloat with random ideas which no one owns. It is time to change.

Secondly, Baroness Thatcher believed in the free market. While I agree that some form of government regulation and support is needed, I do believe that she was right that the market should take its own decisions within a certain framework. In her time as prime minister, she privatised several state-owned organisations simply because the government did not have the ability to properly run them. As time has shown, privatisation not only saved these firms from bankruptcy but also improved efficiency and productivity. Just imagine if we privatise a number of the state-owned giants in Pakistan, like Pakistan Steel, Railways, Wapda, etc. Given the example of the successful de-regulation of the PTCL, similar positive changes could easily come in those organisations and for once, we might have trains running in Pakistan and maybe even get some electricity! Her reforms in opening up the City and allowing council house ownership were decisions which led to a great boom, and are policies that should be followed.

Thirdly, and ultimately, Lady Thatcher’s policies were based on self-responsibility. Having worked her way up through sheer hard work, she strongly believed in individual responsibility and work. Speaking in 1987 she said: “And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.” This is the simplest, yet the most fitting way, of understanding society and how it works. No grand plans will work, unless individuals are empowered and can take the responsibility of first changing their lives and then of others. Pakistanis are very good at “passing the buck”, blaming others for their misery, and we generally shirk from taking responsibility. However, without personal responsibility and action, no amount of good governance can improve the lot of the people and the country.

Lady Thatcher is no longer with us, but her ideals, sense of purpose, strength of character and her simple yet critical and accurate assessments, will always remain with us. I just hope that we Pakistanis, leaders as well as the people, can learn from her.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2013.

In Pakistan, we mostly work with extremes. So, either a person is good or bad, honest or corrupt, a saint or a sinner. The notion of being somewhere in-between and having a grey area is something lost on us. JS Mill famously warned us against such extremism. In his defence of free speech, Mill argued that we should never put limits on free speech and debate, since hardly anything is hundred per cent true or false. As there is always an element of doubt in every opinion, debate should be allowed, even if it means one person versus the entire human race. But in Pakistan, we only work in binaries, there is nothing in between. So, if you criticise Mohammad Ali Jinnah for something, for example, you must think that he is evil, and if you like him, you cannot say anything against him. There is no idea that maybe Jinnah, being a human, might have actually committed some mistakes, together with good things, and therefore, it is perfectly possible to criticise him and still like him and be patriotic, etc.

Such an outlook has also permeated the realm of politics in Pakistan. As I have mentioned earlier in an article here, General Ziaul Haq’s insertion of clauses in Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution was emblematic of his distrust of the democratic process. Zia, like other military dictators of Pakistan, did not believe that Pakistanis were capable of choosing good representatives, and therefore, he, being a better human being, should guide the hapless population. By Zia’s time, the better qualifications of a dictator were not merely better education and experience, but religious and moral qualifications. Zia’s presidential referendum where the question was essentially, if you want Islam, then Zia is your president for the next five years, was the classic example of such a move as it simply silenced all opposition in the name of religion.

The recent debate about the implementation of the aforementioned Articles in the Constitution are not so much the fault of Tahirul Qadri highlighting them or the returning officers being extra efficient — it is simply the case of the chickens coming home to roost. Sections in these articles were in effect inserted to undermine democracy, in the interest of electing sinless, sadiq and ameen politicians. While no one would object to better politicians, how can one expect people to qualify under such stipulations when the vast majority of the people in this country do not qualify under its clauses? In a democracy, the people’s representatives are supposed to come from among them, and therefore, normally reflect the state of the society. If the society is full of sadiq and ameen people then naturally the legislature will be full of them; if not, then well, what we have had so far. In a way, it is good that problems with certain clauses of these Articles have been highlighted now, and I hope the next parliament will excise them. It is high time that parliament stops treating Islamic amendments by dictators as a sacred cow and rationalises them.

Now that I have ensured that I will never qualify under Articles 62 and 63 as they are today, let me make a larger point. Pakistan was largely fought on the basis of  “political Islam”, i.e., the Muslims of India as a political, rather than a purely religious, community. That is why the Ahrar (Majlis-e-Ahrarul Islam) and the Jamiat and other religious parties opposed Jinnah, since he did not clearly articulate how “religious” the state would be. However, there is a thin line between political and religious Islam and Jinnah’s repeated references to Islamic principles opened the way to purely religious interpretations — hence our current state.

Pakistan is still struggling with the concept of democracy and religion and the recent search for “good” Muslims through the recitation of surahs is an example of our confused state. It is time that we seriously ponder over such questions and try and find an amicable solution — whatever it might be. As long as we stick to the maxim of Mill and not unnecessarily limit free speech and discussion, maybe we can move beyond our search for saints and banishment of sinners towards focusing on people who can actually lead to development in our country.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2013.

Ever since the dismissal of Dr Khan Sahib’s ministry on August 22, 1947, the incident has become a contentious public issue. While there is little disagreement among academic circles that the dismissal was ill-advised and set a wrong precedent — especially since the seminal work of Khalid bin Sayeed in the 1960s — public understanding and perception of the event remains murky and is often overtaken by people interested in sheer rhetoric and spin, and by anti-Pashtun racists. But let us look at the reality.

In the provincial elections of 1946 in the erstwhile NWFP, the Congress won 19 Muslim seats and 11 non-Muslim seats. Its ally, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind won a further two seats. The Muslim League won 17 Muslim seats and the Akalis won one seat. Therefore, Khan Sahib, who not only had a clear majority in the assembly, but had also won more Muslim seats than the Muslim League, formed the government.

While it is true that Khan Sahib put himself in a difficult moral position by stating that he will resign in the event of the Muslim League winning the Pakistan referendum, and then backtracked on it later, one must also remember that the Congress did indeed boycott the referendum. Therefore, leaving the fate of the ministry to the party, rather than his whim, is not as immoral as some have suggested. As a matter of fact, it might just be that the premier, rather than arbitrarily deciding the fate of the ministry, wanted the party which he represented to take a decision of this magnitude.

Now to the dismissal itself: Jinnah had asked Lord Mountbatten to dismiss the Congress ministry in the NWFP before independence, but even though Mountbatten agreed, Westminster overruled him arguing that neither had the constitutional machinery of the province broken down, nor had the Congress party lost its majority in the legislature — hence the ministry remained. After independence, Jinnah instructed the governor, Sir George Cunningham, to dismiss the Congress ministry and replace it with a Muslim League one. Interestingly, section 51(5) (the section under which the ministry was dismissed) was inserted by Mountbatten on the advice of Jinnah to bring the governors clearly under the thumb of the governor general.

Now, the supporters of the dismissal would argue that with independence, the 12 non-Muslim members of the assembly spontaneously combusted, which was verifiable in a mere week, and therefore, the Congress ministry had lost its majority. However, even without the 12 non-Muslim members being counted, the Congress still had 19 Muslim seats in a house of now 38, exactly 50 per cent, and with the Jamiat members, it had a clear majority. Therefore, the Congress was still not a minority, even if one accepts the highly tenuous argument that the non-Muslim members simply fled immediately and that it was verified, etc. and all legal procedures were followed to declare their seats empty.

Furthermore, supporters of the dismissal would claim that the Muslim League did indeed prove its majority in the legislature. This is true, but this majority was only proven in March 1948 at the budget session, six months after the installation of the League ministry. Now, it is not hard to imagine how a party can manoeuvre a majority when it is given official support and six months to muster it. No wonder several Congress legislators defected to the Muslim League, in what we now call, “horse-trading”.

In the end, I want to reiterate that I do not doubt that the Muslim League was, perhaps, more popular in the NWFP at that time, and that in time, a Muslim League ministry was inevitable. My only qualm is with the procedure which left a precedent. Let me end by quoting distinguished historian Khalid bin Sayeed on this: “Even if the League circles doubted the sincerity of Khan Sahib’s professions of loyalty, they could have asked the Frontier Provincial League leader, Qaiyum Khan, to produce a majority in the assembly and move a motion of no-confidence … Such a course of action would have clearly saved the central government from resorting to reserve powers and thereby creating a precedence … [It] was surely open to the central government to direct the governor to dissolve the provincial assembly and to hold fresh elections. The precedent of dismissing a ministry which had a majority and then commissioning another man to form a ministry in the hope that the latter would soon be in a position to produce a majority was bound to lead to political instability … .”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2013.

Over the last few days, several people have made attempts at a ‘rebuttal’ of my arguments last week. While it is to be appreciated that so many people got excited by it, one must remember that this is an opinion piece and not an academic journal article. Hence, there are obvious space and other constraints. That said, most ‘rebuttal’ attempts were made by part-time historians and sycophants of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which made the discussion an amateur and childish screaming match, rather than a sensible conversation. Only if everyone in Pakistan did not think that they had the ‘right’ version of history and that everyone else was mad, Pakistan would be a much saner country. Just imagine, if everyone begins to think that they are qualified to pronounce about medicine and engineering, for example — what havoc that would create! Somehow, however, everyone can become an unbending, arrogant and closed-minded arbitrar of historical ‘truth.’ This is a discussion and we all are entitled to hold opinions — even who disagree with me — with proper demeanour.

Due to space constraints, let me further explain only one argument I made last week. I never said that Jinnah was an Islamist. All I said was that Jinnah promised Islamic rule to the majority and a rather more secular rule to the minorities — hence, the confusion in Pakistan. Here it would be erroneous to consider that the choice is only between a theocracy and a secular state. While Jinnah was clearly against a theocratic state (rule by mullah’s), he did promise a rather undefined ‘Islamic state’. To clarify this further, presently, only Iran is clearly a theocratic state (where the clergy rules), while the Gulf States are religious states. Now, anyone claiming that just because the clergy do not rule in the Gulf States, they are, therefore, secular states would indeed be ridiculous.

With that clarified, let me also clearly state that Jinnah largely alluded to a secular kind of state, while speaking to mainly non-Muslim audiences. People often quote Jinnah’s speeches to Parsis, Hindus, the people of the United States, or Australia etc to prove their point of a secular Jinnah, but that is exactly my point! He said these ‘liberal’ things to non-Muslim audiences! No wonder then that all the stalwarts of the Muslims League, Liaquat Ali Khan included, argued that Jinnah wanted a religious (not theocratic) state. Introducing the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, which clearly put Pakistan in the religious state ambit, Liaquat noted: “I would like to remind the House that the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam, gave expression to feelings on this matter on many an occasion, and his views were endorsed by the nation in unmistakable terms. Pakistan was founded because the Muslims of this subcontinent wanted to build-up their lives in accordance with the traditions and teachings of Islam…”. Similarly, Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar noted in the same debate: “Pakistan was demanded with a particular ideology, for a particular purpose and this Resolution… is just in accordance with those solemn pledges which the Quaid-e-Azam gave…”. I can go on and note the views of almost every Muslim member of the Constituent Assembly, who argued that the Objectives Resolution was in accordance with the will of Jinnah and that it was not possible to divorce religion from politics. Now, it is possible that all these people were deluded and that Jinnah wanted something else. If this is true, then it is rather remarkable that people so close to Jinnah, like Liaquat and Nishtar, did not understand him. Why were Jinnah’s ideas unclear to his close associates when they seem to be so patent to the modern-day so-called liberals in Pakistan?  Or is it that the liberals of today are actually deluded?

These arguments aside, I want to note that on a level it is rather futile to get so caught up in the views of a man long dead. After all, hardly anyone in India wants to create a Gandhi’s India (which would be rather odd) or Nehru’s India (which would be a mild version of the erstwhile USSR). As a matter of fact, the Congress itself dismantled Nehru’s India and the party, which had roots in the organisations of which Nathuram Vinayak Gods, the killer of Gandhi, was a member, governed India for a full-term. Therefore, while trying to understand the past, we must move on and work on building a Pakistan, which is not of someone long dead, but of the 180 million living citizens of Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2013.

Over the past few days, I have regularly heard the refrain “This is not Jinnah’s Pakistan”. Even the people protesting the events at Badami Bagh, Lahore, carried banners yearning for  “Jinnah’s Pakistan”. A few months ago, the MQM was also aiming to hold a referendum, asking people if they wanted the “Taliban’s Pakistan”, or “Jinnah’s Pakistan”. Often, people with a liberal bent in Pakistan quote Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech and want Pakistan to be modelled on the vision presented in it. But let me tell you the bitter truth: this is Jinnah’s Pakistan!

Why? First, simply because except for the lone August 11 speech, there is nothing much in Jinnah’s utterances, which points towards a secular or even mildly religious state. The August 11, 1947 speech was a rare, only once presented, vision. No wonder then that the Government of Pakistan, through secretary general Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, initially censored the rather liberal parts of the speech. Certainly, this change of mind on Jinnah’s part was a shock for many in the Muslim League, especially since here was a person who, not so long ago, had promised Islamic rule! In his address to the Muslims of India on Eid in 1945, for example, Jinnah had noted: “Islam is not merely confined to the spiritual tenets and doctrines or rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collective[ly] and individually”. Many such speeches can be quoted, which clearly indicated that Jinnah had promised a country based on Islamic principles — rather than secular ones — to the people. No surprise then that Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar pointed out in the debate over the Objectives Resolution in March 1949 that while Jinnah had made some promises to the minorities, he had also made some promises to the majority, and the introduction of an Islamic state was one of them. The debate over an Islamic system still continues.

Secondly, Jinnah was quite clear that the Muslims of India were one compact community and that their sole representative was the Muslim League. Therefore, any dissension from the Muslim League mantle meant that non-Muslim League Muslims could not even call themselves Muslims, at least politically. The best example of this closed door policy was when Jinnah insisted that the Congress could not include a Muslim member in its list of ministers (even though Maulana Azad was its president) since only the Muslim League had the right to nominate Muslims to the interim government in 1946. Thus, one of the great Muslim scholars of the 20^th century, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, (and others) were prevented from joining the government. With such a control over who is a “real” Muslim (though primarily political at this juncture), it was not inconceivable that such notions would continue after independence and soon permeate the religious realm — and this is exactly what has happened.

Thirdly, Jinnah himself gave the example of undemocratic government. Not only did Jinnah preside over cabinet meetings (remember Pervez Musharraf?), one of his first acts after independence was to dismiss the popularly-elected government of Dr Khan Sahib in the then-NWFP on August 22, 1947. While it was a foregone conclusion that a League ministry would soon take over in the province, the manner in which the dismissal was done created precedence. Jinnah did not wait for the assembly itself to bring a motion of no confidence against the premier and nor did he call for new elections, both of which would have been clearly democratic and would have certainly brought in a Muslim League government. Instead, he simply got the Congress ministry dismissed and a Muslim League ministry installed — this procedural change was very significant at this early stage and set an example. Jinnah was also, extraordinarily, a minister in his own government, setting a clear precedence for future heads of state (followed by Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Musharraf) to be very comfortable being heads of state and ministers at the same time.

Therefore, Jinnah’s Pakistan is an Islamic state, which defines who a Muslim is, excludes those Muslims it does not like and is not very democratic. Imagining it in any other way is living in a dreamland and refusing to accept the reality. However, this does not mean that Pakistan is unworkable. Pakistan might be saddled with issues of the past, but surely we can accept and solve them, if we want.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2013.

Yes, you read it correctly. I am asking all minorities — ethnic, religious, denominational — and any other people who consider themselves a minority of any kind, to please leave Pakistan.

Yes, I know that this means that Hindus who have lived in Sindh for millennia should leave, that Christians from whom SP Singha hailed and who made the critical casting vote in the Punjab Assembly for Pakistan should leave, that the Ahmadis who gave Pakistan its first brilliant foreign minister as well as a Nobel laureate, that Shias who count the founder of the country, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as one of their denomination, should leave — yes, all should leave.

Soon, of course, we would need to add to this list, women, since they always prove to be so deviant and might want to go out of the house, and some men, too, as they might have visited the shrines of those Sufi saints who are responsible for the conversion of millions to Islam.

This obviously is just the beginning of the list and very soon, more categories will be added as the above mentioned people are exterminated or simply chased away.

It does not matter if the chosen are a few thousand or even a few million — the vast majority of the country’s 180 million need to leave since they simply do not fit the bill and are minorities of some kind. Pakistan was founded to be the preserve of a small minority of men and so it should be.

And this is the crux of the problem. Pakistan was founded by people who were fearful of a majority they did not trust.

It did not matter if the majority was good or evil, or that a workable solution might have been devised — all that mattered was that they were a minority and hence, they needed to have their separate way.

In other words, the Muslim minority of India simply refused to live with the Hindu majority of India, no matter what the reasons or consequences. As this mindset led to the creation of Pakistan, it also led to the creation of a very suspicious view towards other minorities — the erstwhile minority of India then turned against any other minorities in its own country, and quite naturally, it thought of them as fifth columnists — just as it had been in India. Also, since at the root of the Muslim League’s strong demand for Pakistan was intolerance — it simply could not stand living with Hindus — it was but natural for a strong strain of intolerance to seep into the very veins of Pakistan.

The twin menaces of suspicion and intolerance towards minorities has remained a permanent feature of Pakistan since its inception. Beginning with September 1948, when the founder of the country only had a private Shia funeral, presumably because it was too much for the public to handle that the revered Quaid-e-Azam was not a Sunni, to the Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly ‘fearful’ of the 15 per cent of Hindus in Pakistan if joint electorates were permitted, to the rioting against Ahmadis in 1953 and later, to violent attacks against Christians, Hindus and Shias, especially since the 1980s, Pakistan has been uneasy with its minorities.

And here, I have not even begun writing about women — who are increasingly becoming a minority in demographic terms and are treated very poorly, to discrimination based on ethnic background, class differences, sexual orientation, and simply, due to bigotry.

Pakistan is beset with this intolerance against minorities and it seems that it has become its blood line. The majority of Pakistanis might not be keen on exterminating the minorities (though I am beginning to have doubts here), but this vocal and violent minority is increasingly having its way and no one seems to be doing anything about it except issuing condemnations. The government regrets the incidents after they happen, the intelligence agencies promise to work ‘next time’, the courts take suo motu notice but no one is ever brought to justice, and the civil society people (read the rich and middle class) satisfy themselves by holding vigils — everyone ticks their boxes and life goes on.

Life cannot, and should not go on, if conditions are deteriorating so rapidly in front of our eyes. Unless the ‘silent majority’ wakes up and takes charge, nothing will happen. Till then, it is best if all minorities simply pack up and leave for safer climes.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2013.