LAHORE: Every year on December 25, we celebrate the Quaid-e-Azam’s birthday — and we say a lot and make many promises, but the fact is that our political leaders don’t learn any lesson from the life of Pakistan’s founding father. Even all his adversaries admit that MA Jinnah was a highly honest and incorruptible brilliant lawyer and politician. He had the courage and the will to call a spade a spade, especially while addressing the general public and he was a man with vision as well as a true statesman. He always led by example — for instance, as governor general, he cancelled the orders for a car and aircraft because the national exchequer could not afford such extravagances.
Jinnah had a clear vision for Pakistan and he wanted a democratic, progressive, modern secular country where every citizen had equal rights, personal liberty and access to social justice. He wanted a Pakistan where every citizen would feel that he was a proud Pakistani and that the state had nothing to do with the religious belief of its citizens. Unfortunately, those who were left in charge of implementing the Quaid’s vision after his death joined hands with small religious ideologues and groups who before partition had been at the forefront of opposing an independent Pakistan.
The reality is that today, we are afraid to pray in mosques and Muslims are killing Muslims in the guise of suicide bombers. Instead of competing with the rest of the world on the economic front, we keep engaging in policies and actions that make the world think that we are a very dangerous country. All those who have been ruling the Land of the Pure have betrayed Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah by projecting a religious identity that he would never have approved of. It would be fair to say that the Quaid-e-Azam must be turning in his grave.
ST Hussain
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2012.
