Ideology: ‘Material interests bind us together, not religion’
The Awami Jamhoori Forum organised a seminar at Alhamra on Thursday to mark the presidential address delivered by Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the first constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947. Dr Mubashir Hassan, Jamil Umer, Dr Farzana Bari, Khawaja Sarmad and Hassan Nasir spoke at the seminar, Jinnah ka Pakistan.
Dr Hassan said Pakistan was not established on the basis of religion. Material interests, he contended, laid the foundation of the country. He added that even though Jinnah was a popular leader, the real power lay in the hands of Chaudhry Muhammad Ali who ordered that Jinnah’s speech be censored. Dr Hassan said Jinnah’s August 11 speech was ‘a fine thing’ but there had to be a political party to implement those words.
Sarmad said that Jinnah was opposed to the feudal and supported the poor. He highlighted the economic vision laid down for Pakistan by Jinnah. Dr Bari blamed the public’s negligence which was unable to make Pakistan according to Jinnah’s guidelines. She said the army was responsible for killing democracy with its strong nexus to feudal and imperialist forces. She added that 60 per cent of people live under the poverty line with no food, and no hygienic drinking water.
Awami Jamhoori Forum secretary general Jamil Umer said that unless Pakistan transformed into ‘Jinnah ka Pakistan’ it would have no future. “No one is sovereign except for the people. The 1973 Constitution negates Jinnah’s ideas,” he said.
Umer added that the bureaucracy, the agencies and the elite had made Pakistan a security state instead of a welfare state which had been envisioned by Jinnah.
Umer announced the formation of a new party after Eid which would unite progressive forces.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 12th, 2011.
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@woohoo: Had Jinnah The Great be merely a dummy, Gandhi and co would have stopped him from creating a separate land for Muslims. The claim that real power was Chaudhary Muhammad Ali is totally absurd. Though a right-minded and honest politician, his capabilities couldn't be compared to Mr. Jinnah; during Chaudhary M. Ali tenure as a leader a faction broke out of Muslim League to form a new party "Republicans".
@Amit I agree with you. Not many people understand the conflict between different interest (economic) groups that is played on a political scene.The bogey of Pakistan was created to safeguard the interest of Muslim upperclass and was achieved by playing the religious card to the poor among the Muslims.
It is a very hard to sell this perspective. The religion was used to create this country rhetorically and extracts from Jinnah Sahib are very weak to control its ramifications. May be on some fututre date the viruence goes away, which will hoever need more candid and truthful approach.
Jinnah was a real savior of India, had he not created Pakisatan as a buffer between Afghanistan and India, India of today would have been facing the music what Pakistan is facing now, Pakistan is the creation of the middle classes of Muslim who thought that they would have better economic opportunities in a separate market with less or minimum competition and minimum efforts,
The higher class and lower class of the people never asked or required Pakistan as they would adjust any where
Im tired of hearing / reading from our own people criticizing our nation's founding fathers such as Jinnah. Jinnah left UK and worked for the better of the Muslims in the sub continent selflessly.
These people need to get a life, and ask themselves on what have they contributed to Pakistan instead of criticizing and pointing fingers to people who actually have
I am happy that finally someone puts this simple truth across. Jinnah was used as an eloquent and popular dummy front for the creation of Pakistan aka regressive West Punjab fiefdom.