No copy of Jinnah's 'secular state' speech: India
"I had received a call from Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation asking for a recording done on a certain date, but we don't have the tape with us," AIR director general LD Mandloi told the BBC.
Pakistan does not have a copy of the historic speech because, according to director general PBC Murtaza Solangi, local radio stations did not have proper recording facilities in 1947.
Earlier, Mr Solangi had said that this speech was very important for people who want to direct the country to the goal of a “modern, pluralistic, democratic state”.
In the speech, Jinnah is reported to have said:
"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the state."
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its all power game, don't try to change the truth. instead of staying out of politics-like Mk GANDHI, he himself crowned has VICEROY of Pakistan,THE ULTIMATE POWER,Karachi was made the capital of Pakistan becose he trusted more THE MIGRATED. Punjabi's realized the fact quickly changed the power point in to Islamabad, they could have created planned city somewhere near karachi, why in Punjab faraway from Karachi.
No copy of "You are free; you are free to go to your temples..." Jinnah speech says All India Radio.
What else you expect from Hindu Baniya. Of course it took only 65 years for Pakistan to see if they could have it.
This perspective was there before Jinnah, is still there and it is not going anywhere.
@Disco: Excuse me - please listen to Mr. Jinnah's speech on Aug. 15, 1947, the day after Independence. In it he clearly states, the minorities of Pakistan have "absolutely nothing to fear and will live as equal citizens of Pakistan." You tube it. People who think that the Quaid did not envision a secular state where religion had nothing to do with the affairs of the state are delusional or in denial!
Ever heard of the two nation theory? If you have forgotten the lesson from your history classes, I recommend that you go and read it again.
Pakistan was supposed to be a "Model" Muslim country and not necessarily a secular state.
@saeed... yar why are you separating religion from democracy and politics and state, and why we should we leave our past... we are in this miserable postion, because we have forgotton our glorious past. it was true muslims that rule the world. better suggestion will be, to become better muslims. when muslims fallow Allah orders, we rule the world. now we are deviated from the right path. so return to that path of Allah and Prophet( s a w w), And you will rise of muslims and Islam.
@Pungi: """ Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India since India was not truly secular at that time and Muslims suffered alot.."""" what u mean by that time , india is still not truly secular country and the muslims still suffers.......
why don't we leave the past behind. Look at today world. Nation with believe in democracy and state seperate from Religon and Race are better than the nations governing by dictators and Religious state.
i have been chasing after a copy of this speech for 6 months now and EVERYONE has told me they don't have a copy.. Rumour has it that BBC has a copy of it but its 'not for rebroadcasting'!?
Question is whether the people of Pakistan today want to take Pakistan toward secularism or not. Jinnah's speech whether it was made or not is irrelevant. What matters is if you want equal rights for all your citizens today irrespective of their faith or lack thereof. Any country isn't just the land of it's founder. What is astonishing is immigrants from Pakistan would ask for equal rights in another nation as minorities but are not willing to extend the same courtesy to minorities in Pakistan. This is a hypocritical attitude. An individual's conscience is his/her own and it cannot be dictated on what to believe by the state.
@Swagistani: Wrong understanding of India. Indeed india is diverse, but everyone is a proud India just l;ike the Armerican, Also our diversity is not a diversity of nationhood, but of cultural richness. UAE may be arabs, but fiercely competitive yet hang around together. Abu dhabi gave dubai a loan, not a grant to bail it out. And forced them to change the name of burj dubai to burj Khalifa. Point is that diversity is important, yet larger nationality is more important. densely populated does not mean dufferent ideologies. Chinese are dendely populated too. Yet highly nationalistic.As are the indonesians living across thousands of islands, almost a few thousaand miles apart. fact is larger a country, larger an economy, better the markets and economies of scale. who wants to be a kuwait/qatar with oil dependent econom ies that have a GDP of 200 buillion or so.
@Hunter Punter: The U.S has 50 states, not 52 and America is more homogeneous than India, The vast majority of Americans over 70% speak English as a first language, India and Pakistan are more diverse linguistically, also Americans are very patriotic, doesn't matter what state you're from or what the color of your skin is everybody is a proud American.
The UAE is also very homogeneous, almost 100% of the Native Emiratis are Arab.
Another major factor is that none of these countries are as densely populated as India and Pakistan.
@Bruce: @Swagistani: Europe is not one country, but is desperately trying to be one. That is why they have one currency, flexible borders, migration of people,and one central bank, one european parliament, one european bureaucracy. Soccer teams/Cricket teams are are as good as club teams. fact is that USA has 52 states, and one super country. even UAE is 7 different states, yet are common in many ways. Malaysia is 13 different kingdoms, yet a Country.
@Hunter Punter:
The European Union is not one country, does every Indian state have their own soccer or cricket team on the international level?
Europe is not going to be one country, the EU is already not very popular in many parts of Europe.
Khan, Jinnah was a Gujarati Shia Ithnashri Muslim (Mohammedali Jina).for your information
his complete quote was :
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizensand equal citizens of one State.Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense,because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”
the above statement shows clearly that he was never talking about secularism ... how ppl twist now...
@Bruce: China is bigger than India. Would you advice it to break up? If small sizes are appropriate, Why is Europe getting into a Union? Fact is bigger the better. Economically that is why EU is desperate to get into one country. India's 532 states were hardly countries. They were small feudal landlords.
If Jinnah had been PM of undivided India in 1947, it would have been amazing. He was better than Nehru, in the sense, he was an amazing lawyer, a person who did not have socialistic views (unlike Nehru which lead India to drain). He was more liberal and he would have made India similar to Singapore.
However, he knew that Nehru wanted to be the PM and Gandhi supported him, so he brought religion into the picture and helped in dividing the nation. In one way, it was a blessing in disguise, since, more Muslim population would have lead to chaos in India (considering the present scenario of countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Dear Secularists, Kindly present to me ONE SPEECH where the Quaid used the word "secular", I have researched all the way, and couldnt find any...
@Pungi: Pakistan was actually created to give equal rights to every citizen unlike India of that time..!
Is that the reason why the muslim population has increased for 8 to 16% in the last 60 years while the Hindu population in Pakistan has decreased from 25 to 1% in the same time??
here are some brilliant thoughts shared by some Mr hariharan on the hindu, and they speak more than what anybody is trying to say here:
If the only evidence to prove that Jinnah was secular was to search for just one speech in which he has said that religion had nothing to do with the State - then it is a poor commentary on Jinnah's secularism. If one goes by history , then there is nothing that Jinnah said or did that will establish that he had a longstanding commitment to Secularism. This looks a neeedle in the haystack exercise to somehow establisth Jinnah was secular too.
Jinnah did the greatest service to India by creating Pakistan.
@Arshad Nasir: Name a single Islamic county following Sharia law where a non muslim has equal rights as muslims. Just one would be sufficient.
@Bruce: There’s no point in arguing whether Pakistan should have been created or not, the way I see it, South Asia is going to see more independent countries in the future.
So you already see Pakistan as a failed state heading towards a break-up? This is unfortunate.
@Muhammad Waqas:
"Since islam allows the freedom of religion in society and all of muslim know this. "
Then why death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy? Why Jizya?
There is a huge difference between Islamic and Muslim state... Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India since India was not truly secular at that time and Muslims suffered alot.. Pakistan was created for them to live and act freely, along with all other minorities..! Pakistan was actually created to give equal rights to every citizen unlike India of that time..!
@BlackJack: The subcontinent is TOO big to be one country, more people live in India than in Europe, also the subcontinent is very diverse and too complex to be one country.
I believe the two-state solution was great, in fact I think there should be more countries in this region.
Even before the Brits came to the subcontinent, this region was divided into 532 different states, the Brits united them, just to make things easier for them.
There's no point in arguing whether Pakistan should have been created or not, the way I see it, South Asia is going to see more independent countries in the future.
@zeta
In all fairness to Jinnah, the heroics of 'Direct action day' should also be a part of the text book in addition to the 11th Aug'47 speech you mentioned.
oops
This statement is part of Pakistan Studies Text book of Grade 10 and 12, Whats new about it?
there is no such a secular State speech of Jinnah dn misguide the Nation Pakistan has only made for Islam
Now these words have no proof . So Shall I assume that Jinnah never said that ? Yes..of course....
Its very important to read all the quotes of jinnah along with his major 14 points. Jinnah initially didn't want a separate state, his idea was to have provisional autonomy while creating smaller provinces with-in united india ( like west begal, sindh etc). Congress wanted to give more power to centrer than province, without creating provinces with muslim majority. This made him realise that it will be difficult for muslims to live under united india. The idea of creating separate state and its implementation was correct. We are in a mess due to not following his foot steps but apparently other party is following him.....this was also highlighted in jaswant singh's book.
@Muhammad Waqas: Actually, Iqbal himself stated this in his Allahabad Address where he proposed the idea of Pakistan in the first place. All confusions are resolved when Jinnah's 11 August speech is read together with Iqbal's Allahabad Address. The idea that pluralism of modern Europe is just an evolution of the trend introduced by Islam itself was presented by our greatest modern historian Shibli Nomani, who, incidentally, worked closely with Jinnah at the very start of Jinnah's political career. Jinnah was a disciple and student of Shibili Nomani just like Syed Sulaiman Nadvi and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and those who suggest that Jinnah may not have been familiar with the finer issues of Islamic law forget that Jinnah made a living out of fighting legal battles over Muslim personal law and was arguably the most highly reputed authority on the subject in the entire British Empire at that time.
Another attempt has failled to make controvesial to Quaid-e-Azam...! The truth is that Quaid wanted make Pakistan as an Islamic state as per Islamic SHARIYA...! But it doesn't mean that other religions can't exist.
If Jinnah was secular, he would not have supported the creation of Pakistan or would he have given the communal speeches during direct action day. People are turning Jinnah into what they want him to be and that's not what he was if you go by actual evidence of his speeches and actions.
@Gram Massla: There are actually many Muslims in Pakistan that believe in secularism.
The Muslim becomes secular the minute he enters a non-Muslim country as an immigrant.
@1984: He died just a year after Pakistan was made, so how did Jinnah want power?He had TB and saw it coming.
If Jinnah wanted power, he would of accepted the knighthood that he was offered, he would have made himself the first Prime minister of Pakistan.
@Mohsin: It was the question of power. Jinnah wanted to rule and knew that Gandhi preferred Nehru and everyone listens to Gandhi...
and Jinnah was sidelined in Congress when Gandhi joined it..
Jinnah created a nation to be in power....
hear Jinaah's words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPqhiJi1C88
'The Hindu' dated June 3 2012, has a link to Jinnah's speech for those interested.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3487079.ece
Just because Radio India doesn't have a copy of Jinnah's speech, it doesn't mean he never gave it.
Even if Jinnah didn't want a secular Pakistan( I doubt it though)that doesn't mean we can't be a secular state.
Times change.People change.
It's about time Pakistan changed.
Jinnah is defined by his actions "direct action" and not by one speech when there are 1000 more to the contrary.
@Muhammad Waqas: I fully agree - you cannot define a person's ideology on the basis of a single speech. Jinnah's actions indicate that he wanted a state for muslims despite the fact that it would continue to house significant minorities who would automatically become second grade citizens. Jinnah is far more defined by the Direct Action Day than by this meaningless speech - no wonder AIR didn't feel it important enough to save.
The only Quaid speech that came mildly close to proposing a secular state....doesn't even exist or is lost. rofl.....
In the speech, Jinnah is reported to have said:
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
If this was Mr. Jinnah's speech/ideology than I come to think as to why we needed a separate state! We even had the same liberty prior partition; it’s just that we at times had to fight with Hindus to safeguard our interest whereas, Muslims are Muslims' enemies here. I think we were better then than now.
Question: India was already a secular state , why did we want a separate country, Whole basis of PAkistan was Islam :) .
@Muhammad Waqas: You mean to say Jinnah was a five times (sunni) prayer leader and had a long beard touching his ankles? As far as I know he was a Parsi his Mrs was Rattanbhai pettit and his daughter married some one who was a believer of Hinduism. Besides If Secularism gives equal rights to every single Pakistani regardless of their religious affiliation then why is there so much itch in the minds of right wing xtremists? I'm a Sunni Muslim but I fully support the idea of secularism in Pakistan for the sole reason of giving equal rights to every human being which isn't possible in current day Islamic system due to our narrow mindedness and due to the fact that every time we talk about equality right wing politican highjack the matter and it become do or die for them situation for them.
Oh no!!! Does this mean we can't be secular ever? Booo hoo...
a sad day for secularists lol
although Pakistan was specially made at islamic slogan. but Jinnah said it bcoz freedom of all is the true spirit of Islam.
If you want to just believe in Jinnah's one statement like this and want to ignore 10s of other supporting Islamic ideology. then you better say that Islam is secular. what a foolish belief
Since islam allows the freedom of religion in society and all of muslim know this. may be thats why Jinnah said so and you people are manipulating it