Jinnah’s Pakistan

We must work on building a Pakistan, which is not of someone long dead, but of the 180 million living citizens.

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.