Jinnah and Pakistan

Letter March 27, 2013
It is precisely because we abandoned Mr Jinnah’s vision that we see discrimination against minorities.

ISLAMABAD: This refers to the article by Mr Yaqoob Khan Bangash “Jinnah’s Pakistan” on March 26 in defence of his previous one on the same subject. He thinks that many people got “excited” by his article and then terms them “part-time historians and sycophants” of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. By definition, a sycophant is a person who praises important or powerful people too much and in a way that is not sincere, especially in order to get something from them. What can they possibly get from the departed. Clearly, Mr Bangash’s choice of English words ceases to be his personal matter when he commits them to the printed word. One can live with that but not with the way he treats Mr Jinnah.

Consider, the writer says that “Mr Jinnah promised Islamic rule to the majority and a rather more secular rule to the minorities”. Mr Bangash also says that he made “liberal” statements to Western and non-Muslim audiences. He thinks it is futile to get so caught up in the views of a man long dead. Finally, he concludes that “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”.


Mr Jinnah did not say one thing to one set of people and another to another set of people. He had a clear vision and conviction which consistently professed the kind of a Pakistan he wanted. He never played to the galleries. There were no Hindus, Christians or Muslims in the Pakistan he wanted in the religious sense. All were equal citizens. It is precisely because we abandoned Mr Jinnah’s vision that we see discrimination against minorities. Make Mr Jinnah irrelevant and the country he founded becomes irrelevant.


Mr Bangash is welcome to his views but one hopes The Express Tribune has an editorial board, which makes sure such bizarre views do not confront an unsuspecting significant readership first thing in the morning!


Moneir Aslam


Published in The Express Tribune, March 28th, 2013.