Quaid’s pictures on display at Heritage Museum. PHOTO: MYRA IQBAL, INP
On the 137th birth anniversary of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Express News broadcast a campaign titled ‘Mein Hoon Jinnah’, to depict how, if he were alive today, the Founder of Pakistan would address the nation. What would he say to the countrymen? Below is an excerpt of the scripted speech:
“It deeply saddens me to see Pakistan as it is today. There is lawlessness, killing and plundering everywhere. Before August 14, 1947, we had only one slogan: “We will win Pakistan – India will be divided!”
But today, every one of you has a different slogan; everyone is struggling uselessly for an individual goal.
I united you into a nation; you divided yourself into sects and ethnic groups.
A nation that was united under one flag is divided under several flags now. I wanted a model economic system based on human equality, equity and social justice. But all institutions, even the judiciary as well as the civil and military bureaucracy, are only after their own interests – putting merit and justice aside.
My dear Pakistanis, I hope you remember my address on August 11, 1947, when I said that Pakistan would be a country where people of every colour, race and religions would be free to practice their religious rites and rituals. This was not my own idea; fourteen hundred years ago, our Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had talked of religious tolerance in his last sermon. But this is not the case in Pakistan today.
Those who want to destabilise and destroy Pakistan did not even spare my house, a place that had special meaning for Pakistan, a place where I spent the last days of my life.
During our struggle for Pakistan, we travelled on a difficult path to achieve our objective. We accepted every challenge. We were resolute, and so we succeeded.
The problem is not that we don’t have great and brilliant minds anymore – we are just not ruled by them.
I wish and hope that at least one leader rises who could unite the entire nation under one flag. But with the vacillating rule of politicians and army men, this seems difficult. Nevertheless, don’t let their tricks let you down.
The clouds of dangers are overhead, but your country is very important and only you can help.
My dear Pakistanis, most of my contemporaries have left this world. Others, too, will be no more soon. It is you, the future generation, that has to take the helm of the country into your hands. It is not too late.
I am aggrieved but I am still hopeful. Nations have difficult times but they make amends.
I am sure a leader will appear from among you, but for that, you will have to put an end to your laziness and stupor.
As Iqbal said: Stand up, the world has started to change now/ It is your era that is beginning in the East and the West.
I pray for God to protect Pakistan.
Pakistan Paendabad! (Long Live Pakistan!)
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2013.
COMMENTS (12)
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What constitute the foundation of Pakistan , Is it religion? If answer is....YES . Then it has to remain confined within the mind and heart of her people . The day it will be on streets . The result will what we find in the form of present day pakistan . Efforts are on in India too to ooze out religion through loudspeakers on the street . Be aware of it's consequences Look , the present state of Pakistan .
A muslim having modern education is no more muslim of Pakistan . Islamic Pakistan as we find today will be no more in existence . But it will take time .
Forget that man and move forward . That man has doomed your nation . He even insisted Bengalis to accept Urdu . They not only dumped Urdu , but also dumped West Pakistan for once and all . Jinnah sowed the seed of intolerance between Hindu and Muslim , between Sikhs and Muslims , now that intolerance has gone beyond it and now grasps Shias and Ahmadis. Fire is fire , it doesn't recognize which is my house and which is others.Enjoy.
Ask His daughter...She might have a better idea than all the Pakistanis put together.
Not only Jinnah, even the immature and short sighted designers of all Abrahamic religions, might repent their decisions!
For example their God says in Genesis 9:7: "As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it." The absurdity and devastation of this heavenly decree "multiply" can be expressed with the following parable:
When the creator of the game of chess showed his invention to the King, the King was so pleased that he gave the inventor the right to name his prize for the invention. The man asked the king this: that for the first square of the chess board, he would receive one grain of rice, two for the second one, four on the third one, and so forth, doubling the amount each time. The ruler, arithmetically unaware, quickly accepted the inventor's offer, even getting offended by his perceived notion that the inventor was asking for such a low price, and ordered the treasurer to count and hand over the rice to the inventor. However, when the treasurer took more than a week to calculate the amount of rice, the ruler asked him for a reason for his tardiness. The treasurer then gave him the result of the calculation, and explained that it would take more than all the assets of the kingdom to give the inventor the reward.
As a consequence, we live in an extremely overpopulated world, haunted from mass hunger, poverty, shortage of natural resources and constant wars and bloodshed.
Jinnah was neither a mathematician, a pedagogue, a sociologist, a demagogue and nor was he above all, with his eccentric british obsession, a man from the masses. He overrated and misused his political power.
After having lived more then 30 years with Hindus and Sikhs together, I have come to the conclusion, that it is so wonderful and lively to get along with Hindus and Sikhs, then Muslims of various sects among themselves. They are quarrelsome, aggressive and totally inflexible. Proof: As I studied as a teenager in Karachi I ate in different restaurants. In many restaurants their was a placard on the wall with the inscription: political and religious discussions prohibited! Guess why?????
It would not have mattered if he would have lived longer - he had already been sidelined when alive
but he left pakistan after a year of its formation ...lol
what an imagination...Quids philosophy has been messed up,every school of thought trying to own him but obviously for the wrong purpose.....we could never evovlve as a nation....what a pity.......................
All the different television programs and segments I see depicting that how would he(The Quaid) had addressed the nation as of today, leaves me in wonder though that what would have been the situation of Pakistan if he had lives a little longer, the man who built the country from scratch and made it stand on it's own foots in just one year, that was the class of that man who glued the Muslim provinces together. If and only if he had lived a little longer, like Nehru, Mandela the things would have been different now altogether.
@Umer - you just hit the nail on the head. Ooouchh !!!
Jinnah:
"I would like Islam finally be implemented in Pakistan, both in letter and in spirit."
I made a mistake.