Identity crisis which Pakistanis face today is a direct result of the two-nation theory propounded by Jinnah.
MUMBAI: This is with reference to Atiqa Odho’s article of December 30 titled “Mr Jinnah, are we really the people you wished us to be?”
The existential and identity crisis which Pakistanis face today is a direct result of the two-nation theory propounded so eloquently by Jinnah. He maintained that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations and hence India needed to be partitioned on religious lines. But what Jinnah did not envisage was the fact that a majority of the Muslims of India had rejected the two-nation theory simply by choosing to stay back. This decision, in my view, is one of the main sources of identity crisis in Pakistan.
Muslims in India have, by and large, thrived in a secular India. I know the typical response of Pakistanis would be to remind us about Gujarat, the backwardness of Indian Muslims and so on. But the fact remains that large sections of the Hindu population are also poor and backward. Poverty is not religious-centric and is usually related to poor governance and corruption.
We, in India, believe that Pakistan can come out of its identity crisis if it becomes more secular and protects whatever handful of minorities are left and, of course, stops looking at the world through the prism of religion alone.
Jinnah actually wanted a secular Pakistan with a Muslim majority, just like India is a secular republic with a Hindu majority.
Sonam Shyam
Published in The Express Tribune, December 31st, 2010.
