TIME Mag Cover with Jinnah, April 22 1946
At the time of Pakistan’s independence in 1947, Mohammed Ali Jinnah [Quaid-e-Azam], the father of our country, said: “If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor… you are free – you are free to go to your temples, mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan.” Today, nearly 62 years later, we have to step back and reflect on how far we have strayed from the vision of our founder. Below, Rakesh Mani, a 2009 Teach for India fellow, and Zehra Ahmed, a Pakistani architect, designer, and writer, tackle this issue:
As Pakistan atrophies in its existential crisis, a fundamental question about the nature of the country is coming to the fore: Are the country’s citizens Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, or are they Muslims who happen to be Pakistanis? Which comes first, flag or faith?
It is not a question that many Pakistanis can readily answer. The vast majority of the country’s so-called “educated elite” seem to have no qualms about identifying themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second. Some feel that their religion is the most important thing to them, and that that’s where their first loyalty will always lie. Others admit to having scant regard for religion, but say that Pakistan has come to mean so little to them that their religion supersedes their loyalty to the country.
This willingness to subordinate state to God, even among the highly educated, lies at the heart of Pakistan’s crisis. How can a country be expected to prosper if the majority of its citizens harbor only a secondary allegiance to the state? How can it progress if, as the noted author M.J. Akbar wrote, “the idea of Pakistan is weaker than the Pakistani”?
But what is the idea of Pakistan?
Back in the heady days of the 1940’s, Mohammed Ali Jinnah rallied a people to nationhood. Despite his Anglophone status and Victorian manners, he carved out a separate homeland for India’s Muslims. But, today, an erudite, westernized lawyer like Jinnah who isn’t a wadhera or a jagirdar would find it impossible to win a popular election in Pakistan.
The real Jinnah is now irrelevant in the country that reveres him as “Quaid-e-Azam,” or founder of the nation. Few Pakistanis have the time or inclination to think about their founder’s ideas. Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan – South Asian Muslim nationalism – has been overrun by the dogma of Islamic universalism.
The modern Pakistani identity is shaped largely by the negation of an Indian-Hindu identity and the adoption of a global pan-Islamic charter. Economic advancement is taken to mean Westernization or worse, Indianization. At every turn, Pakistanis seem more likely to unite as brothers in Islam than as sons of the same soil.
Moreover, Pakistan’s fear of vilification and failure has given birth to an increasingly paranoid brand of Islam that seeks to impose stricter controls – on education, women’s rights, dancing, beardlessness, and sex – and close society to all forms of modernity. This paranoid Islam, represented by hard-line outfits like the Tablighi Jamaat, is Pakistan’s fastest-growing brand of faith.
Pakistan is now at a crossroads, facing an uneasy moment of truth. To survive, its citizens must act in unison or risk seeing every moderate tendency in the country purged by a clamor of illiberal, religious voices.
Today’s crisis calls for every thinking Pakistani to ask serious questions of themselves: What should be the idea of Pakistan? Are you Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, Christians, or Hindus? Or are you members of a global Islamic ummah who just happen to live in Karachi or Lahore?
The real challenge, and the ultimate solution, is to get people to think and talk about these questions. But this must be a debate between people, and within people. Nothing will be solved by searching for the “true Islam” or by quoting the Koran.
The point is that eventually, despite strong regional loyalties and various cultural and religious differences, the majority can identify as being simply “Pakistani” – even though they may harbor radical differences about what this might mean. The real idea of Pakistan, ultimately, must be multiplicity.
Today, we have come to understand ourselves as composites; often contradictory and internally incompatible. In the Baburnama , for example, we see the internal contradictions in the personality of the founder of the Mughal Empire. When describing his conquest of Chanderi in 1528, Babur offers gruesome details of the gory slaughter of many “infidels” but just a few sentences later he talks at length about Chanderi’s lakes, flowing streams, and sweet water. So who was Babur, bloodthirsty tyrant, humanist poet, or both – and not necessarily at odds with each other?
Pakistan’s selfhood must be expanded ad maximum and made so capacious that it accommodates its Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, and Balochis, and their religions and sects – Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Qadhianis – until it is possible to call them all equally “Pakistani.” That must be the ultimate goal, and step one in the long, winding battle to save Pakistan.
That is a national idea worth striving for – and Pakistan’s intellectuals, its elite, and its youth must be at the forefront of the battle. The Crescent has cast a seemingly interminable shadow across the length of Pakistan. Its tragedies and failings are a result of what is happening in God’s name, not Jinnah’s. To save Pakistan, Jinnah’s spirit, his moth-eaten ideals, must be renewed, and Pakistanis must ask themselves what Pakistan really means.
The contribution is the sole opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the opinion of CHUP. If you would like to contribute a piece to CHUP, please email Kalsoom at changinguppakistan[at]gmail[dot]com. Pieces should be no longer than 800 words please. For past contributions, click here.
“This paranoid Islam, represented by hard-line outfits like the Tablighi Jamaat, is Pakistan’s fastest-growing brand of faith.”
The Tablighi Jamaat does not, at all, preach extremist Islam. They are simple religious men and women who preach Islam the way it should be preached: without force and in a harmonious tone.
On the other hand, I completely agree with what Mr. Rakesh and Ms. Zehra to say: renew Jinnah’s ideals. In that lies Pakistan’s success.
I agree with Waisybabu. I may not agree with TJ ideologies but they’re not exactly hard-line.
What is extremist Islam is a whole blog post. Someday maybe that Sermon will be published “From The Pulpit …”
Totally agree….. Bring Jinnah back (and I dont mean a photo on the wall of Presidency kind of bringing back!)
Thank you Rakesh, Zehra, and Kalsoom for this very thoughtful post.
The authors pose a question as one of the subject lines , “Which comes first, flag or faith?” It is true that these are the two main identity labels in Pakistan; they remain for some, complimentary, and for others contradictory. The later takes inspiration from the perspective that God’s dominion remains above that of human institutions (as well as the idea of pan-Islamism), and the former, from more secular and humanist ideals, which views the role of religion as a significant, but ultimately a private affair.
In Pakistan this identity conflict has reached a boiling point and threatens the fabric of society as people are forced–by internal and perceived external pressures–to make a choice between one identity vis-a-vie the other. It is an unfortunate consequence which has its roots in many historically significant events in the region. The authors suggest “multiplicity,” which I understood as “pluralism” as a remedy. Pluralism, in this sense would refer to the ability of the state and civic institutions to accommodate and defend multiple identities, with equal access to opportunities, legal rights, and governance–as Jinnah envisioned.
This dilemma is not only centric to Pakistan, but the so called “Muslim world,” in general. It is an issue which is at the forefront of the Islamic ‘reformation,’ as many have called this contemporary conflict of ideas (and forces) within Islam. This is further complicated by all sides having an infinite amount of theological backing to support their perspectives, given the historically diverse evolution of Islam over the ages. How these societies will learn to channel competing ideologies into civic dialogue and meaningful governance will be a unique social experiment to behold. Certainly, it is an evolution in the making as we move forward in an increasingly interconnected world.
I’ll echo both of you – the Tablighi Jamaat are an apolitical religious movement, but they have become increasingly radicalized and have been accused of having ties to more hardline groups. That being said, the movement is not monolithic, so I think there is a spectrum of beliefs.
That being said, I think the contribution does raise some interesting points, particularly in regard to how far we have strayed from what was the Quaid-e-Azam’s vision for Pakistan. I personally think this country was founded as a haven for Muslims, but that very motivation meant that Jinnah wanted it to be free for all minorities to practice whatever they believed. Given the policies of leaders past, we have essentially altered that sense of coexistence and freedom of religion and expression.
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If only we Pakistanis will constantly remember:
Pak sarzameen shaad baad,
kishware haseen shaad baad,
tu nishane azme alishan, arze pakistan,
markaze yaqeen shaad baad.
These lines say it all. We are Pakistanis first, Muslims second. Those who view it the other way around have forgotten the reason for our land. Only in the last lines of our anthem do we ask for God’s protection:
Tarjumanay maazi shane
Hal jaane istaqbal,
Sahaye khudaye zul jalal.
Great post all of you.
Thought I’d share this, just came across it. Some food for thought:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5878525/Pakistan-president-Asif-Zardari-bans-jokes-ridiculing-him.html
Haha,
Yes I saw the jokes. My favorite is the one about the petrol:
“Terrorists have kidnapped our beloved Zardari and are demanding $5,000,000 or they will burn him with petrol. Please donate what you can. I have donated five litres.”
Haha, love that one. Here’s to hoping you have dual citizenship!
you know, sweet read, but I have to say, i disagree about a couple of things.
“This willingness to subordinate state to God, even among the highly educated, lies at the heart of Pakistan’s crisis. How can a country be expected to prosper if the majority of its citizens harbor only a secondary allegiance to the state?”
“Or are you members of a global Islamic ummah who just happen to live in Karachi or Lahore?”
Clearly, there’s a crisis of identity, but I’m not sure if I would describe the issue as hierarchical allegiances. I think that at least the way the state apparatus has been imaging these identities since Zia, is not that we are muslims first and pakistanis second, but that pakistani identity comprises the muslim one. And I think that the state’s conception is important because it informs the idea of Pakistan of anyone who’s has been in a public school/college in the last 3 decades. here are a couple of excerpts from the curriculum guidelines (that are binding upon provincial educational boards and are centrally controlled by the Curriculum Wing of MOE, and did I mention they are mind-blowingly bigoted?):
- In the teaching material, no concept of separation between the worldly and the religious be given; rather all the material be presented from the Islamic point of view [guidelines for primary education set by the Wing in '95]
- To nurture in children a sense of Islamic identity and pride in being Pakistani [Objectives set by The National Early Childhood Education Curriculum, developed & overseen by the Curriculum Wing]
and, then, this gems, all also set by the NECEC:
- A feeling be created among students that they are the members of a Muslim nation. Therefore, in accordance with the Islamic tradition, they have to be truthful, honest, patriotic and life-sacrificing mujahids [Urdu Curriculum for classes 4 &5]
-To educate and train the future generations of Pakistan as a true practicing Muslim [Civics for classes 9-12]
and finally (the list goes on, though, trust me),
- Our country is Pakistan. We live in our country. Pakistan is an Islamic country. Here Muslims live. Muslims believe in the unity of Allah. They do good deeds. .. [First sentences, Class 2 Urdu lesson called Our Country]
What I think is clear from this is that the state has been promoting (with evident success) that muslim and pakistani identities are inextricably connected; one cannot be pakistani without being muslim. and I think a vast majority of the country has bought into this imagination. So, I don’t think that the issue is that we are subverting one identity in favour of another – we are not weakening the idea of the state by “subordinating it to god”, or, at least, we are not weakening it for that reason. Rather, I think the crisis of identity is one of divergent views of our manzil-e-murad. I wouldn’t dream to argue that religion isn’t a principal force in shaping imaginations of Pakistani identity, but it certainly isn’t the only one.
I think at the heart of our identity crisis is this question: how has the propaganda of the last 30 years been received differently by the pashtun from darra adamkehl from its reception by the muhajir in karachi’s defence?
again, sweet read! later!
http://safarnameh.wordpress.com/
“Which comes first, flag or faith?” – I think this is the most reasonable question that anyone in the region, better still, the world should ask himself. Am I an Indian/Pakistani/American/Nepali/Brit etc etc? Most of the cases, the vast majority in the sub continent will be a confused lot. Our Rulers across centuries have conditioned us in a way, where we are at odds to identify our own inner faith and loyalties.
In case of Pakistan, Islam rules above the state. So much so that there are traces of Urban areas having pockets of Shariah Implementation demands. Quaid did not want that? So who did? And what was the benefit to him and his perceived benefit to the nation?
When Gen Zia began his doctrination drive, no one questioned his decisions nor his actions. Either out of lack of foresight, or out of fear for his job/life. This entire drive matured some years back, and has brought Pakistan to where it stands today. Messing with ideologies of a young nation shows its results when it matures. The Culture of GUN and that too in the name of Religion. The reason for divide was to have a separate peice of land for Muslims of British India. The basis was Islam. No matter how well Jinnah tried to get secularism in the states ideology, the foundation stone rested on Islam. Funnier is the part, where the Muslims got their land and a separate nation and still are totting gun culture in the name of the very religion which constitutes 97% of population. While they hate India – calling them Hindu’s (am not sure if they really know the diversity of India and the various religions and cultures that exist here), they forget, that Indian still managed to survive many an attempts to break it on religious line and sentiments. 1984 Sikh Uprising, Kashmir is burning, North east is Burning, but India still is one and growing. With all its mutli cultural and religious affiliations, it managed to reach where it stands today and is looked upon along with CHINA to save the world from Global Financial Meltdown. Pakistan on the contraray following a single GOD and a single religion, has lost in 1971, and is on the verge of failed state. Survives on AID’s and Grants from abroad, Industry means only those run by Military Inc. Textiles are the only industry that one can think of when it comes to Pakistan.
One of my friends, a self proclaimed geo political analyst, always mentioned that the Pakistan ARMY has ruled the nation with a sword in each Hand. One sword is ISLAM and the other one is Indian ANIMOSITY. It has used with impunity each of the swords whenever it has been cornerd into a wall. Whenever it has felt its popularity and respect dwindling amongst their people, they have used the relevatn sword to get them back to support them. They have also used it for UNIFICATION of people and to make them rally behind them. If we look at CHINA, the Central Leadership has managed to keep religious biases aside, they have carved an ideology which is not based on RELIGION but on the state. The FLAG to be more precise. India and Pakistan have always based theirs on Religious Sentiments and emotions. The result is front of all to see. As for Pakistan, DEMOCRACY does work. Else, India would have broken ages ago, leave alone its growth and super power stature. In the LONG RUN, DEMOCRACY only works. Still better if it is based on Humanity rather than Religion.
The harshest truth of all is that Jinnah’s ideals are now irrelevant in Pakistan. His face continues to adorn offices and rupee notes, but why the pretense of looking up to him as a great leader when few have the time or the inclination to think about their founder’s ideas? The answer is political expediency.
Jinnah’s dreams and ideals were buried with him in 1948 and his idea for Pakistan – South Asian Muslim nationalism – was soon overrun, perhaps inevitably, by the dogma of Islamic universalism.
What is really scary, however, is that in the interest of even greater political mileage through further distortion’s of the Quaid’s message, perhaps it will soon be necessary to rewrite history and thoroughly Islamize, or “green-wash,” the Quaid – beard, zebiba et al.
The rigid religious fervor and devotion that has been engendered in the masses since the Zia years today imperils the very existence of the country. And it is is de rigeur in Pakistan to blame all problems on the West, and particularly the United States. Outlandish opinions are easily issued on current affairs shows by a motley crew of retired diplomats, generals and judges. But the anchors of the shows never challenge the defensive rants of their ‘expert’ guests or provide counterpoints.
On the contrary, they allow absurd, bizarre opinions to be given free reign on the air and thus help reinforce old prejudices, rather than challenge them.
Pakistan is now at a crossroads, facing an uneasy moment of truth. To survive, its citizens must act now in unison, or else repent at leisure as every moderate strain in the country is purged out by a clamor of illiberal, religious voices.
If Pakistanis can manage to unwind this national tradition of excess religiosity that is destroying the country, then perhaps these struggles will forever be remembered as the pangs and struggles of a born-again nation. As we continue to live in hope, it helps to ponder over Rumi’s prophetic lines:
Har Sooay baang-o-marghalay
Har Kooay shama-o-mashalay
Keh eem shab jahaan-e-haam-e-lay
Aayad jahaan-e-jaavedaan
[Whichever way you look there is a din of tumult;
Whichever way you go there are flames and torches;
For tonight this world is heavy with labor pain;
To give birth to a world which will forever remain]
Ahem Ahem what ideals are we talking about here… ? kinda clueless —- ummm so if the basis for creation of Pakistan was Islam then what is the fuss about? and if it wasnt so then why in the world was Partition!
by the way “Pakistan is now at a crossroads, facing an uneasy moment of truth.” lol >>>> this one makes me feel u r writing on behalf of Pakistan Gov. ……..
Shehzad Roy even made song for that.. do have a listen, seems like my very own story hahaha :
p.s. no hard feelings… gonna post another song link down below …for all the BS!
K, it took you ten minutes to figure out the petrol joke!!
In my defense, I was skimming it the first time. So yes, it took me an extra minute to get it! Thanks for calling me out “HAHA”!
OK I don’t know if you are going to post this.
But listen Kasloom, praising Jinnah, and especially to hear that praise from Indians like Rakesh Mani (or Advani!!) makes
you feel good ….understandably so.
My idea is not to prove to you partition was wrong (I don’t care, and think it has worked out very well for India) or to insult your founder or your country.
You have to come clean, we all have to.
The reality on Jinnah is not what you portray and as praised by others here. It is very true Jinnah started as a secularist, but then became a VIRULENT communalist and the outcome is here for every one to see.
He was a religious exclusivist, who didn’t practice the religion, but used the identity provided by the religion to whip up communal passions and divided the people.
YOU CANNOT create a state such as Pakistan consiting of multiple ethnicities on the claim you cannot co-exist as people belonging to a different religion. That exactly what he did.
These days one sees articles in Pak media claiming Jinnah didn’t want partition, but it was forced upon him by the inflexibility of Nehru.
The truth is accepting Jinnah’s demands would have been disastrous, and the whole India would be a mega pakistan today. Thanks to Nehru for rejecting half-baked ideas of Muslim majority states being a federation, etc.
Nehru stood for absolute secularism and correctly so.
Raj,
As long as you’re not insulting people for no reason, I’ll post your comments. Your entitled to your opinion and this is a forum for “healthy” discussion (emphasis on the healthy, I can’t stand when people name call or demean people and think I’ll post their comments).
I personally don’t claim to be an expert on Jinnah – which is why I wrote the disclaimer on the bottom, but I will say this – Jinnah may not have been as heroic as we’ve painted him in Pakistani history, but the Pakistan of our parent’s youth WAS relatively idyllic – my father often reminisces about Karachi in the 1950s and 1960s and how diverse his friends were, etc. The model Jinnah created may not have worked in the long term, but honestly he was not around long enough for me to pass judgment. I do know that the Pakistan we see today is not the product of Jinnah’s Pakistan but the policies of leaders in our past who took the idea of Pakistan to exclusivist levels.
Kalsoom,
Sorry I mispronounced your name earlier.
I don’ expect you to agree, probably I’ll be saying the things you are saying if I were in your shoes.
My thrust of the argument is the very original idea of Jinnah was exclusivist and the odds of his ideas failing were much higher to begin with. Thats what I had outlined in my posts 2 and 3.
Your argument is this is not what he intended and some people later on messed it up. May be. Unfortunately, the outcome today supports my argument.
You say 60s were idyllic, but the problems had already set in, just grew to the current proportions. For example foundations of Bengali separatism already had set in because of the way Jinnah and rest of the w.pak elites were insensitive to the Bengali pride in their language.
Several groups have tried to violently indermine the unitary ideology, and the unitary constituion of India, and continue to do so. Obviously the present day political entity of India was also a new construct, but the unitary ideology behind the idea of India is lot easier to defend, than the separatist ideology of Pakistan. It becomes near impossible when you have literally no minorities (<3%?)left in your country.
An Indian columnist has written an excellent article on the similarity between the current “secular “(!!!!) struggle of Kashmiris for azadi with the “secular” struggle of Jinnah.
You may want to read this.
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/column_kashmiris-chase-a-mirage_1274327
Here is an excerpt:
QUOTE They naively believe that once azadi comes, they can revert to a composite Kashmiriyat. This is precisely what Jinnah believed could be done with an independent Pakistan, but the mullahs had other ideas. END QUOTE
I’m aware that many Hindu Indians and leaders wanted partition, etc. But Jinnah’s role as a communalist leader who whipped up frenzy and hatred is undeniable.
Giving nice talks saying after creation of Pakistan saying “people belonging to all religions can practice freely in Pakistan” etc all make no sense.
His lack of vision is evident more glaringly in the utter contempt he displayed towards Bengalis on the idea of Urudu being the national language.
Last piece, I’ll be REALLY surprised if you post this.
“We will either have a divided India or a destroyed India,’ Mohammad Ali Jinnah thundered as Muslim League members cheered him lustily.
Any doubts that may have lingered about the true intentions of the Muslim League under Jinnah’s leadership, any uncertainties that may have remained about what exactly he meant by ‘direct action,’ were washed away by the blood-letting that began on August 16, 1946, in Calcutta when Muslim League activists, observing ‘Direct Action Day,’ butchered men, women and children with chilling cruelty.
Huseyn Shaheen Suhrawardy, a shining star in the Muslim League firmament and head of the government of Bengal, did not lift his little finger to stop the killings. By the time the silence of the dead descended on Calcutta, 6,000 people had been slaughtered.
These are all historical facts. Rakesh Mani may want to be nice but you have reasons to understand where Pakistan is today.
LISTEN, I don’t deny problems in India. There are some extremists who think all Indian muslims are pakistanis . I for one don’t buy it as do majority of Indians.
As the Mumbai drama was unfolding I was on the phone with my muslim friend, who used the choicest expletives against Pakistan. How am I supposed to feel anti-muslim?
As MJ Akbar wrote within hours after Mumbai 2008, Indian muslims have diverged from Pakistan. Phrases like South Asian Muslim nationalism are all rather archaic.
Raj,
before I begin, lemme just say, I’d really like our conversation to be civil. no reason go all caps, dude.
“YOU CANNOT create a state such as Pakistan consiting of multiple ethnicities on the claim you cannot co-exist as people belonging to a different religion. That exactly what he did.”
I don’t think anyone could deny the cognitive dissonance in this formulation of the “basis of the creation of Pakistan” (a very laden phrase, I know. and for this reply at least, I wouldn’t wanna get into it). However, the way you have chosen to phrase it, the onus of communal harmony is on communities, not on systems of governance.
The relevant discourse at the time focused on parallel ideas of minority representation in governmental spaces (and its many implications). In that sense, it is not incoherent to say that divorced from a particular apparatus, diversity could be better recognized. When the structures that allow multiplicity are conceived to be housed within state apparatus, the idea a community (and I use this word VERY broadly, not to mean a religious group, or an ethnicity, just a group held together by a shared idea) could separate to install its own system of governance to better appreciate diversity seems completely plausible.
Now, I cannot disagree that there was the sense that all Hindus supported a particular governmental ideology, while all Muslims supported another, but, tragically, painting opposing communities with broad brushes in times of discord has long been part of human history, far before the partition.
http://safarnameh.wordpress.com/
Religion has got nothing to do with Pakistan’s problems right now.. ZILCH !! NOTHING!!
If a BASE is faulty – its simply useless trying to build on it!
Some opportunist hand picked by the British Raj and still closely attached with it uptill now rule Pakistan.
I for one am thinking of sending my Resume as well … If u cant fight em! Join em!
Cheers!
p.s. i DETEST the ignorance (intentional/unintentional) of useless historic BS !
This one is for all the BS! very nicely put in the song by Shehzad Roy!
Well you can clearly see the triangular trap in which Pakistan is trapped on its,
1st axis : ISLAM
If it was created in the name of Islam, it cannot simply walkaway. (and probably have to comply with it in a really conservative / extremist way, or redefine Islam itself or have to show something to the Islamic world / Saudi Arabia , as this is only the second nation created in the name of Islam and has some duties towards it)
2nd axis : INDIA
If it walks away from Islamic nationalism, to become a mini secular India (place for all) (as apart from religion these both countries are 100% same), blame of partition will become a nightmare for Pakistanis (which still is) and name of state “”Pakistan”" itself a big joke.
3rd axis : HISTORY
The fear of history books (already made and in making)as what would be written and what place world would give Pakistan and its leaders in next 50 years.
This trap actually was seeded (call it mistake / short sighted leadership or sheer greed ) by M.A. Jinnah as he thought India will bleed to death and break in Pieces (as there were several states in Pre-Brit and Pre-Mughal era) but that never happened and many Pakistanis call it a sheer bad luck or destiny or a failed foreign policy
.
As an Indian , (touch wood) I have seen the change in India and Indian society and when Chadrayaan-I is flying high on moon orbit, we have ambitions and no time to discuss this piece of crapped history and should look ahead (sorry for almost sounding a fata pajama leader here) , Thanks for reading!!
Speaking of this interesting discussion, Dawn just did a book review of Revisiting Jinnah’s Legacy: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/entertainment/16-revisiting-jinnahs-legacy-hs-11
Firstly I would like comment on the idea that TI is radical. While I am not a member of TI, I know that most of its members are not ‘paranoid’ or ‘radicals’. They are in some ways, the Muslim Equivalent of Evangelical missionaries, who preach and give Dawah to both Muslims and Non-Muslims.
Secondly, I would like to bring up a characterization of Pakistan as either being secular or religious. Is there not a third characterization: Both. Cannot Pakistan have Islamic Law, combined with secular education? Look to West of Pk., and we see Shia Iran having accomplished this.
Thirdly, I would like to comment on this statement by opinionated writers:
“Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan – South Asian Muslim nationalism – has been overrun by the dogma of Islamic universalism.”
Is there something wrong with Islamic Universalism? Cannot Islamic principles apply to Pakistani culture? Why do the authors cite the “failures… in name of god” [referring to the econ. + social failures of the so-called 'religious parties' in NWFP] and not also of that of secularism [Bhutto, Musharraf-->destruction of religious heritage]?
Lastly, I would like to comment on one rabid and over-arching statement made by the authors:
“Economic advancement is taken to mean Westernization or worse, Indianization.”
If the authors can prove how pervasive that is in Pakistan, then I’ll believe them. Are there not people in Non-Muslim states who also fear ‘western dominance’ of their culture and ideals? There might be some in the Ultra Far Right of Pakistan’s political landscape who might believe in such outlandish claims, but we can see even in places like Conservative Saudia, that such in not the case in Muslim lands.
While I know that this a op-ed piece by two non-CHUP bloggers, that does not negate the fact that should be balanced response by those who oppose the argument put forth by writers.
I agree Pakistan MD, and if anyone would like to write a contribution responding to these contributors’ piece, I’d be happy to post it!
Owais – you’ve hit on my point exactly.
Pakistan, contrary to popular belief, was not created as a haven for Muslims practicising their religions freely (which the theory would argue was impossible to do in India)
The country was formed for a political imperative: representation. Jinnah’s argument was that unless Nehru and Gandhi accepted his Fourteen Points which asked for 20% of seats reserved for Muslims, then the Muslims would never have adequate representation in Parliament to look after their interests. And hence the need for a separate state where they could have a larger say in their own affairs.
Alas the reasons for Partition have been so distorted today by all sorts of religious and uneducated types in both India and Pakistan.