Daily Times

Another Pakistan Day or Pakistan Resolution Day has come and gone, this time with a grand military parade put off for several years due to terrorism fears. On March 23, 1940, the All-India Muslim League moved a resolution in its annual session in Lahore that demanded autonomous states for the Muslims of British India. This resolution was a change in strategy from the Muslim League’s earlier demand for constitutional guarantees for Muslims in a federal system. It was meant to be the only viable solution to the persistent Hindu-Muslim discord. This discord was primarily driven by the quest of rival communal elites for political and economic power.
In keeping with a general lack of will to query and investigate the past pre- and post-March 23, 1940, the inviolability of the March 23, 1940 resolution is rarely questioned in Pakistan; it is considered supreme belief. Few have had the courage to probe into the conditions prior to the passage of this resolution, to question whether it was an attempt to regain past Muslim glory, force some political concessions from the Hindu majority or a virtual declaration of a one-way flight towards independence, irrespective of the costs.
The motives of the founding leaders from the Muslim League are also rarely questioned. They were almost all from the landed gentry, with feudal mindsets, mostly beholden to the British for their station in life. Did the Muslim leadership work up some grand design to reduce the Hindus from a majority in undivided India to a minority in real terms? Did they act out of patriotic instinct and genuine fear of Hindu domination or from a limitless Muslim political appetite to demand Pakistan? Did they genuinely see the demand for Pakistan benefiting Muslims and Islam?
We know that the Lahore Resolution became the ideological justification and framework for the creation of Pakistan. Based on the Two Nation Theory, it meant that the Muslims of united India, defined by their distinct religious identity and culture, represented a separate nation in need of a separate homeland. Away from a sense of trepidation and apprehension of Hindu domination, it provided the foundation for a homogenous Muslim nation state, increasingly of a distinct brand and zeal. Gradually, the kind of Islam in South Asia that propagated humanity, tolerance, peace and love was buried under nationalistic fervour. Moreover, as predicted, the masses in the Punjabi heartland fully succumbed to the propaganda in favour of pan-Islamism.
The post-independence Muslim leadership was more concerned about protecting its privileges and had little interest in building an inclusive, progressive society. After Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, the leadership lost its credibility and charisma, and mostly regressed into the visionless, dogmatic and ordinary. The destructive desire to see more Islam in the public domain took precedence over transformative decisions on the abolition of feudalism and land reform. The dominant elite adopted a self-serving policy for the use of state resources and patronage. As an alternative to establishing a democratic political order that created a sense of political participation and socioeconomic justice among the diverse populace, the authoritarian elite established a highly elitist model that served the interests of the ascendant political and bureaucratic-military elite. Instead of establishing a just society, the new state pursued policies that exacerbated and entrenched social, class and ethnic divisions. The neglect of the issues of human and societal development that increased poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment and socioeconomic deprivation haunt Pakistan now.
And Pakistan entered into unequal foreign alliances to overcome its deep-seated insecurities and to help fund the national security state. The acquisition of weapon systems, warplanes, missiles, tanks and nuclear capability took precedence over health, education and welfare. After 1971, with the secession of East Pakistan, Pakistan finally evolved into an exclusive Muslim national security state ruled and protected by its martial races. Despite its huge defence capability, fear and insecurity plagues the state in the present day. The political system has always lived on borrowed time under the careful eye of the top military brass.
The founding fathers could hardly have foreseen the Pakistan of today; a dysfunctional country mired in chaos, civil conflict and external diktat, a breeding ground for jihadi fundamentalism and extremism, heavily dependent on its domineering armed forces for its very survival. The religious conflict that continues to tear Pakistan apart nowadays is rooted in the pre-independence projection of Islam as an instrument of political power. It is a major consequence of looking at essentially political disputes through the religious prism.
It is worth noting that whilst laying down the political demands of the Muslims of India, the Lahore Resolution emphasised, with equal passion, the provision of “adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards” for the “protection of the religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests” of minorities. The resolution envisaged a Pakistan not solely as a homeland for Muslims, but as a state where pluralist ideologies and beliefs could survive and flourish, amidst tolerance and protection. The revival of this dream is required if Pakistan is to become a modern, progressive democratic state and make the celebrations of national days meaningful for all Pakistanis.

The writer can be reached at shgcci@gmail.com