Daily Times

On March 23, 2014, I happened to be at the Pak Tea House. Around three o’clock in the afternoon a procession arrived from the direction of Gol Bagh. I learnt that it had originated at the Minar-e-Pakistan where 74 years ago, on the same day, the demand for separate Muslim states/state had been made. However, it was not the ruling Muslim League or any other mainstream party leading it. It was the Jamaat-ud-Dawa of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, ostensibly a charity organisation. The message conveyed was very clear: any suggestion of India and Pakistan becoming good neighbours and friends was unacceptable. Placards had been mounted on trees and other places along the Mall up to the Canal Bank, which underlined the civilisational clash between India and Pakistan, between Hinduism and Islam, between Hindus and Muslims.

As I have argued in this series, and in the past as well, one cannot derive a linear vision of Pakistan from the ideas of Iqbal and Jinnah. Many different and contradictory visions can be culled out of their statements and writings. Iqbal died before Pakistan came into being. The nearest we can come to understanding his idea of spiritual democracy is what his son Dr Javed Iqbal has to say about Pakistani nationalism: “Muslims do not have a notion of Pakistan as the ‘fatherland’ or ‘motherland’. They do not believe in worshipping the geographical features of a country called Pakistan. They are not prepared to lay down their lives merely for Pakistan’s dust, trees, deserts, mountains or rivers. This form of patriotism, according to them, is idolatrous. But in their native soil Muslims are ready and willing to lay down their lives for the religio-cultural principles on which the state of Pakistan is founded” (Ideology of Pakistan).

Rhetoric apart, this means that only a Muslim Pakistani can be a genuine Pakistani patriot and his patriotism flows out of “religio-cultural principles”. By the same logic, a non-Muslim Pakistani cannot be part of such patriotism nor can his patriotism based on his love for the “dust, trees, deserts, mountains or rivers” of Pakistan have much value. Such a premise inevitably and unavoidably opens the notorious Pandora’s Box: who is a Muslim? Depending on the answer, the patriotism to be officially patronised can be determined.

From March 1940 onwards, Mohammad Ali Jinnah followed the same logic but, on August 11, 1947 he discarded it in favour of inclusive citizenship and patriotism deriving from the fact of belonging to the country with its peculiar dust, trees, deserts, mountains, rivers, streets and mohallas (localities), and with religion becoming a matter of private belief. As Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah personally attended mass on Christmas Day at the main Catholic Church in Karachi. He appointed a Hindu Dalit leader, Jogindernath Mandal, as the law minister and Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, a leading Ahmedi, as foreign minister. He forcefully denounced attacks on Hindus in Karachi in early 1948, which nevertheless resulted in their exodus to India. All this is testimony to the fact that, once in the saddle, he wanted to adhere to the civilised norms of legitimate government. These were the hallmarks of a statesman.

I have read somewhere that he sent a message to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urging him not to let his Malabar Hill bungalow be placed under evacuee property because it was his favourite house and he wanted to spend time in Mumbai after retirement. Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan told me that, around 1944, when she met Jinnah in Lahore, he said to her, “Young lady, I have heard that you are not supportive of the idea of Pakistan. Why?” She replied, “Mr Jinnah, you want to divide people on the basis of religion and that I consider wrong.” Jinnah then replied, “Do not worry. We will freely visit India and they will be free to do the same.”

One can also argue that by accepting the May 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan, Jinnah did climb down from his demand for a separate Muslim state. However, the Congress leadership decided that it could not accept an arrangement in which the Centre would be weak and the provinces and groups could opt out of the union after intervals of 10 years. Additionally, the future of the princely states was left ambiguous. Moreover, the Sikhs of Punjab were totally opposed to being included in Pakistan. The two-nation theory had given birth to the three-nation theory with the Sikhs claiming to be the third nation.

The 1945-46 election campaign generated suspicion, fear and angst among the minorities in the Muslim-majority provinces. At the 1945 Simla Conference, Jinnah was adamant not to let any other party nominate Muslims to the conference. Not only was Abdul Kalam Azad rejected but also Sir Khizr Hayat Khan Tiwana of the Punjab Unionist Party. In such an atmosphere it is not surprising that the Cabinet Mission Plan was a non-starter. In my heart of hearts I do think sometimes that the Congress leadership would have dared to take up the challenge. In one sense, Jinnah outwitted them by accepting the Cabinet Mission Plan. The role primarily of the Muslim League for demanding the division of India on the basis of religion, of the British who at the last moment opted for it and indeed of the Congress too must be included in any fair and dispassionate apportioning of blame for the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab.

Now, we have three separate, independent and sovereign states that were once part of the British Indian Empire. At the present historical juncture there is no desire in any of them to merge. Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi national identities are a fact. We have to learn to move on. The real task and challenge for us in Pakistan is whether Pakistan will be a modern, progressive Muslim state or a fortress of Islam. The struggle for ideological hegemony in Pakistan is not between secularists and Islamists — it is between Muslim modernists and Islamists. We can only hope the former win the battle for sanity and decency in Pakistan and the hazards of religious faith be kept as far as possible only to the symbolic and not substantive level.

(Concluded)

The writer is a visiting professor, LUMS, Pakistan, professor emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University, and honorary senior fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Latest publications: Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Book award at the Karachi Literature Festival: The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, Oxford, 2012; and Pakistan: The Garrison State, Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Oxford, 2013. He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com