Daily Times

We have lived long in dreams and shadows. It is time we stopped living in the penumbra and embrace realism in our politics, economics and foreign policy. The cornerstone of Marxist dialectical analysis is the realisation that decisions, choices and politics of an individual are driven by social and material conditions with which the individual interacts. This is true of nation states as well. Ideologues have no place in the making of public policy, which should be left to hard-boiled rationalists who are not bound by the dogma of faith or ideology.

Ideological distortion of history is not the exclusive preserve of our right-wing Islamist bigots who have been lying about history all these years. Take for example the recent article by Dr Lal Khan on Pakistan’s foreign policy (‘Subservience of Pakistan’s foreign policy’, Daily Times, July 24, 2011).

The American Ambassador in Delhi met all political leaders during 1946-1947. Jinnah was the only leader he met infrequently because unlike Nehru and Gandhi, Jinnah refused to visit the American Embassy for talks. The two visits of the American diplomats to Jinnah’s 10 Aurangzeb Road House in New Delhi were aimed at convincing him that the partition of India was a folly. There is absolutely no record of any interference by the Americans in the Muslim League’s affairs or Pakistan’s affairs “even before the departure of the British Raj”.

Dr Lal Khan makes another stirring yet completely inaccurate claim when he introduces to the reader the “recent revelations” regarding the Churchill-Jinnah correspondence. That Churchill allied himself to Jinnah in late 1946 is no recent revelation. There was nothing ‘secret’ about the relationship even though at times letters were addressed to Churchill’s secretary. However, Jinnah spent an entire day at Churchill’s country estate on December 10, 1946, in full public knowledge. Again the correspondence does not reveal any particular influence on Jinnah. In fact, Jinnah’s letters to Churchill are blunt and at times downright rude. Consider for example his letter in August 1946 where he writes: “I am rather surprised to read paragraph 3 of your letter. It shows that even you have not got a full grasp on the situation in India and it seems that your press is not helpful in this direction while the Congress propaganda misrepresentation is so widely spread and their press powerfully organised by Congress’ capitalist patrons.” Churchill was not the only British politician Jinnah was in touch with. Morley, Montage, Ramsay MacDonald, etc, were all major British politicians Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru interacted with. Perhaps Dr Lal Khan can indicate what it is in the “recent revelations” of the Jinnah-Churchill correspondence that leads him to believe that reactionary imperialists were influencing Jinnah’s policy.

Dr Lal Khan’s article is misconceived and plays on the ghairat (honour) narrative even though admittedly his reasons are different. Unfortunately, of all the various ideological narratives, it is the Trotskyites who mirror most closely the Islamist narrative on foreign affairs and policy. The difference of course is the prescription. Instead of the great Khilafah (caliphate) delusion, Lal Khan speaks of the grand socialist revolution as a panacea of all ills of society, foreign policy and culture. Inconvenient facts are glossed over. Zulfikar Bhutto’s repeated attempts to convince the Americans that he was a better American ally than the Shah of Iran, for example, is never mentioned. It is forgotten that Bhutto allowed the House of Saud to directly influence Pakistan’s socio-political fabric. The anti-Ahmadiyya constitutional amendment was a part of this influence.

The problem is that words like ‘subservient’, ‘opportunist’, ‘imperialist’, ‘anti-imperialist’, etc, have no place in determination of foreign affairs, which should be based on self-interest and not ideology. There is absolutely no difference between people who use the emotive appeal of religion in a sphere entirely distinct from religion to those who see foreign policy as an instrument of ideological delusions that they might possess. Pakistan-US and Pakistan-China ties have nothing to do with Pakistan’s love for imperialism, or Maoism or Confucianism.

Pakistan must act in its self-interest and this self-interest should be determined by a responsible civilian government elected by popular will — but a government that puts Pakistan before ideology of any kind.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore. He is also a regular contributor to the Indian law website http://mylaw.net and blogs on http//globallegalforum.blogspot.com and http://pakteahouse.net. He can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com