Daily Times

Pakistan is a legal nation state, one of the two successor states to erstwhile British India and duly recognised by all countries of the world. A legal nation state does not need to construct ideological frontiers, which, for the most part, are a fallacy and not based on anything concrete.

A TV discussion recently pit two firebrand anchors of the right, Mr Kamran Shahid and Mr Orya Maqbool Jaan, against my old friend Raza Rumi, who tried in vain to reason with them. The basic point that Mr Kamran Shahid and Mr Orya Maqbool Jaan insisted on was that India was an enemy of the ideological heritage of Pakistan and therefore all connection with India must be severed. Mr Orya Maqbool Jaan went so far as to state that if we were going to be friends, there was no need to draw a line. In other words, Mr Orya Maqbool Jaan was seconding the Indian nationalist narrative that Pakistan was founded on hate.

Ironically, however, this view cuts against the grain of the rationale for Pakistan that was given by its founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who repeatedly described Pakistan as a Hindu-Muslim settlement and necessary for peace, tranquillity and harmony for all people in the subcontinent. Far from imagining India as an ideological enemy, Jinnah spoke of a South Asian Monroe Doctrine, which would allow India and Pakistan to stand together against external threats. At least till December 1946, Jinnah was still pleading for a judicial commission to resolve disputes between Congress and the League to revive the Cabinet Mission Plan. Jinnah always had a sense of South Asian unity above the successor states. After Pakistan was created, Jinnah chose a Hindu, Jagannath Azad, to write Pakistan’s first national anthem, indicating the inclusive and pluralistic nature of the new state.

At the very least, he was not concerned about Pakistan’s ideological frontiers when he agreed to Gandhi spending his last days in Pakistan. Gandhi would have had he not been so tragically assassinated. Incidentally, 64 years to this day, Jinnah sent Gandhi’s son a message of condolence describing his loss to be the “loss of humanity”. For three days, Radio Pakistan’s programming was completely dedicated to the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi. Yet, there was not even a whimper of protest from the founding fathers about the invasion of ideological frontiers. Indeed, Pakistan’s flag flew half-mast for three days in mourning.

The great irony of this ideological debate is that the self-styled champions of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers are those who were the staunchest opponents of the creation of Pakistan. One need not remind the reader that Maulana Maududi proudly described the idea of Pakistan as “Na-Pakistan” and slandered the Quaid-e-Azam many times in public. Maulana Mufti Mahmud, the father of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, declared in 1971, “Thank God we were not part of the sin of making Pakistan.” Yet another self-proclaimed champion of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers was Agha Shorish Kashmiri, who belonged to the Majlis-e-Ahrar, which opposed the creation of Pakistan tooth and nail and after partition created the whole anti-Ahmeddiya sentiment to destabilise Pakistan. Agha Shorish Kashmiri even invented an interview with Maulana Azad to discredit the idea of Pakistan. This, however, did not stop him from claiming all sorts of hogwash in the name of ideological frontiers.

It may be remembered that neither Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah nor any of his associates committed the state to any official ideology. No resolution, be it a Muslim League working committee resolution or a constituent assembly resolution, was ever passed along these lines. A few attempts were made but were vetoed by Quaid-e-Azam himself. To an enthusiastic Leaguer proclaiming “Pakistan ka matlab kiya” (what does Pakistan mean?), Jinnah was forthright in declaring that no such resolution was ever passed by the Muslim League.

The term ‘ideology of Pakistan’ was first introduced officially by General Sher Ali Pataudi during Yahya Khan’s rule. General Pataudi was an exceptionally rigid and narrow-minded officer by all accounts. His introduction of the ideology of Pakistan was to take care of anti-state Bengali dissidents. Ironically, the leading victim of this manufactured ideology of Pakistan was Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who had risen from the ranks of the Pakistan Movement and the Direct Action Day protest of August 16, 1946. Soon afterwards, the so-called ideology was used to butcher Bengalis, who had contributed more than anyone else to the creation of Pakistan. These days it is used against the minorities of Pakistan and its liberals.

Hamza Alavi once described secularists and liberals to be the true inheritors of Pakistan’s real ideology. Unfortunately, in the Pakistan we live in today, Kamran Shahids and Orya Jaan Maqbools have taken to calling these true inheritors of Pakistan’s real ideology “liberal fascists”. I suppose they are fascists because they advocate a civilised democratic polity where everyone would have equal rights. The word absurd feels so hollow when describing the state of affairs in Pakistan.

The writer is a lawyer. He also blogs at http://pakteahouse.net and can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com