Daily Times

25th December 1876 was the day when Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born. This was a great and lucky day for the Muslims of the subcontinent, since Mr. Jinnah was destined to become agreat leader, to be called Quaid-e-Azam,who was to lead the Muslims’ struggle to carve out a Muslim state from India, namely Pakistan,based on two nation theory as the Muslims in India were highly oppressed ethnicity. Hence, Pakistan was formed on 14 August 1947 and Quaid-e-Azam is called the founder of Pakistan.

However, as a new state, Pakistan was not lucky enough to enjoy the leadership of the Quaid-e-Azam for long, as being seriously ill since long, he left this world on 11 September 1948. Since Quaid-e-Azam knew that he may not live longer, he gave his vision of how Pakistan should be made a great state, in a series of speeches delivered at various forums in Pakistan, as a Governor General, from 14 August 1947 to 11 September 1948. In this article, Quaid-e-Azam’s vision of Pakistan (salient points),and our shortcomings in achieving that are discussed.

As part of his vision, Quaid-e-Azam said, “The first duty of the state is to maintain law and order, to protect the life, property and religious beliefs of its people. The biggest curses of bribery, corruption, black-marketing, nepotism and jobbery, inherited from India,should be put down with an iron hand.To make Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should concentrate on the well-being of its people, especially the poor masses.As citizens of Pakistan, we have equal rights, privileges, and obligations, irrespective of colour, creed,cast and religion.You are free, you are free to go to your temples, to mosques or to any other place of worship in Pakistan. We should always be guided by the principles of justice and the fairplay without any partiality or favouritism”.

About foreign and defence policies,the Quaid said, “We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial and friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large. The weak and the defenceless, in this imperfect world, invite aggression from others. The best way in which we can serve the cause of peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think that we are weak and, therefore, they can bully or attack us. That temptation can only be removed if we make ourselves so strong that nobody dares entertain any aggressive designs against us”.

Mr. Jinnah stated, “I am sure that the Constitution of Pakistan will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principles of Muslim democracy. Our salvation lies in following the golden rules of conduct set for us by the Prophet of Islam.The Quran is the general code for the Muslims, a religious, social, civil, commercial, military, judicial, criminal and penal code.

Quaid-e-Azam stated, “The State bank of Pakistan should evolve an economic system compatible with Islamic ideas of social and economic life.The Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating a happy and contended society. With unity, faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve. Pakistan must get rid of the evil of provincialism.We should be proud to be known as Pakistanis and nothing else.

The above stated vision of Quaid-e-Azam has been only partially realized. While in the defence field, the country is quite capable of defending its integrity against any aggression, in the foreign policy areaPakistan is still struggling to establish a long lasting peace with its neighbours.

Although the constitution is there, but, our democratic system needs time to improve as it lacks quality leadership. Pakistan’s national cohesion is also weak in light of the increasing wave of provincialism, sectarianism and crime.At times, minorities’rights are detested by some groups.

The nation, needs to adopt the habit of working with fiscal discipline and selfless devotion to duty. Bribery, corruption, black-marketing and nepotism, are there as a challenge. The situation of law and order, and justice system in Pakistan also needs further improvement

Pakistan’s economy is still being guided by the Western economic system and we have failed in evolving our own economic system, akin to the Islamic values. Moreover, Pakistan’s economy has been poorly handled, except in the Ayub Khan era of the 1960s, because of which, currently it is under distress.

The nation, needs to adopt the habit of working with fiscal discipline and selfless devotion to duty. Bribery, corruption, black-marketing and nepotism, are there as a challenge. The situation of law and order,and justice system in Pakistan also needs further improvement.

In view of the above discussion, it can be concluded that we are yet far away from realizing the Quaid’s vision for Pakistan and Pakistan can only progress and become a great country as was desired by the Quaid if his vision of Pakistan is given the status of the national goals to be achieved in a decided time frame.

[The writer is an ex-Army Colonel, a former Research Fellow of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), and Senior Research Fellow, Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad]

Published in Daily Times, December 24^th 2018.