Daily Times

Pakistan as a country has often suffered because it has been said that it has never been a nation. The underlying assumption is that it was the flawed idea of Muslim nationalism based on religion that led to the creation of Pakistan. This is an incorrect understanding of history. What follows is neither the official Pakistan Studies’ account which emphasizes religion nor the Indian Nationalist point of view which refuses to recognise the merits in the case for Pakistan. The only major Indian leader who truly appreciated the case for Pakistan at least to the extent of understanding it on an intellectual plane was Dr. B R Ambedkar. His book “Pakistan or Partition of India” which is not necessarily a sympathetic account to either side should be compulsory reading for all Pakistanis and Indians.

First of all the necessity of claiming British India’s Muslims as a nation instead of a minority was necessitated by the political need of getting Muslims a share in governance of India. It was a consociational counterpoise to what was a very real fear of Hindu majoritarianism. British India was always a subcontinent inhabited by many elements brought together into one political unity through the fiat of British rule. The word India comes from Indus (which flows entirely in Pakistan) and India was a general name that dates back to Greek times in 5th Century BC. Like Greece, primordial India was a collection of kingdoms and states not under one rule. Therefore the Muslim leadership felt that by positing the idea of independent and autonomous regions within the Indian milieu, they were not destroying any organic unity but reconstituting India into federations that could come together in a confederation- the necessity being that democracy without safeguards would have meant Hindu majority rule over Muslim minority. To make this point the term nation was adopted instead of community. That Muslims had been accepted as a separate entity dates back to the Minto-Morley reforms and was endorsed by the Congress in 1916. The very fact that Jinnah was called the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity by leading Hindus implicitly recognised Hindus and Muslims as two major entities.

The problem with blood and soil nationalism is that it is etched in stone because it is inherently racist and xenophobic, in addition to being primordial and tribal

Secondly it was not as simple as suggesting that Muslims were a separate nation by religion alone. The idea of Muslim nationalism was based on culture, history, language, script, names and antagonistic heroes and villains. This meant that accordingly Muslims were not just a nation with respect to Hindus but also with respect to Muslims beyond India. Therefore the claim was never that all Muslims everywhere are a nation. Key element of this nationalism was the particular Persianate culture of Indo-Muslim experience in the subcontinent distinct even from the Iranian culture. This was the nationalism of the mind, no less valid than any linguistic nationalism, though inherent within the idea of Muslim Nationalism was a specific linguistic nationalism based on Urdu. This Muslim Nationalism was wholly consistent with the idea of Jahangir’s famous wine cup in so much as it did not reject what was on the face of it an affront to the strictures of Islamic jurisprudence. Within this idea of an imagined community were included those sections of Muslim society – like the Khojas and the like- who even had a personal law that was at odds with Muslim personal law. Indeed the law applicable to Jinnah’s own estate was Hindu personal law and not Muslim personal law. Therefore this idea of Muslim nationalism cast a wide net. Most importantly though it was a nationalism of the mind not based in blood and soil. Therefore it was not etched in stone. The idea of Muslim Nationalism thus could shift to an even more inclusive nationalism such as the idea of a Pakistani nationalism encompassing all Pakistanis regardless of religion caste or creed. This marks it different from the idea of Zionism and the Hindu Nationalism. Zionism is based on blood and Jewish ancestry in addition to culture language etc. Indeed Hebrew was all but a dead language before Israel brought it back. Hindu Nationalism is tied to the land of India. It is not a religious nationalism simpliciter and its exclusivism stems from the fact that it views with suspicion Muslims and Christians as outsiders with their locus of worship outside India. So in that sense neither Hindu Nationalism nor Zionism break with the traditional blood and soil nationalism.

The problem with blood and soil nationalism is that it is etched in stone because it is inherently racist and xenophobic, in addition to being primordial and tribal. I do not mean this in a religious sense at all but we see this in the competing blood based race based nationalisms within Pakistan. It is strangely out of place in the modern world where the race boundaries are breaking down quickly and consistently. In comparison the intellectual Muslim Nationalism that led to the creation of Pakistan lost its own rationale once Pakistan was created. Those who say that the so called Two Nation Theory was buried in the Bay of Bengal in 1971 are off the mark. That was the breakdown of the power sharing arrangement between East and West. The idea of Muslim Nationalism became defunct at independence in 1947. What replaced it was the idea of a Pakistani nation and Pakistani citizenship. Hence Jinnah’s 11 August speech which said that in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims in a political sense as citizens of one state. While Pakistan has been troubled by the question of religion in the constitution, the idea of a Pakistani includes all citizens of Pakistan and the Citizenship Act of 1951 makes no distinction between any person on the basis of faith. Pakistan might be an Islamic Republic but the idea of being a Pakistani is entirely secular and it too is the nationalism of the mind that comes from the idea of citizenship.

The writer is an Advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan