Jinnah’s Pakistan

Yaqoob Khan Bangash
Published: March 18, 2013

Over the past few days, I have regularly heard the refrain “This is not Jinnah’s Pakistan”. Even the people protesting the events at Badami Bagh, Lahore, carried banners yearning for “Jinnah’s Pakistan”. A few months ago, the MQM was also aiming to hold a referendum, asking people if they wanted the “Taliban’s Pakistan”, or “Jinnah’s Pakistan”. Often, people with a liberal bent in Pakistan quote Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech and want Pakistan to be modelled on the vision presented in it. But let me tell you the bitter truth: this is Jinnah’s Pakistan!

Why? First, simply because except for the lone August 11 speech, there is nothing much in Jinnah’s utterances, which points towards a secular or even mildly religious state. The August 11, 1947 speech was a rare, only once presented, vision. No wonder then that the Government of Pakistan, through secretary general Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, initially censored the rather liberal parts of the speech. Certainly, this change of mind on Jinnah’s part was a shock for many in the Muslim League, especially since here was a person who, not so long ago, had promised Islamic rule! In his address to the Muslims of India on Eid in 1945, for example, Jinnah had noted: “Islam is not merely confined to the spiritual tenets and doctrines or rituals and ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collective[ly] and individually”. Many such speeches can be quoted, which clearly indicated that Jinnah had promised a country based on Islamic principles — rather than secular ones — to the people. No surprise then that Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar pointed out in the debate over the Objectives Resolution in March 1949 that while Jinnah had made some promises to the minorities, he had also made some promises to the majority, and the introduction of an Islamic state was one of them. The debate over an Islamic system still continues.

Secondly, Jinnah was quite clear that the Muslims of India were one compact community and that their sole representative was the Muslim League. Therefore, any dissension from the Muslim League mantle meant that non-Muslim League Muslims could not even call themselves Muslims, at least politically. The best example of this closed door policy was when Jinnah insisted that the Congress could not include a Muslim member in its list of ministers (even though Maulana Azad was its president) since only the Muslim League had the right to nominate Muslims to the interim government in 1946. Thus, one of the great Muslim scholars of the 20th century, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, (and others) were prevented from joining the government. With such a control over who is a “real” Muslim (though primarily political at this juncture), it was not inconceivable that such notions would continue after independence and soon permeate the religious realm — and this is exactly what has happened.

Thirdly, Jinnah himself gave the example of undemocratic government. Not only did Jinnah preside over cabinet meetings (remember Pervez Musharraf?), one of his first acts after independence was to dismiss the popularly-elected government of Dr Khan Sahib in the then-NWFP on August 22, 1947. While it was a foregone conclusion that a League ministry would soon take over in the province, the manner in which the dismissal was done created precedence. Jinnah did not wait for the assembly itself to bring a motion of no confidence against the premier and nor did he call for new elections, both of which would have been clearly democratic and would have certainly brought in a Muslim League government. Instead, he simply got the Congress ministry dismissed and a Muslim League ministry installed — this procedural change was very significant at this early stage and set an example. Jinnah was also, extraordinarily, a minister in his own government, setting a clear precedence for future heads of state (followed by Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq and Musharraf) to be very comfortable being heads of state and ministers at the same time.

Therefore, Jinnah’s Pakistan is an Islamic state, which defines who a Muslim is, excludes those Muslims it does not like and is not very democratic. Imagining it in any other way is living in a dreamland and refusing to accept the reality. However, this does not mean that Pakistan is unworkable. Pakistan might be saddled with issues of the past, but surely we can accept and solve them, if we want.

Jinnah’s Pakistan: a rebuttal
By Yasser Latif Hamdani

Mr Yaqoob Khan Bangash’s article “Jinnah’s Pakistan” (March 19) was historically inaccurate and counterfactual. There were three basic claims that Mr Bangash put up, which need to be reviewed in detail.
One of Mr Bangash’s assertions was that since Jinnah claimed that the Muslim League was the sole representative of the Muslims in the 1940s, he was declaring Muslims outside of it non-Muslim. This is untrue. On the contrary, it was Jinnah who was called ‘Kafir-e-Azam’ or the great infidel by Muslims outside the Muslim League. Jinnah’s Muslim League was a big tent political organisation of Muslims, which had in its fold Shias, Sunnis, Ahmadis, Mahdavis and Ismailis. The question of defining a Muslim did not arise.
Outside the League’s fold, stood parties such as the Majlis-e-Ahrar, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and Jamaat-e-Islami; all organisations which have made takfir an exact science. The first two were backed by the Congress Party and it was the Majlis-e-Ahrar — led by anti-Pakistan Muslims, like Syed Ataullah Shah Bukhari and Agha Shorish Kashmiri — that led the movement against Ahmadis after Partition. To the credit of Muslim League’s Khawaja Nazimuddin, the government refused to declare Ahmadis non-Muslim in 1953. In 1974, it was the PPP which surrendered the state and sanity to the same forces who had opposed Jinnah tooth and nail.
Jinnah’s claim that the Muslim League was the sole authoritative representative of Muslims came after he managed to bring the powerful premiers of Punjab and Bengal behind the Muslim League in 1938. In 1946, it was cemented by the elections. His claim was a political one; i.e., the Muslim League, by virtue of its overwhelming majority on Muslim seats, represents the Muslims of India. Gandhi had accepted this and signed a statement to this effect. It had nothing to do with saying that those outside the League were not Muslim and there is nothing to that effect from Jinnah or anyone else in the League. The claim was simply that on an all-India level, it was the League that could speak for Muslims.
Another of Mr Bangash’s claims is that Jinnah’s August 11 speech is a one-off speech or an aberration. This is also completely untrue. Jinnah’s political career, spanning four decades, is a testament to his commitment to religious freedom, progressive causes, civil liberties and equality. Even during the Pakistan Movement, Jinnah made it absolutely clear that Pakistan, if formed, would not discriminate on the basis of faith. There are a multitude of speeches and statements that can be quoted in this regard, including Jinnah’s famous interview on May 21, 1947 or his 30-odd statements to this effect, as governor general, where he explained in clear terms that the government of the new state would be popular and inclusive and would treat all its citizens, whatever their faith, equally and without distinction. In any event, Jinnah’s clear policy statements trump any ambiguous Eid message he would have given long before Pakistan was a reality. In any event, Dr Ayesha Jalal has shown consistently and conclusively that the Pakistan demand was a push for power-sharing between communities in a divided society.
The third claim made by Mr Bangash is about Jinnah’s actions vis-a-vis then-NWFP (present-day Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa), which are again off base. The reason why the Khan Sahib ministry had to be sent packing was because it lost the majority in the assembly and was effectively a minority government. Dr Khan Sahib became the premier after the 1946 election on the basis of 30 members in a house of 50. Out of these 30 members, 12 were Hindu MLAs. Eleven of these 12 Hindu members moved to India at the time of independence. Two others belonged to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, an ally of the Congress. The facts were that on August 14,1947, Dr Khan Sahib had only 18 members in a house of 39. On August 22, 1947, Dr Khan Sahib was left with only 16 members in a House of 39. Congress, Jinnah and Mountbatten had agreed on August 1, 1947 that Dr Khan Sahib would resign but he refused to do so. Jinnah had given up Section 93 voluntarily. It was Section 51(5) that was used to invite a new member to form the government. The new ministry got a vote of confidence by the budget session. So, constitutionally and morally, this was an in-house change.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21st, 2013.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

Jinnah’s Pakistan

Yaqoob Khan Bangash
Published: March 25, 2013

Over the last few days, several people have made attempts at a ‘rebuttal’ of my arguments last week. While it is to be appreciated that so many people got excited by it, one must remember that this is an opinion piece and not an academic journal article. Hence, there are obvious space and other constraints. That said, most ‘rebuttal’ attempts were made by part-time historians and sycophants of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which made the discussion an amateur and childish screaming match, rather than a sensible conversation. Only if everyone in Pakistan did not think that they had the ‘right’ version of history and that everyone else was mad, Pakistan would be a much saner country. Just imagine, if everyone begins to think that they are qualified to pronounce about medicine and engineering, for example — what havoc that would create! Somehow, however, everyone can become an unbending, arrogant and closed-minded arbitrar of historical ‘truth.’ This is a discussion and we all are entitled to hold opinions — even who disagree with me — with proper demeanour.

Due to space constraints, let me further explain only one argument I made last week. I never said that Jinnah was an Islamist. All I said was that Jinnah promised Islamic rule to the majority and a rather more secular rule to the minorities — hence, the confusion in Pakistan. Here it would be erroneous to consider that the choice is only between a theocracy and a secular state. While Jinnah was clearly against a theocratic state (rule by mullah’s), he did promise a rather undefined ‘Islamic state’. To clarify this further, presently, only Iran is clearly a theocratic state (where the clergy rules), while the Gulf States are religious states. Now, anyone claiming that just because the clergy do not rule in the Gulf States, they are, therefore, secular states would indeed be ridiculous.

With that clarified, let me also clearly state that Jinnah largely alluded to a secular kind of state, while speaking to mainly non-Muslim audiences. People often quote Jinnah’s speeches to Parsis, Hindus, the people of the United States, or Australia etc to prove their point of a secular Jinnah, but that is exactly my point! He said these ‘liberal’ things to non-Muslim audiences! No wonder then that all the stalwarts of the Muslims League, Liaquat Ali Khan included, argued that Jinnah wanted a religious (not theocratic) state. Introducing the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, which clearly put Pakistan in the religious state ambit, Liaquat noted: “I would like to remind the House that the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam, gave expression to feelings on this matter on many an occasion, and his views were endorsed by the nation in unmistakable terms. Pakistan was founded because the Muslims of this subcontinent wanted to build-up their lives in accordance with the traditions and teachings of Islam…”. Similarly, Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar noted in the same debate: “Pakistan was demanded with a particular ideology, for a particular purpose and this Resolution… is just in accordance with those solemn pledges which the Quaid-e-Azam gave…”. I can go on and note the views of almost every Muslim member of the Constituent Assembly, who argued that the Objectives Resolution was in accordance with the will of Jinnah and that it was not possible to divorce religion from politics. Now, it is possible that all these people were deluded and that Jinnah wanted something else. If this is true, then it is rather remarkable that people so close to Jinnah, like Liaquat and Nishtar, did not understand him. Why were Jinnah’s ideas unclear to his close associates when they seem to be so patent to the modern-day so-called liberals in Pakistan? Or is it that the liberals of today are actually deluded?

These arguments aside, I want to note that on a level it is rather futile to get so caught up in the views of a man long dead. After all, hardly anyone in India wants to create a Gandhi’s India (which would be rather odd) or Nehru’s India (which would be a mild version of the erstwhile USSR). As a matter of fact, the Congress itself dismantled Nehru’s India and the party, which had roots in the organisations of which Nathuram Vinayak Gods, the killer of Gandhi, was a member, governed India for a full-term. Therefore, while trying to understand the past, we must move on and work on building a Pakistan, which is not of someone long dead, but of the 180 million living citizens of Pakistan.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/526209/jinnahs-pakistan-3/

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