The Ideology of Pakistan
Osman Khan
“Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.” This is how the American Professor Stanley Wolpert eulogized Jinnah’s while writing his biography. He had also written biographies of Gandhi and Nehru but his tributes to Jinnah surpasses all leaders of the freedom movement. Creation of Pakistan was an epochal event that reflected resolve of the Quaid and his indomitable team of steadfast political workers.
The Hindus had fully resisted the partition of India and the hard liners considered it to be the sacrilege to ‘Mother India’. Jinnah, who always thought the Hindus and Muslims could co-exist, soon realized that the former wanted to get the upper hand in whatever the official governance set up would form in India. Anti-Muslim sentiments were ran high in the Indian polity as the Hindu hardliners thought that it was time that the Muslims are put through receiving end to avenge over hundred years of their subjugation at the hands of the Mughal and other Muslim rulers in India. As the Hindus were in majority and economically more powerful than the Muslims, the obvious would have been the subjugation of Muslims at the hands of Hindus once the British quit the sub-continent after transfer of power. The only salvation for Indian Muslims lay in a separate home land for them.
The basic concept underlying the need for a separate homeland for Muslims in India was explained by him in his presidential address. He said, “It has always been taken for granted mistakenly that the Musalmans are a minority. The Musalmans are not a minority. The Musalmans are a nation by definition…..What the unitary government of India for 150 years,….has failed to achieve cannot be realized by imposition of a central federal government …..except by means of Armed Forces. The problem in India is not of an inter-communal character but manifestly, of an international one and it must be treated as such. Hindus and Muslims belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions and yoking together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.”
This was Jinnah’s exposition of the famous two nation theory which sparked so much controversial debate. Incidentally, the Hindu Mahasaba President V D Savarkar is on record to have referred Hindus and Muslims as two separate nations living in India. He had also commanded all the Muslims to leave ‘Bharat’ to pave the way for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra. Similarly, Nirad S. Choudhry, in his autobiography had written, “The so called two nation theory was formulated long before Mr. Jinnah or the Muslim league: in truth, it was not a theory at all: it was a fact of history.” Lord Linlithgow, the chairperson of the Joint Committee of British Parliament on Indian Constitutional reforms had too stated in 1934: Hindu and Muslims represent two distinct and separate civilizations. According to a book titled “Freedom at Midnight’ written by Dominique Lapierra and Larry Collins, the authors detail that Savarkar’s doctrine was Hindutva, the doctrine of Hindu racial supremacy, and his dream was to rebuild a great Hindu empire. He hated Muslims to the core. There was no place for Muslims in the Hindu society, he had envisioned.
For Quaid-e-Azam, the Two Nation Theory was not an ideological concept but the restatement of the arguments needed to ensure national status for Muslims in a multinational independent India. He was an shrewd lawyer who changed the status of a minority in India to that of a nation and not for separation of Islam from India as is alleged by his detractors. These detractors, to sow the seeds of confusion in our polity, propagate a philosophy wherein, according to them, Muslims could have thrived along with Hindus without claiming the need for separate homeland. They forget various instances where Muslims have not been allowed to live in Hindu dominated areas. The famous Indian poet Javed Akhtar and equally famous his actress wife Shabana Azmi were not allowed to even purchase a flat in Mumbai for the reason that they are Muslims. Then how come an average Muslim could be accommodated if this is the treatment meted out to the famous Muslim personalities of India who have contributed so much to the Indian film industry.
Pakistan still confronts Indian aspersions against its very existence and integrity. It leaves no stone unturned to deny Pakistan chances to prosper and is engaged in fanning extremism and terrorism in Pakistan through Afghan soil. Pakistan has always been a target of Indian intrigues as India exploits political instability, economic meltdown and spill over of US war in Afghanistan into Pakistan. It’s psychological warfare through ‘Aman Ki Asha’ is a case in point where no Indian cultural news or success stories are not telecasted by our independent private TV channels. Under the cover of peace process, Indian propagandists who have visited some educational institutions criticize our curriculum labeling it as hate material against India. This is all part of Indian psychological warfare through a well thought out program in collaboration with some of our media houses, that disseminate stories and programs to create doubts in our history.
23rd March is one of the most important days of history of the sub-continent. This day reminds us of the firm determination of Muslims of this region with which they managed to get a separate home land for themselves under the magical guidance of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The basis of our existence is the ideology of Pakistan for which we all Pakistanis are ready to even lay our lives.
