Jahangir's World Times First Comprehensive Magazine for students/teachers of competitive exams and general readers as well.
For centuries, the Indian Subcontinent has been a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society
In his comprehensive lecture arranged by World Times on causes and failure of democracy in Pakistan delivered at the Superior University, Qayyum Nizami discussed with the help of historical evidence and relevant quotations, the Two Nation Theory and its role in the Pakistan Movement, with special reference to the Quaid’s vision of the new state. The main points of his lecture have been summarised below.
It is interesting to note that in the beginning both Allama Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah were nationalists and both of them had received higher education from Europe. But Iqbal’s early education was of religious nature under Maulvi Meer Hasan, whereas Jinnah’s early school was a secular one.
But this liberalism did not alienate him from his religious and cultural values. Thus, once, while he was in London, he refused to hug a woman at a Christmas party. Later, Jinnah joined the Congress in 1906. It was the year when a Muslim delegation, headed by Agha Khan met the Viceroy and demanded the right of separate electorate for the Muslims. This key demand was met in the Minto Morley Reforms of 1909. Meanwhile, in 1906, All India Muslim League was formed ‘To protect and advance the political rights and interests of the Musalmans of India and to respectfully represent their needs and aspirations to the government.’ (Thus, there was no religious motive behind the creation of the Muslim League.)
The Caliphate Movement attracted most of the Muslim leaders except Jinnah who condemned Gandhi for ‘Mixing up politics with religion.’ Later, in 1930, in his famous Allahbad Address, Iqbal proposed that the Muslim majority provinces of Northern India should be joined together to form a Muslim state within India. The subsequent historians often describe it as the concept of Pakistan, though Iqbal clearly explained in London Times that his concept was quite different from Chaudhry Rehmat Ali’s idea of Pakistan, because he (Iqbal) wanted a Muslim state within India.
The 1937 elections proved to be an eye-opener and turning point for the Muslims. Having seen the hostile anti-Muslim attitude of the Congress, they realised that total independence was the only option available to them. In his letters to Jinnah, Iqbal also stated that he too had concluded that the Muslims should work for full independence.
The 1937 elections proved to be an eye-opener and turning point for the Muslims. Having seen the hostile anti-Muslim attitude of the Congress, they realised that total independence was the only option available to them.
After the passage of Lahore Resolution, the debate over the Two Nation Theory became more intense. The correspondence between Gandhi and Jinnah on this issue is worth reading. Thus, in one of his letters, Gandhi wrote, ‘I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from their parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one despite the change of the fate of a large number of their children. You do not claim to be a separate nation by right of contest but by reason of the acceptance of Islam. Will the two nations become one if the whole India accepted Islam?
In reply, Jinnah wrote, ‘We maintain that Hindus and Muslims are two major nations by any definition or test as a state. We are a nation of a hundred million and what is more important, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and traditions. In short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all the tenants of international law, we are a nation.’
In his book ‘Jinnah, India, Independence partition’ Jaswant Singh has made a beautiful comparison between Gandhi and Jinnah. ‘One was devoutly and expressedly a Hindu, the other but a casual votary of Islam. One shaped religion to his political end, the other shunted it on the ground of principles.’ Jinnah’s liberalism is also shown by his speech in the Central Legislative Assembly in 1935 in which he said, ‘Religion should not be allowed to come into politics. Religion is merely a matter between man and God.’
Similarly, addressing the students of Aligarh Muslim University in 1938, he said, ‘I have set you free from the reactionary elements of the Muslims and have freed you from the undesirable elements of Maulvis and Maulanas.’ The Quaid never said that the religion of the Muslims was in danger in India. He repeatedly emphasised that their basic political, social and economic rights were in danger.
The Lahore Resolution also makes no mention of danger to Islam. In 1945, while Jinnah was going in a procession, he saw his large portrait with the words ‘Shahanshahe Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam.’ He stopped the procession and said, ‘Pakistan is going to be a democracy and there is no room for any Shahanshah in Pakistan.’ Addressing the Delhi Convention of the newly elected Muslim legislators in 1946, the Quaid clearly said, ‘We are not fighting for theocracy or theocratic state.
The fact is that at that time, Jinnah did not want to get involved in any religious controversy that might disunite the Muslims in their political struggle, although, after 1946 elections, the religious element in the movement also became very important and Muslim scholars motivated the Muslims to join the movement for the sake of their religion. Jinnah’s address to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, his appointment of a Hindu Jugindarnath Mandal as Law Minister of Pakistan and an Ahmadi Zafarullah Khan as Foreign Minister also shows that he did not want any theocracy in Pakistan.
The economic factor also played a vital role in the Pakistan Movement. As Khalid Bin Saeed states in his book, ‘The Muslim backward classes found the idea of Pakistan very attractive because it would mean that Muslim banks, Muslim industries and Muslim commercial houses would be established in Muslim Pakistan, with the fear of Hindu competition permanently removed.
Jinnah’s views regarding the role of capitalists and landlords in Pakistan can be known from his speech at the annual session of the Muslim League in 1943. ‘There are millions and millions of our people who hardly get a meal a day. Is this the civilisation? Is this the aim of Pakistan? Do you visualise that millions have been exploited and cannot get one meal a day? If that is the idea of Pakistan, I would not have it.’
When Jinnah talked of Pakistan as a fortress of Islam he meant that the universal Islamic principles of democracy, tolerance, impartiality, equality, justice, freedom and fairplay would be fully implemented in it so that it could become a role model for others. Thus, when Sikandar Mirza asked him if he wanted to establish an Islamic state, he replied, that he wanted a ‘Modern state. He was bitterly against bribery and corruption and described them as a poison.
Before the creation of Pakistan, Muslims were a united nation without a country. But after the creation, there was a country without a nation, because soon afterwards, provincial and linguistic prejudices began to disunite the people and Jinnah strongly emphasised that they must think in terms of Pakistanis and not in terms of Punjabis and Bengalis, etc. He was bitterly against colonial mentality in which the bureaucrats considered the people as their slaves.
Moreover, he did not want to see military government in the country. Thus, addressing a reception in Delhi shortly before coming to Pakistan in 1947, he said, ‘Pakistan’s elected government will be that of elected civilians and anyone who thinks contrary to the principles of democracy, should not opt for Pakistan.’ Addressing some army officers in the Governor-General’s House he said, ‘Do not forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policies. It is we the people’s representatives who decide how the country is to be run.
Similarly, when Abdul Rab Nishtar, the Minister for the Rehabilitation of Refugees reported to him that Ayub Khan, who was working with him, was more interested in politics than army matters, he (Jinnah) immediately transferred him (Ayub Khan) to East Pakistan and ordered that he would not wear the badges or holds any command post for one year.’ In the same way, he reminded the civil servants that they were not the rulers but the servants of the people. ‘Make the people feel that you are their servants and friends.’
Even in the days of Quaid’s serious illness, he was extremely careful about the spending of the public money. Thus, in his book, his doctor Colonel Illahi Bakhsh writes that while he was in Ziarat, once he (Quaid) said to him, ‘It is a sin to waste money and worse if it is public money.’
On another occasion, he remarked, ‘Listen doctor, take my advice. Whenever you spend money on anything, think twice whether it is necessary or not.’ Once his own brother came to see him and sent his visiting card with the words ‘Brother of Governor-General of Pakistan.’ The Quaid sent back the card and refused to meet him. This shows his hatred for nepotism.
Quaid-i-Azam had a brilliant and dynamic vision of Pakistan and with his personal examples he gave guidelines to his successors. But unfortunately, his dream of a modern, progressive and prosperous Pakistan governed by the universal principles of Islam has not been fulfilled. Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi has rightly said, ‘Today’s Pakistan has drifted far away from Quaid-i-Azam’s vision.
He visualised Pakistan as a modern democratic state, that derived its ethical inspirations from the teachings and principles of Islam, rather than a religion-based state that uses the state apparatus to enforce Islam.
