Where are we today? - By Dr Samiullah Koreshi

What was Quaid’s Pakistan can be a vast enquiry, so I will confine myself to only two aspects which are still relevant after 57 years of Pakistan’s existence, and are of an abiding nature. These are connected with the Muslim national urge, which motivated creation of Pakistan? which was to retain their ‘national identity’, and ‘retrieve their dignity and national respect’. During the long centuries of their rule, the Muslims and the Hindus coexisted as two cultural identities and peoples. The Muslim rulers everywhere adopted a tolerant system for the non-Muslims. They allowed Hindus to retain communal autonomy under their rajas. What greater proof there was than the fact that in an age when the sword was the final arbiter, when the Muslim rule came to an end the Muslims were in a minority in India, even in the seats of their power like Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, and Hyderabad.
The challenge to this coexistence of the Muslims came between the mid seventeenth century and the mid twentieth century, after the decline of their power resulting in the entry of foreign European rulers and Hindu Revivalism beginning with Shivaji and its later manifestations of the Arya Samaj and extreme Hindu movements. Suffice to say that it was not the loss of power that was the main problem but the possibility of loss of national identity. This period was also the era of Muslim decadence, social, educational and economic, partly because of the unofficial Hindu-English entente, and for various other reasons, but mainly because the English considered Muslims as rivals and eliminated them mercilessly after the so-called Mutiny of 1857-58.
Loss of identity and merger into Hindu social order were the two fears which haunted Muslims under the British-Hindu entente. The Muslims feared that they would be deprived of their culture and distinct values, and would lose their identity and become a subordinate people as a minority in a majority rule. Acceptance of the position of a subordinate ‘minority’ and merger in the Hindu Vedic values was not acceptable.
Out of this suppression of the Muslims there came three typical Muslim reactions: the rejectionists - which were mainly the religious leaders who thought it haram to cooperate with the British. Incidentally because of their animus towards the white ruler they mostly joined hands with the (Hindu-led) Congress. The second group - a tiny minority - lost Muslim identity and became copy cats of the Rulers. The third was that of the Reformers. In due course this last group occupied the main stage after its competition with the ‘Nationalist’ Muslims, the Congressites. These three groups continued to surface in all periods, and did not believe in Muslim identity, and still their remnants do not. They became exponents of alien values and cultures.
The first step the Muslims took to safeguard their identity was to ensure that Muslim educational system was in their own hands. Interestingly, this main stream of Muslim Political Movement began in early 20th century as “All India Muslim Educational Conference”, under Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Viqar ul Mulk, Nawab Saleemullah of Dhaka (now in Bangladesh). These Muslims believed in modernization, acquisition of Western education, particularly science and technology, without losing their Muslim identity. This is why the educational movement converted itself into “All India Muslim League” on 30th December, 1906. I should like to emphasize that this main stream of Muslim Movement was based on a demand for education with a Muslim orientation. Aligarh Muslim University was the soul of this Movement, and it was replicated by many Muslim educational efforts like Islamia Colleges allover the Subcontinent. In Sindh it manifested itself in Sindh Madrasatul Islam.
The Muslim Movement was led and supported by the most elightened, most educated, culturally most advanced Muslim elite. It is funny if some half educated people now start speaking of enlightening the Muslims. as if they are making a Columbus-like social discovery for the Muslims. The core of Muslim leadership was more educated and far more qualified and had more concrete achievements in their line of specialization as compared to the present day Pakistani leadership, except for the imprisoned A Q Khan. There were, to name only a few, mathematical wizards like Sir Ziauddin Ahmed, Dr Raziuddin Siddiqui, Dr Omar Hayat Malik, chemistry wizards like Salimuzzan Siddiqui, an FRS, economists like Anwar Iqbal Qureshi, Latif Qureshi, and educationists like Dr I H Qureshi, just. These were all foreign educated with Oxford, Cambridge, Berlin, Guttenberg doctorates. Aligarh, Osmania University, Lahore and Calcutta were the think tanks of the Muslim League and their people spearheaded the Pakistan Movement. Among great educated ladies were Begum Ikramullah, a PhD from London in the 30s.
Students in the schools, colleges and universitys also spear headed the Pakistan Movement under Quaid-e-Azam’s leadership. What is now described as ‘seminaries’, a term used for Christian religious institutions, is in fact now applied for the madressahs which were with the Congress, that is originally it was the supporters of Gandhi and Nehru and not the Quaid or the Muslim League running and supporting the madressahs. The Muslim leadership of the time was fairly englightened.
Jinnah’s rise as a Muslim politician of note started with his espousal of Muslim Family Laws and emphasis on safeguarding Muslim national identity. After publication of the Nehru Report which presented a sketch of the future Indian Constitution, the Muslims met under the League banner to reject it in 1929 and an “All parties Muslim Conference” was held in 1929 - at which Jinnah ( then not titled the Quaid) presented the famous Fourteen Points for a coexistence between Muslims and Hindus. Its Point 11 read :” Adequate constitutional safeguards for the protection of Muslim culture, education, language, religion, personal laws and Muslim charitable institutions”. Retaining Muslim character of the education for the Muslims was the continuous theme of the Muslim demands right fromthe beginning of Muslim political action.
This point is important even today because now foreign interests are trying to play with our educational system as a step to subvert our national identity. Even if they succeeded at the official level they are not likely to succeed in subverting the Muslim character of the masses, especially if the Soviet suppression of Muslims over 70 years and their elimination of Muslim education from the mainstream did not succeed in their objective.
Next, the main theme of the movement led by the Quaid and for which he became the symbol of Muslim aspirations was his emphasis on separate Muslim national identity. Creation of Pakistan was not as a mere geographic state but as an ideological state however this word “ideology” bothers certain novo deviationists. Pakistan undoubtedly safeguards the rights of minorities. It was not conceived as a bigoted state or a uni-culture state. It was in this spirit that the Lahore Resolution of 1940 stated: “the adequate and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided for the minorities. .. for the protection of the minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative rights and interests in consultation with them.” Thus Pakistan Resolution provides for a pluralistic society in its own state structure. This however does not provide for a secular system in which religion is excluded from the state. The Mosque has a respectable place in it but state is not the Mosque. Mosque is not eliminated in the society by the state. Nor churches are to be prohibited or Christian schools and Missionary schools to be proscribed.
I might add that in Europe and the West secularism does not mean exclusion of the place of the Church from the Society. Anybody who had lived in the West knows this fact, but it need not be elaborated here. In Europe secularism is intended to keep peace between Catholics and Protestants. In the 19th century Protestants had burnt Catholic Churches and even Catholic Embassies in London. Secularism in the west does not mean elimination of the place of the Church from the society, nor is the clergy disrespected.
As to what is Pakistan today, there are some legitimate concerns about the attempts to change Pakistan’s basic orientation. In a way the Muslim support to the Quaid was the “Social Contract” between the leaders of Pakistan Movement and the Muslim masses. How funny, some maverick so-called historian has claimed that the Quaid was not supported by the majority of the Muslims. I was listening to a program on the ARY in which their Compere Dr Shahid Masood was interviewing a certain person who claimed to be a historian. I wish this so-called historian had remembered what Vallab Bhai Patel told Gandhiji to convince him to agree to Pakistan. Gandhiji had said he will not accept cutting of Bharat into two. Patel went to him and persuaded him to accept Pakistan. He told Gandhiji “ Today there is a Pakistan in every city, every locality and every village. Wherever there are Muslims and Hindus, there is a Pakistan”
The so-called ‘historian’ said that the majority of the Muslim areas were against the creation of Pakistan. He confused their Hindu dominated Provincial Governments with the people. He forgot that the Quaid organized people’s movement in Punjab to oust Khizar Hayat Khan and paralyzed the Khizar Government., that the Christian Speaker of the Punjab Assembly cast vote for joining the Punjab to Pakistan, that the Quaid appointed Pothan Joseph a Madrasi Christian as the first editor of the Dawn, the mouth piece of the Muslims, and that some Christians migrated to Pakistan from India during the great exodus in 1947-48.
Quaid’s Pakistan was a movement for national dignity and self respect. If it was not so, he would have compromised with the demand for a subordinate status for the Muslims in one Hindu-dominated nationalism. He wanted Pakistan to be a sovereign Muslim State and not a client state. As against this, there are many who believe that Pakistan has now become subservient to foreign powers If Ayub’s demand was for friends not masters we have come to the position where we have masters and not friends. This is the perception of the people rightly or wrongly, but it has gained ground.
Moreover, instead of becoming an Islamic welfare state Pakistan has become a heartless capitalist state and is becoming more and more so. It was to be a democratic state. The only country in the world whose cartography was carved by votes, referendums, decisions by provincial assemblies and jirgas is Pakistan. It is a pity that it has ceased to be a democratic state, and the country is factually run by Generals and for formality’s sake their decisions are rubber stamped by the assemblies.
Of course Pakistan was created so that we have a modern Muslim state competitive with others in science and technology, it was not to be a theocracy as was emphasised by the fathers of the nation right from its inception, it was to be forward looking but essentially Islamic in orientation. One has to have a look at Iqbal’s and Hali’s poetry and writings of Muslim scholars of the period of Muslim decadence to understand that these were the urges of the Muslims which guided their national objectives.
Perhaps this article may be concluded on the note that reformation is indeed a continuous process, and dynamism is part of the Islamic system but one might keep in view the limits from which reformation crosses into deviation from the goal. To be a reformationist is one thing and to be deviationist is another. Quaid was all for reformation but within the limits where one does not deviate from the basic aims and objectives of the State for which it was created.
======================================================
Copyright C. 2002 - 2004
Pakistan Science and Engineering Forum (R)
"Kindling the Flame of Science in Pakistan (TM)"
PakSEF (TM) Daily Science News Update
=====================================================