Eid ul fitr Karachi august 18 1947
PKKH Editorial
As the 23rd of March approaches us, and we turn the pages of history to remind us how the miracle of the birth of a nation-state was possible; and how history is actually made within the churns and jostles of everyday life; we see idea and fervor on every page and we see determination so hard, that would not have been, if not for an underlying irrevocable faith.
As the mood of the equilibrium between powers around the world was being altered and major event had started to show up as early as 1935; like Germany and USSR playing proxy war in Spain and the swift advancement of Japan as an undefiable invading forces gulping China, and now aiming for Mongolia and for Russia; the British Empire had its concerns shifted more towards the global scenario. With the intent to secure calm and confidence of the Indian people the British acceded to the 1937 elections as mandated by the Government of India Act 1935.
These elections, though held in 11 out of 17 provinces, proved to be an eye-opener for the Muslims of the sub-continent, and more so a blessing in an ugly disguise. Because the Hindu leaders of the Congress, which had the general support of the Muslims until now, and who had won majority in this election, could not conceal its Hinduvta thinking anymore; they rushed to uphold extremist Hindu ideology upon all the population, failing to conceal hatred and enmity they had harbored against the Muslims all along.
Jinnah was heart-broken for the atrocities committed by Hindu majority upon an overwhelming Muslim minority; inside him the dream of a united secular India was shattered. In this same event the Muslim League, what had been striving for a broader support by the Muslim masses until now, found itself to have become the single pivot of Muslim hope, as the Quaid decided to embrace it.
Poet philosopher Iqbal had corresponded with Jinnah all through this time and Iqbal had urged Jinnah to lead the Muslims out of the trap of a united democratic India, where the Hindu majority would constantly suppress the Muslims.
In 1940, at Lahore, when the Pakistan Resolution was passed, it was announced clearly by the Quaid and his assembly that United India was not an option, he said:
“No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”
Underlying this simple history, are some simple facts that cannot be altered by stubborn denial. A united India with Hindus, Muslims and people of other religions all living together would have to be secular; as that would be the only guarantee for the religious and cultural independence of large masses of the Muslims. But only, since that had become a practical impossibility, had the Quaid and the Muslim masses behind him gone for an independent Muslim majority state; wherein secularism does not remain a democratic necessity, as there is no possibility for Muslims to suppress Muslims.
Yes there may have been a need to be secular among the sects between Islam and the ~2% minorities within the Muslim majority in Pakistan, and that secularism is a part of Islam itself. Islam safeguards the religion, culture and all legal and civil rights of non-Muslim minorities.
In fact the Quaid was just as secular as Islam is; Islam gave the declaration of peace and reconciliation to humanity, it gave the manifesto of treating the minority as a privileged select under special custody and protection of the Muslim majority. But this is only as long as this minority is not allowed to distort the Islamic religious and cultural values of the state and its people, as such an act would be equivalent to snatching the very identity for which, 66 years ago, events had been moved by ardent processions of millions of Muslims around the Sub-Continent; for a separate Muslim homeland; to make a history that cannot be made every day; a history that is born by volumes of fervor, zeal and activity, and mountains of resolve and faith. For at such a U-turn, the Quaid would have turned in a fundamentalist too, as he fundamentally believed in an Islamic state:
‘What relationships knits the Muslims into one whole, which is the formidable rock on which the Muslim edifice has been erected, which is the sheet anchor providing base to the Muslim Millat, the relationship, the sheet anchor and the rock is the Holy Quran.’ (Address At Islamia College Peshawar)
