7 Pakistan, An Islamic Or Secular State

32 Emporium Current Essays Emporium Current Essays 33 On August 14, 1947, a homeland for the Muslims, namely, Pakistan, emerged on the map of the world, hat one may ask was to be the ideology of this new state? Was it to be Islamic or secular? According to the Quaid-i-Azam, the new state of Pakistan was not intended to be a theocratic state. In his speech of August 11,1947, in the Constituent Assembly, the Quaid said: "If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs... in first, secorit! and last citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place ... belong to any religion or caste or creed ... that has nothing to do with the business of state. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one caste or creed and' another ... We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state. I think, we should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you will find that in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims. Not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual but in the'political sense as citizens of the state." The former Chief Justice, Muhammad Munir, in his book "Froir Jinnah to Zia" has expressed the view that the Quaid never spoke of sny particular ideology for Pakistan; he states that the Quaid-i-A?jvni did not ever refer to the "Ideology of Pakistan." Unfortunately, the Quaid-i-Azam was not spared by fate to be able to preside over the framing of a constitution for Pakistan; but it would be only fair to him to point out that he fought the battle for Pakistan plSaditH; that the Muslims were entitled to a separate homeland because they had a different outlook from the Hindus on nearly every issue. He emphasised time and again that the Muslims were a separate nation. It s impossible to imagine that he had turned back on al that he had been fighting for all his life on the creation of Pakistan. His speech of August 11 has, therefore, to be considered not in isolation but alongside all his other declarations and speeches. From the very ouster, the Quaid-i-Azam had a clear picture of what Pakistan should look like. He did not intend that the power of decision-making should rest with a body of people who ncre self-acclaimed leaders. He stood for a democratic system of government in Pakistan. He said: "Democracy is in our blood. It is in our marrow. Only centuries of adverse circumstances have made the circulation of that blood cold. It has got frozen and our arteries are not

functioning. But thank God, the blood is circulating again, thanks to the Muslim League efforts. It (Pakistan) will" be people's government." At the same time, he had made it abundantly clear that in Pakistan the supreme law will be that of Allah and no deviation would be tolerated. Accordingly, the Constitution of Pakistan was to be framed consistent with Quranic injunctions and the Sunnah His first speech in the Constituent Assembly was no doubt an important declaration containing guidelines for the constitutionmakers. It reflected the ideals of Islam which ordain that all citizens are to be treated as equal. No once is above the law and no discrimination amongst the citizens is allowed. The Quaid-i-Azam here only reiterated these cardinal principles of the Islamic faith. This speech was not a volte face or a repudiation of his previous stand by only a reaffirmation of an important Islamic principle, namely, a guarantee that all citizens will have equal rights and equal protection. It should be remembered that the opponents of the Pakistan movement were virulently denouncing Pakistan &? a purely fanatical and communal state in which minorities would be discriminated against and unfairly treated as opposed to the liberal and secular state visualised by the Congress where in equal rights would be given to all people in India. Statements of Mahatma Gandhi who was said to be fighting for equal rights for the Muslims in Delhi were highlighted as examples of the Congress approach: "Delhi is the metropolis of India. If, therefore, we really in our hearts do not subscribe to the 'two-nation' theory, in other words, if we do not regard the Hindus and the Muslims as constituting two distinct nation, we shall have to iidmrt that the picture that Delhi presents today is not what we have envisage always"bf the capital of India. Delhi is the Eternal City, as the ruins of its forerunners - Indraprastha and Hastinapur - testify. It is the heart of India. Only a nitwit can rcga^l it as belonging to the Hindus or the Sikhs only. It may sound harsh^ but it is th« literal truth. From Kanya Kumari toJ4 Emporium Current Essays motherland, have an equal right to it. No one has a right to say that it belongs to the majority community only, and that the minority community can only remain there as the underdog. Whoever serves it with the purest devotion must have the first claim. Therefore, anyone who wants to drive out of Delhi all Mussalmans as such must be set down as its enemy N. 1 ad, therefore, enemy No. 1 of India. We are rushing towards every son and daughter of India to take his or her full share in averting it." The Quaid had, therefore, also to reassure all the nonMuslims living in Pakistan (whose number then was around 25 per cent) that they would be treated justly, fairly, without discrimination, as equal citizens of the state. This was the background of the speech of August 11, 1947. As for the term ideology of Pakistan not being used by the Quaid, the exact position is that the phrase "ideology of Pakistan" merely represents a continuation of the thought-process of the Muslim leadership's pcstulation for a separate identity to a homeland for the Muslim nation. Thus it is wrong to think that his phrase emerged for the first time in 1962, as Justice Munir thinks it was there all along.

While addressing the All-India Muslim League at Madras, in April 1941, the Quaid said: "The ideology of the League is based on the fundamental principle that Muslim India is an independent nationality." Again, in a message to the Frontier Muslim Students Federation, the Quaid stated on June 18, 1945: "Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the preservation of the Muslim ideology. "I may add that it was only Islam that bestowed separate identity on the Muslims. The concept of the two-nation theory and the ideology of Pakistan are only its natural corollary. Having shows that the term "Muslim ideology" was invoked by the Quaid during the struggle for Pakistan it remains to provide his perception of this ideology. In one of his messages on Eid the Quaid"i-Azam said: "From the Atlantic to the Ganges, says Gibbon, 'the Quran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence, and the laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are governed by the immutable sanctions of the will of God'. Everyone except those who are ignorant, knows that the Quran is the general code of the Muslims. A religious, social, civil, commercial, military, judicial, criminal, penal code; it regulates everything from the ceremonies of religion to those of daily life; from the salvation of the soul to the health of the body; from the rights of all to those of each individual; from morality to crime, from punishment here to that in the life to come, and our Prophet (PBUH) enjoined on us that e^ery Mussalman Emporium Current Essays 35 should posses a copy of the Quran and he his own priest. Therefore, 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, collectively and individually." This was the Quaid's conception of Islam. He believed completely in the concept of separate identity of the Muslims. He often said that "Pakistan started the moment the first non-Muslim was converted to Islam in India long before the Muslims established their rule. As soon as a Hindu embraced Islam, he was outcast not only religiously but also socially, culturally and economically. As for the Muslim, it was s duty imposed on him by Islam not to merge his identity and individually in any alien society. As the movement for Pakistan gained momentum, the Quaid-i-Azam began to give some details of the new state that he envisaged. He said in 1943 that Pakistan "would be a base where we will be able to train and bring up Muslim intellectuals, educationists, scientists, doctors, engineers, technicians, etc., who will work to bring about Islamic renaissance eventually resulting in the creation of a solid, cohesive bloc -- a third bloc - which will be neither communistic nor capitalistic but truly socialistic, based on the principles which characterised Caliph Umar's (RA) regime."

Again, the Quaid-i-Azam speaking at the concluding session of the conference of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation at Lahore on March 19,1944, said: "Islam did not recognise any kind of distinction of various classification of castes, and the Prophet (PBUH) was able to level down all caste to create a national unity among Arabs in Arabia. It was this foundation so firmly laid by him, that took them across continents and they were knocking at the gates of Spain. Our bedrock and sheet-anchor is Islam. There is no question even of Shias and Sunnis. We are one and we must move as one nation and then alone we shall be able to retain Pakistan." Soon after the creation of Pakistan, namely, on October 11, 1947 in a speech to the officers of the defence services, the Quaid-iAzam said that Pakistan was only "a means to an end and not the end in itself." The idea was that we should have a state in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own light and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play." In January 1948, on the occasion of the Holy Prophet's (PBUH) birthday/he said in a message: "The Prophet (PBUH) was a great teacher. He was a great law-giver. He was a great statesman and he was a great sovereign. In Islam there is no difference38 Emporium Current Essays have been given a month and a half to grow beards of a proper proportion or face punishment. Many people did not come out in the streets on last Friday and the number of people praying in the mosques was reduced because the Taliban had started forcing citizens ai gun point to attend the juma congregations. Things in Kabul look as bizarre as in a popular story by Ghulam Abbas meant to be a satire on religious bigotry. There is a dwindling minority of culturally backward people in Pakistan who would like the situation in Kabul to be replicated in this country too. One never thought Gen (Rctd) Babar was one of them. Regression in his case has started rather late in life. Commenting on the use of force by the Taliban to make people offer prayers, he wished people in Pakistan too could be led into mosques somehow or other. He has also defended the Taliban against charges of human rights violations, calling these sheer propaganda. The harm that religious parties can do to their country can be seen from what is happening to Afghanistan. Religious parties are liable to carry sectarianism into politics with the result that normal political differences resolvable through normal dialogue and bargaining turn into religious schisms which can be settled only through holy wars aimed at physical elimination of the opponents. The Taliban think they aione interpret Islam in the right way while the rest of the groups in Afghanistan in spite of their avowed adherence to Islam are indeed the followers of Satan. The Americans were sure when they put their money on the Taliban that they would take on the Irani government on account of sectarian differences, thinking they would thus be able to counter one type

of fundamentalism with another. What might happen to Afghanistan, or the region where it is located, in the process was none of their headaches. Consequently the victory of the Taliban has not signified the end of the cnil war in Afghanistan It in on the other hand going to exacerbate it This is the first great harm the Taliban have done to the country. Brain drain had started in Afghanistan with the arrival of the Rabbani government. It is assuming alarming proportions now. It has been estimated by the international aid agencies that between 150,000 to 250,000 highly educated Afghans have migrated from their country in the very recent past. This would be disastrous for a developing country like Afghanistan. The reason behind the migration of educated people is simple. Nobody who is used to modern lifestyles would like to live in a country where a medieval culture is being imposed on everybody in it^Sh the name of religion. No educated man would like illiteracy to be forced upori his children and would migrate if he can manage it. Similarly women who aue Emporium Current Essays 39 doctors, lawyers, university teachers and professionals in other fields will have no option but to leave the country in case they are not allowed to continue in their profession and are made ta live an idle, purposeless and indigent life at home. Educated urban people would also yearn for freedom of movement and of speech, access to entertainment and to international media - aspirations that clerics with an outmoded outlook can neither understand nor sympathise with, be they Afghans or Pakistanis. Even in case a government of outmoded clerics like that of the Taliban gets stable, which seems to be highly improbable, it has capacity to act as a destabilising factor for the whole of the region. Pakistanis should have reasons to fear that the Taliban government could encourage militant groups inside their country, fanning religious fanaticism and imparting military training to sectarian groups so that they may in the long run wage a similar jihad in Pakistan. In case the Taliban decide to take on the Irani government, they would exacerbate the proxy wars already being fought inside Pakistan by countries of the Middle East. The fires of sectarianism will consume whatever is left of peace in the country. The Centra! Asian Republics are extremely wary of the Taliban for similar reasons and have issued warnings to them to keep off the borders. Iran has reasons to believe the Taliban have been conceived by the US and financed by Saudi Arabia in order to . contain Iran. The Russians fear that the spread of fundamentalist trends could dislocate millions of. Russians from the Central Asian Republics. A number of Western countries have in the meanwhile expressed their unhappiness over the extreme fundamentalist measures taken by the Taliban and many aid-giving agencies have been stopped from continuing their work. The Taliban are thus imposing a state of unprecedented isolation on their country. The situation in Afghanistan as we see it today is a reminder of what religious fanaticism can do to a country. While internal forces are basically responsible for whatever is

happening there, the religious parties in Pakistan cannot be absolved of the responsibility for the blood-bath and chaos in Afghanistan. Each one of them has meddled in the affairs of that country while fundamentalist strategists like Hamid Gul have used it as a testing ground for their Quixotic schemes. Afghanistan has been devastated by being turned into a testing ground their fundamentalist ideas, a living example of what lies in store for a country if religious fanatics are allowed to capture, its political leadership. Kashmir and from Karachi to Dibrugarh in Asaam, all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Pirsis, Christians and Jews who people this vast Sub-Contincnt and have adopted it as their dear