Objectives of Pakistan and their fulfillment
Posted on March 25, 2011 by
By Shanzeh Iqbal
In 1947 the world viewed the materialization of Pakistan. Quaid-e-Azam who, in the beginning, was a strong advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity, bitterly opposed this concept afterwards on different grounds. Pakistan movement is rooted in the instinctive feeling that the Muslims are an ideological community. Muslims wanted a state in which the forms, contours and objectives of the government would be determined by the ideological obligations of Islam where their religion must serve as a blueprint for state formation and it must not be limited to religious or cultural tier only.
They wished a state where Islam should become a prelude to an Islamic revival all over the world. Hence the existence of a separate Muslim state ushered a great promise for such an orientation. Since Islam is the historical cause and justification, therefore the Muslims and Islam are complimentary to each other and the religious factor cannot be viewed just in isolation. Moreover there was this pluralistic view which instigated the Muslims to demand a separate homeland. Pluralism means cultural diversity. Our great leader, Quaid-e-Azam also believed that the Muslims had a different conception of life than cherished by the Hindus. They admired different qualities in their heroes. They had a different culture. He also pointed out the communal differences in India which were far deeper. In his presidential address in 1940 he said: “It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religious in the strict sense of the word but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders…. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literature. They belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects of life and our life are different.” He was fully convinced that the partition of India offered the best chance for the solution of such problems. The great thinker, Allama Iqbal, in his letter to Quaid-e-Azam, dated March 29, 1937 had also said, “while we are ready to cooperate with other progressive parties in the country, we must not ignore the fact that the whole future of Islam as a moral and political force in Asia rests very largely on a complete organisation of the Indian Muslims”. Apart from these other factors responsible for the establishment of Pakistan may be denoted as, 1) Urdu-Hindi controversy (1867), 2) Bengal partition (1905), 3) The Kanpur Mosque tragedy (1913), 4) The massacre of Jallianwala Bagh (1919), 5) The Delhi Muslim proposals (1927), 6) The Nehru report (1928) and 7) The Congress Raj (1937-39) But it is a sad state of affairs when we realise that as a nation we have terribly failed to meet the objectives for which Pakistan was made. Let us look at the reasons owing to this all: We are unable to formulate any solid policy whether it’s interior or foreign sphere. If at all we develop some, it gets changed with the change of the government Due to our internal strife and scrawny conditions, our enemy got a chance to bifurcate us in 1971. But the death knell thaws at the heart when we see that still we are unable to learn from our past mistakes. There are pervasive disgruntlements among provinces with respect to centre. These parochial tendencies and excruciating sense of jingoism are very dangerous for our collective interest. Our institutions are not strong. The democracy could not flourish in our country because of; 1) The crisis of leadership, 2) Crisis of faith, 3) Lack of intention and 4) Lack of accountability. The leaders, because of their vested interests, invited army to come to the helm of affairs. It is a fact that army is the best institution of our country. It symbolizes not only integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan, but it is also the centre of gravity. It binds Pakistan in one unit, but simply because of our disingenuous leaders, army intervened recurrently and thus democratic process was derailed. In this way our image among the comity of nations was greatly blurred. Then if we formulate some long-term or short-term plan, we do not go for implementing it earnestly. This is also the reason of our downfall. “Main shaheen tha zehn-e-Iqbal ka Sharaq say gharab tak meri parwaz thi Aik bazoo pe urta hun main aj kal Doosra dushmanon ko gwara nahin Pakistan movement which was based predominantly on two- nation theory is greatly in danger and is facing a gory scenario because of surmounting pressure on our cultural nationalism. But cultural traditions and immediate economic requirements should not be viewed in isolation with respect to our ideological goal i.e Islam. The intelligentsia sometimes distort this two-nation theory concept and assert that Pakistan should not have been established in the first place as the Muslims are suffering even in the worst manner now. However it must be observed that the interests of the Muslims are not devoid of Islam as there is no such random differentiation between Muslims and Islamic interests. In the light of all above it can be safely stressed that the foremost duty for making Pakistan strong lies on the leaders of our country. They must infuse in Pakistanis a spirit to become true Muslims to do justice to the basis of Pakistan. Long-term and long-lived policies should be adopted and they must not be changed with the change of government. Especially our foreign policy should be concrete and based on sound footings. It is ripe time now that we must strengthen cohesive forces amongst us. We must stop leg pulling and correct ourselves. We should forget about the racial and sectarian differences. Quaid-e-Azam had stressed the view that as we are neither Punjabis, nor Baloch, Sindhis or Pathans hence we should become an organic whole and work towards the welfare of our beloved country. We must inculcate in us the spirit of good Muslims and good Pakistanis. The rulers should strive for engendering and fostering inter-provincial harmony. If we follow these dictums we can still have a stable homeland for us. And it is not a very difficult thing. It just requires a little initiative as was alive back in 1940 when the whole world witnessed a resolution comprising more than 400 words changing the destiny of a nation.
