Why has Jinnah's message been lost?

[rubyjackass]

I feel that Jinnah's views speaking about secular Pakistan are hypocritical. When he has no confidence in a secular country offering all kinds of freedom to muslims, he asked for a separate entity. And here muslim leadership, he hoped according to many, will let all faiths live in harmony. What hypocrisy!!! If not hypocrisy he was paranoid of a Hindu leadership(he assumed there would be hindu domination).

That is why I don't think Jinnah was so secular. Then he would have believed in a secular united India. The other plausible explanation is that he is power hungry. Others are that he sacrificed his vision for prevailing conditions and the demands of people around him.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I feel that Jinnah's views speaking about secular Pakistan are hypocritical. When he has no confidence in a secular country offering all kinds of freedom to muslims, he asked for a separate entity. And here muslim leadership, he hoped according to many, will let all faiths live in harmony. What hypocrisy!!! If not hypocrisy he was paranoid of a Hindu leadership(he assumed there would be hindu domination).

That is why I don't think Jinnah was so secular. Then he would have believed in a secular united India. The other plausible explanation is that he is power hungry. Others are that he sacrificed his vision for prevailing conditions and the demands of people around him.

I don't believe your argument makes sense, because today's India should have then just stayed a part of Britain, instead of asking for independence, or maybe should have merged with the US.

The problem is not with what the Congress leader claimed to deliver, it was with a lack of faith in whether they could.

That there were differences between the Muslims and Hindus is beyond doubt, the religious, cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences are even more pronounced now that Pakistan is primarily West Pakistan.

It made sense then to take the destiny of the Muslims (those who desired) into their own hands, and have their own state to run as they wished, whether it be secular or theocratic.

There is no hypocrisy here.

 

[wtf]

I feel that Jinnah's views speaking about secular Pakistan are hypocritical. When he has no confidence in a secular country offering all kinds of freedom to muslims, he asked for a separate entity. And here muslim leadership, he hoped according to many, will let all faiths live in harmony. What hypocrisy!!! If not hypocrisy he was paranoid of a Hindu leadership(he assumed there would be hindu domination).

That is why I don't think Jinnah was so secular. Then he would have believed in a secular united India. The other plausible explanation is that he is power hungry. Others are that he sacrificed his vision for prevailing conditions and the demands of people around him.

Jinnah knew that he had only a short while to live when he was diagnosed with TB. So the power-hungry claim may be stretching it. He may have wanted a legacy for himself or to claim a role in history, but I would doubt personal greed.

I don't think secularism was hypocritical - I think it was based on the old Urdu/Hindi debate, the fear of marginalization and feedback from those around him that lead to formation of Pakistan. Jinnah must be given credit for moderating the thrust for an "all-Islam" country and making it secular. I can't understand why he asked for the then East Pakistan though - they don't speak Urdu and there was hardly any marginalization in Bengal.

It would not work if we think of current day India and then add back Pakistan into it and see how well that would have fit. The people then were genuinely different in attitudes and beliefs. I think there was a lot of mistrust between Muslims and Hindus at that time. It may be due to end of Islamic rule, it may be linguistic or it may have been just "we are better than you" but the situation was ripe for someone to ask for a country of their own. A similar fight happened with pro-Tamil/anti-Hindi situation down south which went nowhere - but it could have turned either way. Sometimes I marvel at how a country as diverse as India held together and continues to hold together.

That said, if a united India had lived with Gandhi in the background working for unity, I think the situation would have been much,much better than partition. But then again you can never say with alternate histories.

 

[muse]

I think we are getting off the path, going in a tangent that will derail this thread - perhaps the answer is obvious, it is always easier to appeal to EMOTION and politicians find this mother's milk. In Pakistan, among it's intellectuals the ideas of socialism have had great appeal, the Pakistani public is generally under educated, and that is a generous characterization - mixing the appeal of socialism to intellectuals, the appeal of an islamic utopia (welfare state) and emotion were simply too toxic a mix for the politics of Pakistan. And to be fair Pakistani politicians have been not just good but great students of "divide and rule", you can see this in the fact that in all of this time who so ever raised his voice to say enough of these divisions has been dealt with by the politicians, they want people divided by religion, by caste, by province, by language, by ethnicity, by regional dioalect, by regional history, by sect - you name it, they will figure a way to divide pakistanis -- at the core of this division is socialist ideas -- Pakistanis are forever fighting over resources - in reality there is no fight over resources if instead of the idea that everyone must fight for a piece of a given pie, we were to instead agree that the "pie" can be increased if we refuse to restrict economic activity - with people no longer having to put so much energy into getting "their piece of the pie" and instead creating their own "pie", the politicans and the political discourse, the terms of that discourse would have to have been very different to find appeal.

Lets not ignore the obvious, we Pakistanis are ruled by emotion and not reason and if JUSTICE is to be found in secular, as in equality before the law, then reason, of which justice is a product, would have to rule us. But I suppose everything in it's own time, and while the people will have learnt that the divisions are a game, the politicians seem to have no other game.

 

[qsaark]

I think we are getting off the path, going in a tangent that will derail this thread -

I agree with your above post 99.99%. The 0.1% that I don’t agree with you is that politicians were responsible for all the ills, no they were/are not alone, and this includes the entire ruling class of Pakistan, the politicians, military and civil bureaucrats, and the judiciary.

 

[Kasrkin]

That’s an awfully simplistic approach. But yes, we can all agree to the fact that pretty much every elite of Pakistan is responsible, even if it because of a lack of brilliance as opposed to malicious intent. The relativity of the matter though, I’m sure, can be debated at length here.

 

[rubyjackass]

I don't believe your argument makes sense, because today's India should have then just stayed a part of Britain, instead of asking for independence, or maybe should have merged with the US.

If the British mingled with Indians like Mughals did, then why not? If they developed India with its wealth instead of dumping it in their country, then why not? You know that the above suggestion is ridiculous.

Indians lived together for 1000s of years despite differences in a lot of things. If people came here mixed with the poplation and asked to be called Indians then anyone is invited.

The problem is not with what the Congress leader claimed to deliver, it was with a lack of faith in whether they could.

That is what I was saying. You can't trust others in doing a thing inspite of the successful experiments in other world countries, saying Hindus are hindus, but you claim that you can create an ideal world for all religions?

That there were differences between the Muslims and Hindus is beyond doubt, the religious, cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences are even more pronounced now that Pakistan is primarily West Pakistan.

False. Despite differences they lived in India for 1000's of years.
Religion is THE only issue raised by Jinnah.

It made sense then to take the destiny of the Muslims (those who desired) into their own hands, and have their own state to run as they wished, whether it be secular or theocratic.

There is no hypocrisy here.

I have no complaints over destiny of muslims. Please see that what I am talking is independent of this.


For others I am not bashing anyone here. Please dont be sensitive. This is a discussion on Jinnahs thoughts.

 

[Kasrkin]

Pakistan was for the best, the simple fact is that India is large but it faces many problems. With Pakistan it would have been larger, demographically and physically, and these problems would’ve multiplied. The Muslim/Hindu schism would’ve been worse than it already is in India. At least this way we limited our rivalry to diplomacy and the battlefield on occasion (65,71,99) but had this deadly embrace been closer still then disputes over constitution, autonomy and finances would’ve been worse and would’ve boiled down to more trouble than it was worth. It’s better than decades of unrest and resentment and the inevitable bloody amputation that would follow had the entire Muslim population of (today’s) Pakistan been forced to live under the yoke of Indian rule.

I find the notion that Pakistan was pointless quite offensive, especially when it comes from Indians who barely know our country but are so taken up by all consuming ‘greatness’ of their Hindustan. Indians just don’t know Pakistan like we do, the raw and enigmatic potential of the Muslim population with district and powerful cultural identities. Even we are struggling with all of it, but under the arrogant rule of Delhi’s Hindus the region would’ve been a blood bath.

But we've had too much talk about that with our Indian members, maybe the topic to discuss here is Jinnah's vision for Pakistan and not Jinnah's vision of Pakistan. Jinnah did not fail in making Pakistan and Pakistan is not lost. Pakistan is however in need of Jinnah's principles and dedication which have been forgotten.

 

[zubair723]

Would you please give any reference to this statement? Its new thing for me, interesting though.

Let me try to find out. This was by an article by an AMERICAN AMBASSADOR to PAKISTAN(think it was ROBERT OAKLEY, anyhow will try to confirm). This AMBASSADOR's FATHER was also the first AMBASSADOR to PAKISTAN & he remembered JINNAH as a young boy.
Also something similar was also mentioned by SARDAR ABDUR RAB NISHTER. JINNAH from first day wanted everything on self-reliance, instead of joining any post world war camp.

 

[qsaark]

Jinnah did not fail in making Pakistan and Pakistan is not lost. Pakistan is however in need to Jinnah's principles and dedication which have been forgotten.

Love your sentence.

 

[EjazR]

I have stated my views many times. Main reason that our Quaid's message has been lost is because the sectarion forces that were against the creation of Pakistan are now the dominent religious group, thanks to the bigot Zia.

This is a simplistic view IMHO. To clarify the deoband school itself did not get involved in politics. A politcal party formed by graduates and students of that school Jamat-e-ulema-e-hind. No doubt the majority of deoband school ulema were against the two nation theory and against PAkistan, but so where almost all other religious and "muslim" secular parties from Majlis-e-Ahrar, momin conference, shia conference, Jamaat-e-islami, khudai kitmatigar, Nationalist Muslims party, Muslim unity conference e.t.c. The ulemas from deoband who DID believe in Pakistan migrated to PAkistan, those who didnt stayed behind. The exception is Jamaat-e-islami where Mr. Maududi did an about turn and decided to establish a Islamic state in PAkistan.

I think the problem with religious extremism in Pakistan is more to do with the Military forming an alliance with the mullas to legitimise their frequent coups as well as to provide manpower for the proxy wars in Afghanistan and later Kashmir. They just happened to be deoband ulemas. They could have very well been any other sect or even any other religion for that matter. Hamza Alvi writes here some more stuff about this in detail and is quite insightful.

But hopefully, the mulla-military alliance is at an end. Strengthening true representative democracy should be the focus. Everyone knows that religious parties have never garnered more than 10% of voteshare in Pakistan, so that shows that the people of Pakistan DO NOT want religious political parties in their political establishment and that is how it should be. Basically, the ruling elite/military should not support or exploit the religious groups for geo-political/strategic gains(like they have in the past).

 

[PeacefulIndian]

Am I the only one who thinks that Islamization of the country is totally responsible for today's situation? As the topic itself entails hypothetical assumptions & use of logic, let me do my bit to put forth some of that.

Let us for a moment assume that Pakistan is not an Islamic country & is governed by secular elements, quite comparable to how GoI is today. And lets start from Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Pakistan & US unite & support Afghan forces - but now they are not 'Mujahids'. They are just Afghani nationals fighting against USSR. USSR gets defeated & US retracts. Now Afghanistan achieves its freedom, the freedom fighters form a government & the country slowly starts on the path of development.

Afghanistan is still Islamic & let us say that religious fanaticism does exist in some form. But Pakistan is not Islamic per our assumption & hence the fanatics in Afghanistan do not get that tacit support from it. So either they die down or just be limited to some areas of Afghanistan.

Now due to that, there is no Taliban. If at all there is, there is no support from both administrations, Pakistan or Afghanistan. So Pakistan's NWFP area remains peaceful & the border between two countries remains safe & there is no WoT as it exists today.

But sadly, Pakistan being Islamic or some elements from the administration being radical, none of the above happened.

So why can we not conclude that Islamization of Pakistan = cause of today's situation?

 

[qsaark]

So why can we not conclude that Islamization of Pakistan = cause of today's situation?

Because there is no Islamization in Pakistan. Fanatism, Military-Mullah alliance etc is not equal to what you call Islamization. Just because 95 or so percent of Pakistani population is Muslim does not mean that all of them are extremists of fanatics. Even during the days of so-called Afghan Jihad, there was a large Pakistani population that kept itself neutral on the whole Afghan Jihad thing. You only get a perception that there is Islamization in Pakistan because of the hold of the GoP on media outlets in those days (80s). It also appears like this because that was exactly what all the stake holders such as US, Saudi Arabia and Zia's Military regime wanted to portray during 80s. I invite you to pay a visit to Pakistan and find out yourself how much Islamization exists in Pakistan. One thing that is directly responsible for the today’s situation is the prevalence of social and financial injustice in Pakistan.

 

[PeacefulIndian]

Because there is no Islamization in Pakistan. Fanatism, Military-Mullah alliance etc is not equal to what you call Islamization. Just because 95 or so percent of Pakistani population is Muslim does not mean that all of them are extremists of fanatics. Even during the days of so-called Afghan Jihad, there was a large Pakistani population that kept itself neutral on the whole Afghan Jihad thing. You only get a perception that there is Islamization in Pakistan because of the hold of the GoP on media outlets in those days (80s). It also appears like this because that was exactly what all the stake holders such as US, Saudi Arabia and Zia's Military regime wanted to portray during 80s. I invite you to pay a visit to Pakistan and find out yourself how much Islamization exists in Pakistan. One thing that is directly responsible for the today’s situation is the prevalence of social and financial injustice in Pakistan.

There is a clear difference Sir, between Islamization of people & Islamization of government/administration.

I am not talking about larger populace of Pakistan. In almost all countries in the world, people are not radical. Everyone wants to leave their peaceful day to day life. Radical are the administrations & that does count.

I was pointing towards radical elements in Pakistani administration & the men in power. If they could have been checked, the story would have been much different now.

 

[EjazR]

Islamization is an overused word and is not appropriate for what it is used to represent. The connotation that somehow what is happening in Pakistan now because it is Islamisized would mean Islam is responsible for this when this is wholly untrue. It would be more accurate to say that violent extremists who have used Islam to further their agendas by twisting and perverting its teaching and sometimes completely ignoring it and going against it.

Having said that, there is no problem to have separation of religion and state in Pakistan, especially since majority of the people have not voted for religious parties in any case in elections. The Deoband ulema have also expressed this from the beginning as a basis of establishing independent India. This would not mean that the political leaders would have to be less religious or not follow Islam. For example, the founding fathers of America were devout puritanical Christians but still emphasized separation of religion adn politics. Similarly in Turkey, the current prime minster is a devout muslim but that does not stop him from discharging his duties. Similar Pakistan does not have to do any radical changes in the constitution or electoral system to follow this path. Just follow the mandate of the people and tear apart the mulla-military alliance.