Jehad and The Curriculum

Rsidhar,

The Jinnah Papers show that Jinnah was very closely involved in the constitution-making and took part in the deliberations that took place early on. After December when Jinnah had resigned as the President of AIML, most of his time was spent away from Karachi in Lahore, Ziyarat etc.

I do hope you will read a book on the man ... I suggest Secular and Nationalist Jinnah by Dr. Ajeet Javed of Jawaharlal Nehru University, though like with most books I don`t agree with all that she says.

-YLH

re:#161 by jay
India`s image in USA is still very bad. There is a lot of ignorance about India and media distorts the image all the time. Why, i sometimes wonder?
The ignorance is so stark that one of my American colleagues at work wanted to know if as a Hindu, i went to a mosque!
I was about to return home from work when i just switched on the TV and was shocked to see the news of stampede and deaths in Lucknow. People apparently had gathered for gifts (sarees etc) promised on an election eve and some confusion led to the stampede. What was the necessity of projecting this news on CNN i thought.
India never learns about the uglier part of USA, which is its social structure. I see teenage pregnancies, broken homes, drugs very prevalent whereever i had worked, especially in big cities but India never gets to hear these things. It is as if the US news channels have an unwritten agenda to malign India. Even this latest BPO controversy is giving India a bad name.
Sridhar

re:#156 by ferozk
Thanks for an insightful post.
One is however intrigued by the turn of events in 1947. Jinnah knew he was dying (so much i gather from reading ``Freedom at midnight`` though i must confess i have not read a book on Jinnah) and that he had very little time. Why did he not go about the task of delegating power, framing constitution etc?
Sridhar

Hindoo-Fundoo Conspiracy (With apologies to my nicer Indian Hindu friends...)

Echoboom... #160

Adversity makes strange bedfellows...

The collaboration of the Islamist Mullah with the Indian Jingoistic fanatic is nothing new... we witnessed a fair share of it during the Independence Movement and the Pakistan Movement where bigots like you stood hand in glove with anti-Pakistan elements... calling Pakistan kafiristan and Jinnah, Kafiriazam...

If you have the gutts fight on facts... Answer my posts instead of hiding behind your long lost finally reunited ally and blood brother.



Jay,

I see you hiding behind more lies instead of answering with proper arguments. Like I pointed out... I didn`t write the book `Secular and Nationalist Jinnah` an Indian did... Perhaps for you history of 55 years is be all end all, but in the life of nations it is nothing. Jinnah`s vision has been communicated by those like KK Aziz, Cowasjee and Ayesha Jalal who have stood up against all the lies.

As for you... You have serious misgivings about Pakistan.... I suggest you ask those who have just come back... Pakistan is far from the Jehadic country of your wet dreams... and your own countrymen are castigating liars like you for lying about Pakistan. Still there are many faults in Pakistan and we will correct them. You really should be more concerned about your own country... unlike you I don`t have the time to start obsessing about your country and whats happening there.


Dr Abdus Salam is an honored Pakistani scientist... the Physics department of the Government College holds an annuall seminar and function on his achievements . He was a legend even in his own life time. A number of halls and buildings are named after him... and if you come to Pakistan I promise you I will show you the road named after him. Ofcourse I don`t want to meet a sicko like you is another issue... but I will even bear you or anyone else who wants to see the monuments and roads named after Abdus Salam.


Dr. Salam was a patriot of Pakistan .... who must be spinning in his grave to be used in such a cynical fashion by a bigoted enemy of Pakistan.


-YLH

YLH,

You keep quoting all and sundry and keep asserting that jinnah had a great vision, but how come he failed so misserabley in communicating it, in fact if you go by the path taken by pakistan in the last 50 years, he communicated the exact opposite.
Research in history is merely a reinterpretation of the past events, through selective emphasis one can create any portrait of jinnah. The proof is in the pudding, the reality of pakistan.

How come there are no freedom fighters in pakistan, who shared the vision of jinnah. Howcome none of the so called jinnah deciples are honoured, like the vinoba and JP of india.

YLH, there are times one has to look at the reality of today, go back and reread what jinnaha said. Pakistan has progressively, through military and democratic rulers have become a jihadic country, and major reason of which is the likes of you, who talk of a mirage, a non-existant pak ideology.

Take it from me, jinnah is dead and the pakistan of today represent the will of the pak people. There is no room for the dreams of a dead man. Accepot the reality and try to change it in a direction you want it.

Why cant you make a beginning by telling that there are no roads in pakistan named after abdus salam and you posted lies.

India visits now part of B-school curriculum
N VIDYASAGAR

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2004 01:53:00 AM ]

NEW DELHI : The old, exotic image of India continues to flood their minds. For a majority of 55 MIT Sloan MBA students who had a brief India sojourn recently — Infosys campus to Bollywood studios and R&D centres to people on the move — India has been a

pleasant shock.



Visiting India is common not only for CEOs but for B-school students from the US . It doesn`t matter that India still carries an image of being a land of snakecharmers, or, for that matter, of cows squatting on roads.



Even India-bashing by US politicians over outsourcing notwithstanding, passage to India seems to be the buzz in the world`s most developed economy. For instance, over 24 US professors were here recently, trying to study and understand India . Another 80 Harvard Business School students had come on a two-week Bharat yatra.

YLH, this is what I am talking about. You keep posting that jinnah views were no different from that of indian leaders, and how come this large gulf has developed in 50 years. Jihadis from all over the world are visiting pakistan, even the second generation ones in the UK are on the jihadic path.

Essential values of a society die hard, the only way you can explain the jihadic mind set of pakistan is through the darwenian selection, the ilk of mushy who masterminded the kargill invasion is the typical pakistani. For kargill invasion he had the support of the military and the jihadists, all united by the same pak ideology of TNT, kill the kafirs.

Assuming that the following is addressed to me. Reproduced for everyones convenience in its entirety:
#155 by Mantolives on April 11, 2004 6:12am PT

So you are saying that `secular` countries have shariat courts... but that doesn`t affect their secularism ... again you`ve lost me here... are you saying an Islamic state is a theocracy or is an Islamic state secular?

---

My Reply:
Jay has already said it impeccably, yet not so pedantically, thus:

#154 by jay on April 11, 2004 6:12am PT
What YLH is trying to do is simply to push $hit uphill and the outcome is there for all to see.

---

Jay,


My dear dear friend.... I didn`t write the book Secular and Nationalist Jinnah ... an Indian did... she is a PhD... and her book was published by Jawaharlal Nehru University Press


There is no end to your ignorance. Thank God I sleep at night knowing that I am not a liar like you. That dream was communicated repeatedly throughout Jinnah`s career and especially after the creation of Pakistan... The Two Nation Theory predated Jinnah... and Jinnah is the Only politician to be called the best Ambassador of Hindu muslim unity in the entire subcontinent... only in the minds of people like you does Jinnah become the sole embodiment of the two nation theory.



Warning the Mullahs (who had been allied with the Congress previously.. irony) he thundered:

`Make No Mistake about it. Pakistan shall not be a theocracy to be run by priests with a divine mission.`

He repeated this statement on a number of occasions.


The new state would be a modern democratic state with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship regardless of their religion, caste or creed. --Jinnah to Doon Campbell 21st May 1947


Again he said:

Minorities DO NOT cease to be citizens. Minorities living in Pakistan or Hindustan do not cease to be citizens of their respective states by virtue of their belonging to particular faith, religion or race. I have repeatedly made it clear, especially in my opening speech to the constituent Assembley, that the minorities in Pakistan would be treated as our citizens and will enjoy all the rights as any other community. Pakistan SHALL pursue this policy and do all it can to create a sense of security and confidence in the Non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan. We do not prescribe any school boy tests for their loyalty. We shall not say to any Hindu citizen of Pakistan `if there was war would you shoot a Hindu?` (Quaid e Azam`s interview 25th October 1947: with Reuters` Duncan Hooper note)


On 11th August he said:

If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make. I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination 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. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation. Now 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. Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality

---

The question that why a country for muslims is a stupid one... and is asked by either people like you or the Islamists like echoboom... the issue of the creation of a state for a minority, whether buddhist, muslim, christian or hindu has nothing to do with the issue of the secularism. Secularism : Separation of Church and State ... is a totally different concept.

That question has been answered by many scholars on the issue, including a number of Indian authors ...
-YLH

Ferozk,

You are accurate in your understanding of the Government of India Act.

For the reasons I have enumerated before... Jinnah hardly used his powers that were vested in him by the constitution let alone abused it. I wish he had been dictatorial like Kemal Ataturk in imposing his will on the people... but he didn`t.

re: Echoboom

You have changed your tune again. Now you wish me to perform social service; and your entire post was devoted to that act as a sign of my patriotism. You keep changing your arguments. :)

Sir, you have no arguments and all the arguments, you have made ended up conterdicting your basic hypothesis, which was to prove my igorance as a western educated westernized slave of limited mental capabilities. All your name calling and personal taunts have failed to prove your points, as you kept changing your line of arguments. First you argued that Jinnah was an Islamist and when I disproved that, you chose to argue that Pakistan should adopt the political model of the historic Islam of the past. When I disproved that such an option would not be suitable for Pakistan, you are appealing to my sense of civic duty, as a penance for getting rid of, or mitigating, my westernized background.

For your information, I support many charitable organizations, but I do not wear my charity work on my sleeve as some sign of social validation and I do it not for acknowledgement, but in gratitude of what I have been blessed with and which, must be shared with others less blessed than myself. Sir, with all due respect, you have chosen to personally attack me and personalize this debate by calling me ``jahail``, but I have still replied to your posts with respect and dignity despite the provocations you have hurled at me.

However, I must tell you that you do not know me as person and such, are not capable of judging me just as I have no wish to judge you. I must simply tell you that I do not need a validation or your approval to justify my life; past, present and future and in future, you can insult me all you wish and like, but it will only prove your limitations, as a person, and not mine.

Still, I thank you for a very interesting series of interacts, which have clarified many things for me and I have learned much, for which I thank you.

Ciao

re: rsridhar # 146

You have raised a key point.

Jinnah did set a bad precedent when he assumed the majority of sovereign authority if not sovereign power within his person after 1947. Pakistan`s legacy was the British parliamentary system and in such a system, the prime is the head of the government and the governor-general is the head of the state. At the time of partition, there was no politican in Pakistan who could stand up to Jinnah in terms of competence and persona need to lead Pakistan and even his prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, felt politically inferior to Jinnah.

Why Jinnah assumed and gave such an over arching role to the ceremonial position of governor-general is open to speculation. One reason might be that even though Pakistan in 1947 did have a constituent assembly, it did not have any sense of political institutionalism. Therefore, Jinnah might have felt a need to arrogate more powers to the office of governor-general to create the political institutions of Pakistan along the lines of the British parliamentary tradition of politics based on constitutionalism and rule of law. Mantolives can correct me on this, since his depth of knowledge on these issues is much more detailed than mine. The Government of India Act 1935, which was being used as Pakistan`s interim constitution, did give the governor-general the right to dismiss the parliament. Jinnah might not have opted for the position of the head of the government, that is of a prime minister, because he might not have wished his policies to be held hostage to a governor-general, with whom he might have developed political difference and chose the office of the governor-general to ensure that he held the ultimate power over the evolution of Pakistan`s political infrastructure.

This is pure speculation on my behalf, based on my understanding of the early years of Pakistan`s political development and you are more than welcome to disagree with me.

The bad precedent of Jinnah lies in the fact that after his death, all those who followed him sought to incorporate all of the political power within one office and as a result of this, Pakistan`s political development has been a struggle between the offices of the president (which replaced the office of the governor-general in 1956, when Pakistan became a republic) and the prime minister to monopolize the political power in the nation.

For example, from 1947 to 1948 the office of the governor-general was supereme and from 1948 to 1958, the office of prime minister assumed more powers, but was resisted by the office of governor-general. This tussle led to the coup d` etat of 1958 and from 1958 to 1970, Pakistan existed under a presidental form of government. After the end of the military rule in 1971, from 1973 to 1977 the power lay with the prime minister and after the coup d` etat of 1977, the power shited back to the presidency. When Zia-ul-Haq died in 1988, it reverted back to the prime minister`s office from 1988 to 1999, when coup d`etat of 1999 occured. Since 1999, the political power in Pakistan lies with the presidency. In all of this, it has never been shared equally between the prime minister and the president, but has been a victim of monopolization.

Ciao

Jinnahs dream,

It is pathetic to see the YLHs talking about jinnahs dream. It should always be limited to say that no one else shared or cared for this dream. In fact it was really a dream of jinnah which was never communicated to any one. No one is going to believe that a man who symbolised TNT and created a country in the name of islam really wanted a secular country where hindus and muslims could live together. In that case why a country for the muslims.

What YLH is trying to do is simply to push $hit uphill and the outcome is there for all to see.

So you are saying that `secular` countries have shariat courts... but that doesn`t affect their secularism ... again you`ve lost me here... are you saying an Islamic state is a theocracy or is an Islamic state secular?

M/O:151

READ AGAIN for the nth & last time:

Islami Law or Sharia incorporates DEEN and DUNYAA, spiritual and secular. There is no need to USE labels like SECULAR [this label reflects a certain westernised mindset and gives an impression that suddenly something better is there. NOTHING better has yet been invented , and never will, for muslims and non-muslims alike! other than the SHARIA] .

Your enquiry is like that about a person who is a father but he is also someones son and someones brother etc etc..all rolled into one. Inseparable. If you keep on hankering to declare that he could be only one you have a fallacious logic. The subject is boolean not linear. It is not ``scientific`` it is ``philosophical``. Sorry to tell you but you do not have a trained mind for it.

Why do you not clean-up the neighborhood streets for a change. Work with Maulana Sattar Edhi and get your hands dirty and thus get the cobwebs of your mind cleaned. Ditto for Fk. Now THAT is something very western which the amreeka-palats disdain and sneer at when in Paki-land. That is an Islami aspect which muslims abandoned and the west adopted. We regressed because we took all that was evil from the people we conquered and were conquered by. In Pakistan`s case it is the worst aspects of Casteism and other practices AND the class-system of the Baboons ( which incidentally was/is worse than the hindu practices). This class system has resulted in the residential colonies where STATUS is advertised. Before that it was 100% mixed rich/pauper neighborhoods as the walled-city would testify.


There are already shariat courts even in non-muslim ( or ``Secular`` countries). Wherever there is more than one muslim there will be the need of a shariat court. In India it is the Muslim Personal Law within the Indian constituition ( because of numbers & historicity). It is headed by a hindu judge, which is fine because he is well conversant with the law & various fiqhhs. Even in the Hindu states under the Rajahs there was the office of Quazi ( even during years of the Baboons). Mirza Ghalib was tried by Mufti SadruuDin Azurdaa (Mufti--the one who has the right to issue fatwaas). His title was Sadrul-Sudoor, Chief Justice.

If this could not be done away with during Baboon-years what gives you the impression that some folks would be allowed the will-o-the-wisp existense now ( am muslim now/ am not now--am muslim now/am not now). The whole idea is to REGISTER and not waffle with as-It-suits-me denizenships.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/04/09/op.htm#3

What happened to Quaid`s dream?


By M.H. Askari


Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah`s daughter, Ms Dina Wadia, on her first visit to Pakistan since her father`s death, recorded a somewhat intriguing observation in the visitors book at his mausoleum: ``This has been very sad and wonderful for me. May his dream for Pakistan come true.``

What her son, the successful Indian industrialist, Nusli Wadia, had to say made her observation sound even more poignant. He wrote in the visitors` book: ``My dream to come here has been fulfilled; I will come back to see his dream come true.``

Both used the future tense in the context of the Quaid`s dream. Their observations had a touch of scepticism, almost as if the Quaid`s dream of Pakistan had yet to materialize. Of course, both also expressed the hope that there will be a day when the Quaid`s dream would actually come true.

Could it be that like the American scholar and academician, Professor Robert Laporte, writing on the occasion of Pakistan`s 50th anniversary, they too felt that Pakistan after five decades ``is still in the making, still striving to find a stable and effective form of government``?

Most western observers are deeply impressed by India`s ancient civilization and by the mystique of the Hindu religion, but they tend to look upon Pakistan as something of an upstart state, with an identity not easy to define.

In any case, it is also only realistic to assume that an extremely short visit amid all the excitement of the resumption of cricketing ties between India and Pakistan could hardly be an occasion for a visitor to properly comprehend Pakistan`s identity and ethos.

The sad fact that Ms Dina Wadia had little personal exposure to her father`s hopes and aspirations and may not have been able to form a realistic perception of his vision can also not be altogether ruled out.

However, there is also the fact that Pakistan over the past 56 years has moved farther and farther away from the Quaid-i-Azam`s dreams. With the feudals dominating the affairs of Pakistan and an elite class arrogating to itself the right to be the rulers, what Mr Jinnah said at the Delhi session of the All-India Muslim League in April 1943 seems to have been forgotten, even though this contained one of his earliest enunciations of the raison d`etre of Pakistan.

The Quaid in his presidential address had said: ``Here I should like to give a warning to the landlords and capitalists who have flourished at our expense by a system which is so vicious that it is difficult to reason with them; the exploitation of the masses has gone into their blood.

They have forgotten the lessons of Islam. Greed and selfishness have made these people subordinate to the interests of others to fatten themselves. Do you realize that millions have been exploited and cannot get one meal a day? If that is the idea of Pakistan I would not have it...``

In the course of a talk to Muslim League workers in Calcutta in March 1946, he again expressed the same sentiments, and said: ``I am an old man and God has given me enough to live comfortably at this age. Why should I run about and take so much trouble... Not for the capitalists surely... In 1936 (during the Bengal famine) I saw the abject poverty of the people.... In Pakistan, we will do all in our power to see that everybody can get a decent living...``

Unfortunately, when Pakistan came into being it had no economic programme, mainly because in the years preceding it the Quaid was too busy fighting a political battle and obviously had no time to draw up a blueprint for the future economic system of Pakistan. The situation has become only progressively worse since then.

There has also been a similar apathy towards the need to provide Pakistan with a democratic system. To this day, the prerogative to rule over the destiny of the people continues to be exercised by an exclusive elite class, comprising mainly of the landlords and capitalists whom the Quaid, years before Pakistan came into existence, had totally rejected. Landlords and capitalists are well entrenched at the helm and the situation does not seem likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Even though the intelligentsia, particularly those among them who are influenced by western ideas, tend to be critical of the ``narrow religious base`` on which Pakistan was founded, there is amongst them a consensus that the Quaid himself had a broad, deeply secular, and liberal outlook.

He expected that Pakistan would not develop into a parochial, chauvinistic state. He even hoped that with the achievement of Pakistan, Muslims would cease to be Muslims and Hindus would cease to be Hindus, not in the matter of their religious faith but in their role as citizens of the same state, and that ``religion would have nothing to do with the business of the state.`` However, in Pakistan society has evolved in exactly the reverse direction.

It is not altogether improbable that even during the short time that she spent in Pakistan, Ms Dina Wadia might have noticed the conspicuous place that religion has come to occupy in the day-to-day life of the people and its dominating part in the running of the people`s life and the affairs of the state.

Mr Jinnah`s ``pluralistic view of Pakistani society`` virtually no more features in the people`s thinking. General Ziaul Haq provided a constitutional basis for this change. In the words of Professor Anita M. Weiss of the Oregon State University, ``the pluralistic perspective was definitely discarded in 1979 when President Mohammad Ziaul Haq`s administration left no question that some interpretations of Islam were to wield unprecedented influence in the state.``

Ms Dina Wadia could not but have noticed the innumerable banners and profuse wall-chalkings as evidence of this phenomenon even when she made her brief journey from the airport to the Quaid`s mausoleum and that perhaps may have prompted the thought in her mind which was expressed in her observations at the Quaid`s tomb.

She may also have noticed the media debate over the inclusion or deletion of some verses of the Holy Quran in or from school textbooks even for subjects like biology.

Tribal traditions too have been a strong influence in the conduct of the daily life of the people. For quite a large section of the people living under the tribal system, even abominable and criminal traditions such as karo kari have come to be sanctified.

The only redeeming factor is that quite a substantial section of the younger people in many parts of Pakistan is beginning to question all this. It has been pointed out that the question of declaration of one`s religious beliefs, for instance, should have nothing to do with the issuance of national identity cards.

What is extremely deplorable and totally contrary to the Quaid`s thoughts on the ethos of Pakistan are the painfully sharp ethnic and cultural differences that which one encounters almost at every step.

It has been said that ethnic crises and regional divisions have perpetually threatened the unity and security of Pakistan. The breaking away of East Pakistan in 1971 may have been an extreme phenomenon but there are deep feelings of deprivation and of being exploited in provinces such as Sindh and Balochistan.

The North-West Frontier has always had an ``uneasy relationship`` with the centre. In parts of the Frontier, Islamist parties have managed to virtually sideline the law of the land. The Baloch have fought regular wars with the security forces of the centre.

If Ms Wadia felt like a stranger in Pakistan as she found it, in contrast to what may have been her impressions of how her father visualized the state of Pakistan, her prayer that her father`s dream may ultimately come true may have been a genuine and spontaneous reaction.

What she saw, even if she did not stay here long enough to see a great deal, could not have been anything like the Muslim homeland of her father`s dreams. Even if she grew up in a broken home, she could not have been a stranger to her father`s liberal, secular, progressive and broadminded view of life and society.

rsidhar,

Thankyou for bringing up interesting points... I will not describe your knowledge as superfluous about anything.... You certainly have an above average knowledge of everything Pakistani, except that sometimes it is felt that you are trying to belittle us though I admit that you are amongst the most cordial people I have come across on Chowk despite my provocations.

Perhaps... but I am not sure what the legacy of a person whose entire life was spent in environs of parliament and constitutional debate can be. For the points I gave in my previous post... I believe that Jinnah left a legacy which was both constitutional and democratic. You have a point that for the father of the nation to choose the position of the Head of the state instead of the Head of Government was perhaps vesting too much authority in GG or the president... however 1) his position was constitutional and his name was nominated by the successor party i.e. Muslim League`s working commitee.. according to Suhrawardy at least Jinnah had decided to retire from Politics in 1947 and live out his days in Bombay (another reminder of how he didn`t envisage the carnage) but was convinced otherwise by Liaqat Ali Khan... Democracy can be of many forms, and in essence the Government of India Act made the Viceroy/Governor General the executive head for the obvious reasons. So thats like saying that since President of the US has more powers, the constitution of US is not democratic. 2) What powers did Jinnah use that were extraordinary or out of the scope of the Government of India act. (Please read my post 136 once again). Jinnah really didn`t exercise those `absolute powers` that you talk about. I have already pointed out why not in 136... One reference is made to the dismissal of the Khan Sahib coalition ministry in NWFP... which happened in the early days of Pakistan on the recommendation of the Governor of NWFP... it was constitutional and within the powers of the GG.

``1) So Jinnah did not chair the cabinet meetings as claimed by Romair

2) He did not impose his constitution on the PCA

3) He did not make Pakistan a one party state

4) The ministers reported to the Prime Minister and not to Jinnah

5) None of Jinnah`s actions were in violation of Government of India Act 1935


(For reference please read B>Alan Mcgrath`s book `Destruction of Pakistan`s Democracy` in which he rubbishes this argument. Also read Ayesha Jalal`s `The state of Martial rule` in which she hits back against this view that Jinnah`s assumption of GGship was wrong. Read K B Sayeed`s `Pakistan the formative Phase`, I also refer to `Jinnah Papers` Volume VI `Pakistan Battling against all odds` especially the letters by Mandal, Chundrigar, Rab Nishtar, Francis Mudie and others. ) ``


In America Washington and Lincoln were strongmen and atleast Lincoln went much farther than Jinnah in bending the constitution of the US to invest more executive authority in the Presidential office. FDR ruled very personally and broke even the convention of two time election. He too bent the constitution to extract more executive authority. Kemal Ataturk as the founder of Turkey handpicked and dismissed the Prime Minister and even the opposition. He was actually called a dictator time and again. All of these leaders used their powers much more so than Jinnah either as founders of their nations or under exceptional circumstances such as war or the great depression ... Closer to our region... Nehru`s rule was highly personalized as well... similarly Nehru`s invasions of Kashmir, Junagadh, Hyderabad, and finally Goa are not viewed favorably... and those were international issues, eliciting world wide criticism, and atleast on the last one a sharp rebuke from President Kennedy. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty seems to have firm hold on the Congress Party and right up to the 1990s over India as well... yet one would not question their democratic credentials because hardly anyone can argue their political legitimacy. Gandhiji, though not even a member of the Congress, but as its spiritual leader handpicked and replaced Congress Presidents... by passing the Congress`s intra-party election. Nehru and Gandhi could do it because they had the confidence of the people at large... so popular leaders are never dictatorial in the sense of being unelected etc. They are the embodiment of the will of the people... and sometimes their guide as well.

-YLH