Advani in Karachi

Re: # 615

You sir have lost your mind. Please decide what you are discussing.

No there is no burden of proof on me. You have merely twisted the argument. I have given you an answer which I consider perfectly logical. You are free to disagree with it.

I am going to repeat it for you: Jinnah wanted an equipoise. He wanted existing federating units to be gerrymandered in a way so that at the centre an equipoise was created. The equipoise itself was to be achieved by several different safeguards i.e 1) Group legislatures 2) supra-group federation executive + - legislature. If you bother to read the Cabinet Mission Plan and/or the sources I have quoted enough.


Then I found this gem:


There were MANY MANY pockets of Hindu majority areas in Pakistan – in Sindh, Punjab, and Baluchistan.

``Even though the Provinces themselves were Muslim majority, there were pockets of Hindu majority areas in each of these provinces.``

No doubt there were as there were Muslim pockets in Hindu Majority areas as well. Jinnah never demanded new demarcations. He was proceeding on the basis of federating units. Nor was his equipoise the final solution to India`s problem. By making sure that Hindus were represented on the constitutional committee and had the law ministry, he was trying to make sure that the equipoise was achieved in Pakistan as well.

Re: #614 by Mantolives


[If you recall you said that you will answer my point about Hinduism and other religions being based on the same kind of mythology. You didn`t.]

You are nothing if not adamant. How many times did I tell you that I was willing to talk about Hinduism and other religions AFTER we had finished debating about Mohammed?

But you just keep repeating this same thing again and again.

You think you are a good debater. But you are not. Just the fact that you brought this point up shows that.



[Besides not being the religious type, I don`t argue about religion with bigots be they Muslim, Hindu or Chritian ]

I could call you an a$$hole too, but am I doing that? So try to avoid ad-hominems. This is the last time I am telling you this.



[Please inform me what these ``constitutional safeguards`` were. The only CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARD Jinnah wanted was the ``EQUIPOISE``. You can go and check any sources. Please feel free to list these other ``safeguards`` you talk about and then inform me why you think they were not given. ]

YOU are the one who started talking about ``constitutional safeguards`` in the PLURAL.

So that’s it? Huh? Jinnah’s big prescription and brainwave? EQUIPOISE?

What does that constitute, IN JINNAH’S WORDS, pray?



[I have already. The federal scheme was merely one way of getting an equipoise. Were there any Hindu Majority Provinces or areas in the ``moth eaten`` Pakistan as it was given to us?]

There were MANY MANY pockets of Hindu majority areas in Pakistan – in Sindh, Punjab, and Baluchistan.

These were small pockets of majority, but they were pockets of majority all right.

Of course, now that many of them are “ethnically cleansed”, now they might not be any more.


[Please recall that in his negotiations Jinnah had offered Sikhs an autonomous state within India. ]

Why should I recall that? Which point does that prove? How is this relevant to the current discussion?




[In United India Muslims formed contigious majority regions in NWFP, Punjab, Sindh and Bengal. ]

Let me repeat :

There were MANY MANY pockets of Hindu majority areas in Pakistan – in Sindh, Punjab, and Baluchistan.

Even though the Provinces themselves were Muslim majority, there were pockets of Hindu majority areas in each of these provinces.

Did Jinnah offer a federation of small states for these areas?




[Certainly. Please read the appendix of Jinnah Papers. On the Threshold of Pakistan 1 July-25 July 1947. First Series Volume III. and constituent assembly debates Jinnah Papers. Volume IV. ]

No No No No No.

YOU read it.

And tell us.

The burden of proof is on YOU.




[ your inability to follow a very simple line of argument forces me to conclude otherwise.]

And which “simple line” of argument would that be?

a) The “contiguous” argument?

b) The “equipoise” argument (which has recently replaced the brilliant brainwave also known as ``constitutional safeguards``)?

c) Me being a “bigot” argument? or,

d) Me not discussing about Hindu mythology argument?


I am at a loss.

Kindly illuminate.

``Well you DID tiptoe away from the discussion on Mohammed. ``

If you recall you said that you will answer my point about Hinduism and other religions being based on the same kind of mythology. You didn`t. Besides not being the religious type, I don`t argue about religion with bigots be they Muslim, Hindu or Chritian



``We are NOT talking about his “equipoise”. We are talking about his much vaunted “constitutional safeguards” and his “federal system” prescription for India. ``

Please inform me what these ``constitutional safeguards`` were. The only CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARD Jinnah wanted was the ``EQUIPOISE``. You can go and check any sources. Please feel free to list these other ``safeguards`` you talk about and then inform me why you think they were not given.

I am not aware of any other constitutional safeguards.


``[However your ``Federal`` issue is irrelevant and shows your lack of knowledge.]

WHY IS IT IRRELEVANT? Because YOU say so? Show me how. ``

I have already. The federal scheme was merely one way of getting an equipoise. Were there any Hindu Majority Provinces or areas in the ``moth eaten`` Pakistan as it was given to us? Please recall that in his negotiations Jinnah had offered Sikhs an autonomous state within India.

We shall see about who has the lack of knowledge.


``MUSLIMS in India did not form contiguous zones either. They were spread out all over the country in varying densities. ``

In United India Muslims formed contigious majority regions in NWFP, Punjab, Sindh and Bengal.


``And could you KINDLY quote from Jinnah’s papers that you refer to (since YOU are the knowledgeable one) WHERE he proposed a Federal system for Pakistan along the lines of his wonderful prescription for India. PLEASE?``

Certainly. Please read the appendix of Jinnah Papers. On the Threshold of Pakistan 1 July-25 July 1947. First Series Volume III. and constituent assembly debates Jinnah Papers. Volume IV.


``I may sound like an idiot to you, but my English comprehension is better than most, as proven by numerous standardized tests.``

Well standardized tests or not... your inability to follow a very simple line of argument forces me to conclude otherwise.

Re: #611 by Mantolives


[Please don`t prove yourself to be an idiot by declaring victory so soon. I have never ratted... people like you have come and gone several times in the last few years.]

Well you DID tiptoe away from the discussion on Mohammed.

And as far as THIS discussion goes, we shall see who’s an idiot in the end.

And by the way, “ratted” means betraying someone’s confidence.

And if you meant “rattled”, then the sentence should be “I have never BEEN rattled”.

In any case.


[Like I pointed out that Jinnah was gave Hindus the same rights he wanted Muslims to have in India. He did create an equipoise in the Cabinet and an equipose on the Constitutional committee as well as affirmative action in the allocation of government jobs for Hindus. ]


We are NOT talking about his “equipoise”.

We are talking about his much vaunted “constitutional safeguards” and his “federal system” prescription for India.


[However your ``Federal`` issue is irrelevant and shows your lack of knowledge.]

WHY IS IT IRRELEVANT?

Because YOU say so?

Show me how.

We shall see about who has the lack of knowledge.


[Jinnah had wanted a federal India based on provinces. In Pakistan, as created on 14th August 1947, Hindus did not form contiguous geographical zones. The equipoise could not be provincial, even though Jinnah had envisaged it is clear from the Jinnah papers a federal Pakistan. ]


This is a load of BALONEY, to put it very politely.

MUSLIMS in India did not form contiguous zones either. They were spread out all over the country in varying densities.

And could you KINDLY quote from Jinnah’s papers that you refer to (since YOU are the knowledgeable one) WHERE he proposed a Federal system for Pakistan along the lines of his wonderful prescription for India.

PLEASE?




[So your whole idea is invalid and wrong.]

We shall see about that, shall we?



[And if you don`t follow this train of thought then I am afraid you are not reading what I am writing properly. ]


I may sound like an idiot to you, but my English comprehension is better than most, as proven by numerous standardized tests.

And now on to a more balanced rendering of history

The lost chances of history

COLIN GONSALVES


Posted online: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 at 0000 hours IST



Author of Constitutional law of India and former attorney general, the late H.M. Seervai, has provided an interesting account of Jinnah’s role in Partition. According to him, the picture painted of Jinnah as being the one who brought about Partition on account of ambition, vanity and intransigence is contrary to historical evidence. He describes Nehru as appearing imperious and shows Gandhi as being indifferent to Muslim demands. He suggests it was Gandhi who introduced religion into politics with disastrous consequences.

M.A. Jinnah joined the Congress in 1906. He was hailed as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity after the 1916 Lucknow Pact, when the Muslim League (ML) and the Congress agreed to jointly fight the British. When, in 1914, Annie Besant started the Home Rule League, the president of its Bombay branch was Jinnah. In 1920, Gandhi became League president but Besant resigned over politics becoming ‘intertwined with religion’. Gandhi had begun to subtly introduce religion into politics as his ascetic image had begun to appeal to Hindu religious sentiment. This approach to arouse political consciousness was understandable, but it came at a price. His support for the Khilafat movement saw Jinnah cautioning him against it.



In 1925, the All Party Conference appointed a committee headed by Nehru to frame the Constitution. The Nehru Report rejected separate electorates. The ML had wanted this and had also demanded residuary powers be given to the provinces. Jinnah pleaded these amendments be accepted to avoid “civil war”. They were rejected. “This is a parting of ways,” Jinnah told a friend.

Then, when the British announced the Communal Award providing for separate electorates and reservation for both Muslims and depressed classes, Gandhi announced a fast unto death. It was withdrawn after B.R. Ambedkar intervened and the Poona Pact was arrived at under which there were reservations for depressed classes but with joint electorates. In the polls to provincial legislatures under the Government of India Act, 1935, out of 485 Muslim seats the ML won only 108. Congress ministries were formed in eight provinces. Then Congress made the disastrous move of not forming a coalition with Muslims. In the United Province, it contested 9 out of 66 Muslim seats and lost all. The backlash had begun.

In his autobiography, India Wins Freedom, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad wrote “if the League’s offer of cooperation was accepted the Muslim League would have merged with the Congress.” But Azad’s recommendation was rejected by Nehru who said that no Muslim should be admitted into the Cabinet unless he joins the Congress. He wanted the Cabinet to be homogeneous. In March 1937, Nehru remarked “there are only two forces in India today, British imperialism and Indian nationalism.” Jinnah was quick to retort, “No, there is a third party, the Mussalman.” History was to bear him out. Yet, even as late as 1937, according to Shiva Rao, Jinnah was not considering a separate state.

Congress then began a search for a solution. The Desai-Liaquat Ali Pact and the Sapru Committee suggested the formation of coalition ministries at the Centre. This was turned down. In 1945, Azad suggested to Gandhi that the Constitution be federal, units be given the right to secede, that there be joint electorates with reservation of seats and parity between Muslims and Hindus in the legislature and Central Executive “until communal suspicion disappears”. Gandhi differed. Bhulabhai Desai and Tej Bahadur Sapru, prominent lawyers, also pleaded in vain. As a result, in the 1945 Central Legislature Assembly elections, the ML won every Muslim seat and Congress Muslims lost every seat. It overlooked the fact that though 200 million Hindus were not equal to 90 million Muslims in terms of numbers, while framing a constitution some sort of meaningful parity has to be worked out. Gandhi made no practical attempt to find a solution. Even after the ML call for direct action the Calcutta killings and the boycott of the Constituent Assembly in 1946, Gandhi did not budge.

The rest is history. Lord Wavell who, according to Seervai, tried repeatedly to get the Congress to accommodate the ML for a unified India, was sacked. The Congress began planning for Partition. Gandhi, who had previously said that Partition would come to India over his dead body, advised that circumstances had arisen which made Partition unavoidable. Jinnah left India with an appeal to both Hindus and Muslims to bury the past. The next day Patel said at Delhi “The poison has been removed from the body of India. We are now one and indivisible.”


The writer is a Supreme Court advocate

Re: # 610

Ajeya,

Please don`t prove yourself to be an idiot by declaring victory so soon. I have never ratted... people like you have come and gone several times in the last few years. I was busy in a crucial meeting yesterday... and I am surprised that you declared victory so quickly.

Like I pointed out that Jinnah was gave Hindus the same rights he wanted Muslims to have in India. He did create an equipoise in the Cabinet and an equipose on the Constitutional committee as well as affirmative action in the allocation of government jobs for Hindus.

However your ``Federal`` issue is irrelevant and shows your lack of knowledge. Jinnah had wanted a federal India based on provinces. In Pakistan, as created on 14th August 1947, Hindus did not form contiguous geographical zones. The equipoise could not be provincial, even though Jinnah had envisaged it is clear from the Jinnah papers a federal Pakistan.

Jinnah wanted an Equipoise for Muslims in India. He gave an equipoise to the Hindus during his government ... both in the Cabinet and on the constitutional committee.

So your whole idea is invalid and wrong. And if you don`t follow this train of thought then I am afraid you are not reading what I am writing properly.

Shishapa,

Do you suffer from some reading disability?

Please inform me what constitutional safeguards he had asked for India... and how did he not give the same to the Hindus in Pakistan? What both of you are doing are exposing your ignorance.

Deafening silence from that constitutional scholar, also known as Yasser.

Kind of the same ending as on the discussion on Mohammed.

Which would be okay, except for the fact that he`ll soon pop up on a different forum and start spouting the same nonsense as if none of this ever happened.

I saw on his bio that he is an aspiring lawyer.

I feel sorry for his potential clients. So many innocents would go to jail for life!

Very sad.

Jinnah converted from an Ismaili Khoja to an Ithna Ashari (the dominant Shia ideology), which, given his uncompromising character, was not something he would’ve done without strong belief

[Jinnah knew that to achieve his political aims he had to shun Nehru`s secularism and use religion as a rallying point ..... the legacy that Jinnah left is a legacy of exclusion. The plurality of the vision that Gandhi and Nehru nurtured was missing in Pakistan]

http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20050627/cover5.shtml&SET=T

India Today
June 27, 2005

Antithesis Of Nehru
By Mushirul Hasan

[Prof Mushirul Hasan, an eminent historian, is a former VC of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi]

Whether Mohammad Ali Jinnah was secular or not cannot be an unqualified statement. Jinnah can quite easily be described as a secular politician who at times was pushed into taking non-secular positions in the public eye. But more often he used political spaces to further what he regarded as communitarian concerns. When he did that, he very dexterously used religion, because Islam has historically provided a rallying point for the mobilisation of the Muslim community. M.A. Ansari, Congress president, had this perceptive comment to make on June 26, 1927: ``(Jinnah) is a nationalist at heart, turned into a communalist by the exigencies of the time, but I have little faith in anyone who can change his conviction so readily to suit the circumstance.`` Perhaps, L.K. Advani needs to reflect on his statement about Jinnah.

It is important to remember that from 1937-38 on, there is very little secularism in Jinnah`s political pursuits. If you read his speeches and his correspondence, and if you follow the process of the dismantling of adversaries in the erstwhile provinces of British India, you see how the secular garb lay in shreds. His language is belligerent, strident and often conflict-ridden. The very vocabulary of the two expressions that Jinnah is most associated with, ``The Day of Deliverance`` in 1939 after the resignation of the Congress ministries and the call for ``Direct Action`` in August 1947, suggests a shift towards the principle of exclusion. Contrary to the image he cultivated in the early years of his public life, Jinnah had now realised that in order to achieve his aims he had to use not the secular banner of Nehru but a religious one. This, he no doubt used very effectively.

By definition, the state Jinnah founded could not acquire a secular character because it was built on the principle of religious nationalism. This has been established and is no longer talked about in the confines of this debate. This is why Pakistan has had a tortuous process of constitution-making and Zia-ul-Haq was able to foist a constitution which is so obviously in complete disregard of Jinnah`s speech in the Constituent Assembly. A secular Pakistan was not ever going to be feasible and though Pakistan today is a secular society, its polity is by and large not secular.

George Fernandes` contention in the wake of the controversy over Advani`s visit that Nehru was himself pseudo-secular is a shoddy attempt to re-evaluate the history of Partition. Some of Nehru`s positions vis-à-vis Jinnah and the Muslim League were overstated. In some ways, Nehru`s standing on the communal question leaves much to be desired. The problem was a lot more complex than is presented in his writings and in his speeches. Having said that, Nehru was the quintessential secularist and was very concerned about the intrusion of religion into politics. I don`t think that even Fernandes can deny the fact that Nehru was extremely consistent in upholding this very principle. So ideologically, I think the positions of Nehru and Jinnah are almost completely at variance with each other because Nehru championed the composite evolution of a composite society; Jinnah contested composite traditions and talked of a civilisational conflict. Nehru, despite the partition of the country and the bloodshed, emerges as the most consistent protagonist of a secular India. At the same time Pakistan was refurbishing its Islamic image. After 1947, Nehru tirelessly fought communal tendencies. Whereas the legacy that Jinnah left is a legacy of exclusion. The plurality of the vision that Gandhi and Nehru nurtured was missing in Pakistan. So ideologically, I see no compatibility between these two individuals. To understand the role of Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah, we need to write not the history but the histories of Partition.

Mr. Jinnah and Muslim League wanted constitutional safeguards for minority muslims in United India from the majority Hindus but was not willing to give constitutional safeguards to minorities in muslim majority Pakistan because he envisaged that they would be ethnically cleansed anyway.
So in his demand of Pakistan and after Pakistan was created, he never uttered a word about it.
Is it not a hypocirsy?

Re #604 by Mantolives

[I agree that the existing dogma in Islam does hinder progress to a secular democratic state, without agreeing ofcourse with your hatred against the religion.]


And there is no ``existing dogma``. The Quran`s dogmas are supposed to be immutable, for ALL times and people.

Re #604 by Mantolives

[I agree that the existing dogma in Islam does hinder progress to a secular democratic state, without agreeing ofcourse with your hatred against the religion.]


Yes, I have hatred for Fascism, Nazism and Communism as well. And for pedophiles.

But coming back to the topic of Jinnah`s ``constitutional safeguards``. So did he propose that Pakistan be built on a Federal style, with power sharing between Hindus and Muslims, since as a ``realist`` he realized that Hindus and Muslims were not one people as of that point of time?

Dear Ajeya...

I agree that the existing dogma in Islam does hinder progress to a secular democratic state, without agreeing ofcourse with your hatred against the religion.

If you read up on Jinnah`s life... the ``gerrymandering`` for an ``equipoise`` was it. There were no other constitutional safeguards. He was against separate electorates in principle and was for its early disappearance and he said as much in his famous 14 points as well.

The difference between Nehru`s vision and Jinnah`s vision was very simple and nuanced...

Nehru`s ideal was more centralised, more nation state oriented. Jinnah`s vision was more federal.. atleast in the short run. Nehru the idealist believed that Indians were one people and all the differences were artificial. Jinnah the realist wanted Indians to be one people but saw the ground reality : that Indians were divided along several lines... hence he wanted them to evolve into one nation.

It was the clash between the idealist and realist that had drastic consequences.

Now as far as Pakistan is concerned... during Jinnah`s own government, which was under GOIA1935, he did do the maximum he could do accomodate that vision... but here too he wanted Pakistanis to ultimately become one nation... In due course of time Hindus shall cease to be Hindus and Muslims shall cease to be Muslims, not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual, but in a political sense. He believed that minority whether Muslim or Hindu should be made part of whichever state by affirmative action of sorts.

I am sure the constitution that we would have developed under him would have been suitably federal and would have the same assurances he wanted in India. He died ofcourse within 13 months of Pakistan`s creation.

Re: #602 by Mantolives


[``1) Could you list the ``Constitutional safeguards`` that Jinnah wanted?``

Since Mr Jinnah believed that separate electorates were TEMPORARY and should be abandoned for the joint electorate, his final ``constitutional safeguard`` scheme was no in explicitly communal terms. What he wanted and he said so in clear words was an ``equipoise`` through ``gerrymandering`` on the basis of ``joint electorate``. Now what this meant, if you have taken a bit of constitutional law, was a loose confederation of two federations, both secular with joint electorates, with equal seats in the central Indian legislature. Mind you this didn`t mean that Jinnah stood for a weak central government. That is a travesty of the truth and oversimplication of the argument. What he believed was that the two federations would then evolve towards a more cohesive unit and over time, as ``Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims`` the confederation could evolve constitutionally into a stronger centralised confederation. ]

I appreciate the effort you put into explaining this.

Could you still, if the source is available to you, cut-and-paste the exact “constitutional safeguards” in your next response?


[2) Are there ``Constitutional safeguards`` for Hindus in Pakistan? Or power sharing?

The Pakistan of today is not Jinnah`s Pakistan. But during his own government, he ensured Hindu participation in the highest level of the government. For example... he chose a Hindu deliberately i.e. Jongindranath Mandal to first preside over the constituent assembly and then much more importantly become the first law minister of the dominion. He did another thing.... a 3 special committee formed during his time on constitution had a Hindu representative, who might actually have presided over it. It was quite clear what way Pakistan was moving had Jinnah stayed in the helm. There certainly would have been a number of safeguards for all minorities above and beyond their equal rights as citizens.
Here again he would have wanted (like in United India) for Pakistan to evolve to a post-religious secular democracy. ]


Again, thanks for explaining this.

The steps Jinnah took in Pakistan seem exactly like the steps taken in India by Nehru in the Indian Government. If you want, tell me, and I’ll compile a list for you. They are many in number.

BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

Since Jinnah felt that a minority muslim community SHOULD get “constitutional safeguards”, did he implement THOSE EXACT SAME “constitutional safeguards” for the Hindu minority in Pakistan WHEN Pakistan was formed?

Let me know.



[3) WHY did Pakistan end up being an ``ISLAMIC`` state?

Again... it was a deviation from Jinnah`s vision. Jinnah, as long as he was alive, had kept the Mullahs at bay, arguing eloquently that there was nothing unIslamic about the state as it existed (as per the secular 1935 GOIA adapated as the first provisional constitution of the republic). Look he was adamant about having a secular state... he even got a Hindu to write Pakistan`s national anthem... which was Pakistan`s official national anthem for as long as he lived.


Now did Pakistan move away from that vision. Yes it did after Mr Jinnah`s demise. The secular national anthem composed by Jagannath Azad was thrown away! The ``Hindu Law Minister`` was forced out of the country finally in 1950... and ``priests with a divine mission`` who Jinnah had warned against were allowed to creep into constitution making. The Minority Hindu representatives, who Jinnah had placed on the constitutional and other committees, were sidelined and silenced after his death.

The rot started some 6 months after Jinnah`s death. Look people expected Pakistan to collapse after Jinnah`s death... but it didn`t... but what did happen was that there was a humongous leadership vacuum... 6 months after Jinnah`s death, the Pakistan constituent assembly passed the objectives resolution which spoke of ``Quran and Sunnah`` though it also spoke of a multicultural, multireligious democracy. This was Liaqat Ali Khan bowing into the pressure of the Mullahs, who had opposed Pakistan`s creation mind you, and were now in Pakistan agitating for an Islamic state. ]



For some reason or other, ALL muslim majority countries end up becoming Islamic states (with VERY few exceptions that have good reasons for being exceptions).

Because the Mullahs are not wrong in their insistence that IF you call yourself a Muslim, you MUST follow the Quran, and if you follow the Quran, you CANNOT have a secular state.

As simple as that.

Re: # 601

``1) Could you list the ``Constitutional safeguards`` that Jinnah wanted?``

Since Mr Jinnah believed that separate electorates were TEMPORARY and should be abandoned for the joint electorate, his final ``constitutional safeguard`` scheme was no in explicitly communal terms. What he wanted and he said so in clear words was an ``equipoise`` through ``gerrymandering`` on the basis of ``joint electorate``. Now what this meant, if you have taken a bit of constitutional law, was a loose confederation of two federations, both secular with joint electorates, with equal seats in the central Indian legislature. Mind you this didn`t mean that Jinnah stood for a weak central government. That is a travesty of the truth and oversimplication of the argument. What he believed was that the two federations would then evolve towards a more cohesive unit and over time, as ``Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims`` the confederation could evolve constitutionally into a stronger centralised confederation.


2) Are there ``Constitutional safeguards`` for Hindus in Pakistan? Or power sharing?

The Pakistan of today is not Jinnah`s Pakistan. But during his own government, he ensured Hindu participation in the highest level of the government. For example... he chose a Hindu deliberately i.e. Jongindranath Mandal to first preside over the constituent assembly and then much more importantly become the first law minister of the dominion. He did another thing.... a 3 special committee formed during his time on constitution had a Hindu representative, who might actually have presided over it. It was quite clear what way Pakistan was moving had Jinnah stayed in the helm. There certainly would have been a number of safeguards for all minorities above and beyond their equal rights as citizens.
Here again he would have wanted (like in United India) for Pakistan to evolve to a post-religious secular democracy.


3) WHY did Pakistan end up being an ``ISLAMIC`` state?

Again... it was a deviation from Jinnah`s vision. Jinnah, as long as he was alive, had kept the Mullahs at bay, arguing eloquently that there was nothing unIslamic about the state as it existed (as per the secular 1935 GOIA adapated as the first provisional constitution of the republic). Look he was adamant about having a secular state... he even got a Hindu to write Pakistan`s national anthem... which was Pakistan`s official national anthem for as long as he lived.


Now did Pakistan move away from that vision. Yes it did after Mr Jinnah`s demise. The secular national anthem composed by Jagannath Azad was thrown away! The ``Hindu Law Minister`` was forced out of the country finally in 1950... and ``priests with a divine mission`` who Jinnah had warned against were allowed to creep into constitution making. The Minority Hindu representatives, who Jinnah had placed on the constitutional and other committees, were sidelined and silenced after his death.

The rot started some 6 months after Jinnah`s death. Look people expected Pakistan to collapse after Jinnah`s death... but it didn`t... but what did happen was that there was a humongous leadership vacuum... 6 months after Jinnah`s death, the Pakistan constituent assembly passed the objectives resolution which spoke of ``Quran and Sunnah`` though it also spoke of a multicultural, multireligious democracy. This was Liaqat Ali Khan bowing into the pressure of the Mullahs, who had opposed Pakistan`s creation mind you, and were now in Pakistan agitating for an Islamic state.

Liaqat thought the best way was to establish a practical modern democracy but pay lipservice to Islam ... and instituonalise a marginal role for it in the constitution. He was wrong. The minority members spoke out against it ... recalling Jinnah`s vision... but in vain.
Pakistan became an official ``Islamic Republic`` in 1956 ...the difference being that the head of the state would be a Muslim... In 1962... the constitution proclaimed ``Republic of Pakistan`` but that was soon revised under Mullah pressure... but both these constitutions interestingly enough had no state religion. In 1973 ... Islam became the state religion and Islam was given an institutionalised role though NOT a supreme role. In 1984 Zia Ul Haq by the insertion of 2A made Quran and Sunnah directive an operative part of the constitution. He also implemented the so called ``Sharia``. So this is the story... so far.

Why did we err and move away from Jinnah`s vision?... because we Muslims are in this period of time extremely backward people who can`t be reasoned with that easily. I admit this much... what I don`t admit is that things will get frm bad to worse. Ultimately in Pakistan Jinnah`s secular democratic vision will triumph.

---

Please read the following:


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1147160.cms
An Indian who wrote Pak`s anthem

ANI[ MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005 10:40:56 AM ]

Surf `N` Earn -Sign innow

LAHORE/DELHI: Indian writer and intellectual Jagannath Azad wrote Pakistan`s first national anthem at the request of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the country`s Founding Father.


Days before his death last year, Azad recalled, in an interview, the circumstances under which Jinnah asked him to write Pakistan’s national anthem: “Aey sarzameen-e-Pak zarrey terey hein aaj sitaron sey tabnak. Roshan hey kehkashan sey kahin aaj teri khak.”(O land of Pakistan, each particle of yours is being illuminated by stars. Even your dust has been brightened like a rainbow.”)

He said that in August 1947 he was alone in Lahore working in a literary newspaper because his Muslim friends requested him to stay. His family had left for India by then, devastated by the mayhem being caused by the Partition of India.

On August 9, 1947, Jinnah sent a message to him through one of his friends at Radio Pakistan Lahore, saying he wanted Azad to write Pakistan`s national anthem.

When asked why he (Azad) had been chosen, the writer replied that his friends had told him then that Jinnah ``wanted the anthem to be written by an Urdu-knowing Hindu.

`` Through this, I believe Jinnah Sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in a Pakistan.”

The national anthem written by Azad was sent to Jinnah, who approved it in a few hours. It was sung for the first time on Pakistan Radio, Karachi.

The song written by Azad served as Pakistan’s national anthem for one and a half years. After Jinnah’s death, Hafiz Jallundhari wrote the new national anthem.

---

And this wonderful editorial by Najam Sethi...

EDITORIAL: Mr Jinnah’s credentials

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-6-2005_pg3_1

It is unfortunate that the secular credentials of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah have been called into question by vested interests in Pakistan and in India. While liberal circles in Pakistan have always maintained that Mr Jinnah believed in a secular state, and substantiate that claim by citing, among other things, his speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, the centrists and mullahs in this country twist the ‘Two-Nation’ theory on the basis of which this country was begotten by saying that it was based on the unbridgeable differences between the Muslim-ness or Islam of Muslims and the Hindu-ness or Hinduism of Hindus. Ironically, across the border, the secular Congress and the left-leaning parties have presented Mr Jinnah in the same manner as our centrists and mullahs, for much the same reason. The former want to exploit him to foster anti-India feelings in Pakistan and the latter want to foster anti-Pakistan sentiment in India. Both do it in order to claim some legitimacy for their respective political ideologies.

The state of Pakistan is also to blame for glossing over Mr Jinnah’s secular credentials and focusing instead on Hindu-Muslim differences to provide the meta-narrative for Pakistan and its identity. Historian Ayesha Jalal has brilliantly analysed the heady days before Partition and in the run-up to it and proved that exclusionary discourses on both sides of the divide were primarily political strategies and that the ‘communalist’ Mr Jinnah was more secular than the ‘secular’ Mahatma Gandhi.

The Congress president, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, in India Wins Freedom blames Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for pushing the League down the road to Pakistan by throwing a spanner in the works of the Cabinet Mission Plan. We now refer to the Lahore Resolution of 1940 as the Pakistan Resolution, but the fact is that the League’s acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan as late as 1946 shows that Mr Jinnah was primarily interested not in a separate state but in ensuring a mechanism through which the rights of the Mussalmans of India could be secured.

Given the recent controversy in India regarding Mr Jinnah’s secular credentials, amid a similar debate in Pakistan as the centre-right and liberal camps lock horns, the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, may have done all of us much good by reporting on what eminent Indian poet Jagan Nath Azad had to say a year prior to his death. According to the late Mr Azad, who was based in Lahore in 1947, he was asked by Mr Jinnah to write the national anthem for the new state of Pakistan. This is how Mr Azad described it: “On the morning of August 9, 1947, there was a message from Pakistan’s first governor-general, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It was through a friend working in Radio Lahore who called me to his office. He told me ‘Quaid-e-Azam wants you to write a national anthem for Pakistan.’ I told them it would be difficult to pen it in five days and my friend pleaded that as the request had come from the tallest leader of Pakistan, I should consider his request. On much persistence, I agreed.”

Why would Mr Jinnah get an Urdu-speaking Hindu poet to write the national anthem? Mr Azad’s response to that question was that “I believe Jinnah Sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in a Pakistan where intolerance had no place.”

We find it interesting that this fact has so far remained little known, indeed almost unknown. Why should that be? Could it be that there has been a conscious effort to bury it? The other interesting part of this story is that after Mr Jinnah’s death, at some point, the anthem written by Mr Azad and used for over a year was dropped and Hafeez Jallundhry, himself an eminent poet, was tasked to write Pakistan’s national anthem. What need was there to do that and who ordered that the anthem be changed? None of this is recorded in our history textbooks, which is understandable because these textbooks have been written with the express purpose of distorting facts or, as Prof KK Aziz wrote, to “murder history”. During General Zia ul Haq’s time the state even took the ‘Two-Nation’ theory back to the time when Mohammad Bin Qasim landed in Sindh on a military expedition. But while the praetorian state may have its reasons for bludgeoning facts for political reasons, we would strongly urge the independent historians of Pakistan to look into what Mr Azad revealed before his death and bring it out of obscurity because it lends weight to Mr Jinnah’s secular credentials. This shouldn’t be too difficult especially if the anthem written by Mr Azad was actually used for more than a year. It certainly seems to us that the League which later decided to trash the legacy of Mr Jinnah’s August 11 speech must have done away with the anthem written by Mr Azad for the same reason. *

Re: #600 by Mantolives

1) Could you list the ``Constitutional safeguards`` that Jinnah wanted?

2) Are there ``Constitutional safeguards`` for Hindus in Pakistan? Or power sharing?

3) WHY did Pakistan end up being an ``ISLAMIC`` state?

Let me know.