The March to Pakistan

Five-and-sixty years ago the subcontinent witnessed an event of epic proportions. A major shift had occurred in the tectonic plates of All-India politics, whose tremors were felt across the length and breadth of South Asia. Lahore was its epicenter. It was also epochal in that it marked the finale of Mohammad Ali Jinnah's disillusionment in his relations with the Indian National Congress and his transformation from an "apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity" to one who now ingeminated the points of difference between the two.
Today that same person was saying, "Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither inter-marry nor inter-dine and, indeed, they belong to two different civilisations that are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their concepts on life and of life are different.
It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."
There was more as the one-time advocate of a common nationality for the Hindus and Muslims thundered, "Mussalmans are a nation according to any definition of nation. We wish our people to develop to the fullest spiritual, cultural, economic, social and political life in a way that we think best and in consonance with our own ideals and according to the genius of our people."
His words must have bewildered even the shrewdest of his political opponents, including M.K.Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. They could never expect Jinnah who had contributed so much for communal harmony to change so completely as to stress a cleavage.
If the Congress hierarchy had paused to ponder it would not have been difficult to discover that it was their own intransigent conduct that had first triggered and then sustained the metamorphosis of a loyal friend into a bitter adversary, for the change had not occurred overnight. It had been a slow process stretched over many years. Jinnah was not a man given to emotions and knee-jerk reactions. He had gone through the motions of three Round Table Conferences on constitutional reforms.
In the general elections held under the newly promulgated, Government of India Act 1935, in the following year, the Congress won a clear majority in six out of seven Hindu-majority provinces. It also became the strongest party in the Muslim-majority NWFP securing more than one-third of the seats.
If you went by the book, the congress had the right to form governments, wherever it was in majority. But, in the prevailing state of communal suspicions and feeling of insecurity among the minority Muslims, prudence called for accommodation.
This was especially true in case of the United provinces (neo Uttar Pradesh), with a sizeable, politically aware Muslim minority. As the saying goes, "a stitch in time saves nine," had the Congress acceded to the Muslim League's demand for coalition government in such provinces, Jinnah might still have been with them, history would have been different and Lahore would not have been ringing today with the echoes of a Resolution demanding a separate homeland for the Muslims comprising the Muslim majority provinces.
But that was not to be. Nehru was carving a particular destiny with which to have a tryst on the midnight of August 14, 1947. Having won the right to rule for the first time after many centuries, and the vision of a sovereign India beckoning it, the congress went wild with the first sip of the soma of power. For starters it launched the Wardha and Vidya Mandir Schemes, including compulsory recitation of Vande mataram in schools.
In a different context perhaps the two schemes which ostensibly aimed at social and educational uplift of the masses might not have been liked by the Muslims. Even Muslim objection to the provocative Vande mataram could be met by exempting Muslim pupils from singing it. But the key lay in power-sharing with the Muslim League which would have calmed Muslim fears of a cultural onslaught. Jinnah asked for nothing more.
Instead, the congress asked the league Leaders to dissolve their parliamentary party in the provincial assemblies and join the congress. Moreover, in a bid to sideline the Muslim League, it launched a mass contact movement through the length and breadth of India, to win Muslims to the Congress fold. Jawaharlal Nehru event declared that there were only two forces in India, the British and the congress. Jinnah's retort was sharp and biting.
"There is a third force in South-Asia constituting the Muslims," he rejoined. So it came to pass that Lahore became the host to the twenty-seventh session of the All India Muslim League and the venue for the groundbreaking of the future state of Pakistan. The session was held from March 22 to 24.
Presented by Maulvi Abul Kasim Fazlul Haq, chief minister of Bengal, the Resolution demanded that geographically contiguous units should be demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial re-adjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute "Independent States" in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
Versions differ not only on who seconded the resolution, but also with regard to the actual date when the Resolution was passed. But for the purpose of this essay that is not relevant. But the Muslim League had simply called it "Lahore Resolution." The expression "Pakistan Resolution" was a gift from the Congress!
However, with the passing of the Resolution a concept had taken tangible form; a nebula had assumed clear contours.
The Muslims now had a specific goal before them to strive for. Predictably it ignited a bush fire. Muslims now massed under the banner of the Muslim League, so that in just five years, the same Muslim League which was nowhere in 1936, winning only 109 of the 482 seats allotted to them securing only 4.8 percent of the total Muslim votes (B.N. Pandey: Nehru, p. 199), swept the Muslim votes all over India. The next year saw the birth of Pakistan!
Pakistan, therefore, celebrates March 23 each year as Pakistan Day with all the éclat appropriate for the occasion: seminars, discussions, defence parade, awards, et al. Vows of patriotic and selfless service are renewed.
However, reality fails often to match with the vows taken. Pakistan has not yet translated the words of Quaid-i-Azam on 23 March 1940 into action. We have yet to "develop to the fullest spiritual, cultural, economic, social and political life in a way that we think best and in consonance with our own ideals and according to the genius of our people."
The chronicle of the nearly fifty-eight years of its existence presents a bleak scenario in every sphere, Spiritual, cultural, economic, social and political. In the spiritual sector, we have degenerated into sectarian killing. Our cultural and social development is best portrayed by the cult of karo kari, parading nude women publicly crowned by the Mukhtaran Mai case.
Corruption need not be mentioned because it is burgeoning even in the mighty United States. And as to political development, perhaps Pakistan could compare with some of the worst African countries. It is a country where no body seems to know what he is looking for or talking about.
Maybe this Pakistan Day would be different. Hope springs at the progress in CBMs with India and on the economic front. Law and order is also under control. It is only the political sector that remains unstable. Will the leaders this time take a solemn vow to remove this problem for posterity's sake?