Pakistan celebrates 65th Independence Day on August 14, 2011. There is a strong reason to be happy on this occasion because independence is an honourable status in the comity of nations which the people of Pakistan achieved after making countless sacrifices.
If we review socio-economic developments since the first Independence Day on August 14, 1947, Pakistan has made significant progress in various walks of life and socio-economic sectors. At that time a good number of political observers were of the view that Pakistan would not survive more than a couple of years. The leadership of the Congress Party of India was convinced that Pakistan would collapse under the weight of its problems. While accepting the June 3, 1947 Partition and Independence Plan, it asserted that "when present passions have subsided, India's problems will be viewed in their proper perspective and the false doctrine of two nations in India will be discredited and discarded by all."
The initial problems were really enormous that made many people pessimistic about Pakistan's future. However, Pakistan not only survived but also made major strides in economic, industrial and social sectors since the early days of independence. The territories that constituted Pakistan were mainly agricultural and had very little industry. Business and commercial activity was limited and there were two or three universities. By mid-sixties, Pakistan showed noteworthy progress in all these sectors. Today's Pakistan is very different and better from what it was in 1947-48.
However, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that Pakistan faced many failures. Its political leaders were unable to evolve a consensus-based constitutional order until 1956. By the time the Constitution was enforced, a strong tradition of violation of parliamentary democracy had been established. The decline of civilian institutions and processes led to the rise of the military to power. The military continues to be the key political player even today whether in power or on the sidelines. Pakistan returned to elected civilian rule in March 2008 but it is not yet possible to claim that democracy has become non-reversible in Pakistan.
Other failures include the military action in East Pakistan (March 25, 1971 onwards) and the breakup of Pakistan after the war with India in November-December 1971. On December 16, 1971 Bangladesh emerged as an independent state after breaking out of Pakistan.
The most unfortunate development is the growing Islamic extremism, cultural intolerance and terrorism in Pakistan that has fragmented the society and threatened socio-economic stability. The hardline and militant Islamic groups talk of a puritanical religious, political and social system based on their literalist interpretation of Islam. They are convinced that intimidation and coercion can be used to pursue their religio-political agendas.
The real aim of religious hardliners and extremists is to create a domain of authority for themselves at the expense of Pakistani State. All this is being done in the name of Islam. They are using different tactics ranging from sermons and street marches to extreme methods like armed assaults, bombing raids, suicide attacks, burning down schools and armed attacks on mosques, shrines and public places to kill and terrorize people. Their violent activities have caused about 35000 deaths of civilians since 2007. Pakistan's security forces have been countering them since 2007 on a regular basis and the Army and the paramilitary forces have lost over 3000 personnel, including officers in these encounters.
The key questions: Did the founders of Pakistan create the state for establishing a hardline religious order enforced through violence and intimidation? How far the activities of the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist Islamic groups help to serve the goals set out by Quad-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All India Muslim League?
The movement for creation of Pakistan aimed at protecting and advancing the identity, rights and interests of the Muslims of British India from intimidation and coercion by the unsympathetic majority. The leadership of the majority community wanted the Muslims to lead their lives in accordance with the political framework evolved by them as the majority.
The establishment of Pakistan saved the Muslims of Pakistan from being overwhelmed by the majority community that refused to acknowledge the separate and distinct identity of the Muslim community. Unfortunately, now, the people of Pakistan face another threat from a number of violent groups from within Pakistan. These groups have developed a mistaken aura of religious self-righteousness and want to establish their domination over others by intimidation and coercion.
Pakistan's state and society is threatened by extremist groups that use violence to pursue their agenda of societal domination in the name of establishing what they describe as a puritanical Islamic order. Their agendas and violent activities are a total negation of the letter and spirit of the movement for the establishment of Pakistan.
The Quaid's Vision of Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was totally opposed to the notion of a religious state and socio-cultural intolerance. He was opposed to enforcement of religious and cultural values through intimidation and coercion. He strongly believed in freedom of religion for all citizens who could practice any religion of their choice. Tolerance and accommodation were the key concepts in his political discourse. No state, group or organisation could impose its religious and cultural norms and practices on others.
Quaid-i-Azam viewed Islam and its history as relevant to the construction of Muslim political identity in British India and an important instrument for political mobilisation. He advocated the establishment of Pakistan as the homeland for the Muslims of British India because of their peculiar socio-political and economic conditions. He never argued that Pakistan was needed because Islam was danger in British India and that he wanted to establish a puritanical Islamic order in the new state. The threat was to the political and socio-economic future of the Muslim community. He wanted to protect their identity (influenced by Islam, its cultural and historical manifestations), rights and interests from being overwhelmed by an unsympathetic majority in a pure and simple democratic order.
Jinnah visualised a relationship of Pakistani State with Islam but he neither talked of a puritanical religious Islamic State nor a State dominated by Muslim clergy. He never argued that the State should enforce Islam by using its apparatus. The State was to treat all people as equal citizens irrespective of religion, caste, creed, region or gender.
What mattered most to Jinnah were the Islamic ideals of equality, socio-economic justice and tolerance and he wanted these to be the characteristic feature of Pakistani state and society. He thought that Islam served as the ethical foundation of the state and society and one of the sources of law rather than a legal and constitutional code. He wanted the constituent assembly to frame the constitution and law.
Major Stages of Pakistan Movement The political struggle under the All India Muslim League aimed at ensuring equal political opportunities to the Muslims of British India as the British gradually introduced the modern state system. It also aimed at making sure that the Muslims get socio-economic justice as a numerical minority. It was a struggle for seeking political and constitutional guarantees for their historical identity, rights and interests rather than to create an Islamic State based on literalist interpretation of sacred Islamic text.
The All India Muslim League did not start with the demand for a separate Islamic State. Initially, the Muslim League served as the first all-India forum of the Muslim elite to deliberate on socio-political and economic issues and take them up with the British government as the demands of the Muslim community.
In 1913, the All India Muslim League began to talk about local self-government and worked towards building a co-operative relationship with the Congress Party for seeking their support for the Muslim demands. The Lucknow Pact, 1916, between the Congress Party and the All India Muslim League, secured the formers commitment to the political demands of the Muslims. They wanted the Congress Party and the British Government to provide constitutional and legal guarantees and safeguard for their rights and interests.
It is interesting to note that Jinnah did not make any religious demand in his famous speech of 1929, popularly known as the Fourteen Points. These were pure political, economic and social issues for which he wanted categorical guarantees. The same can be said of the demands of the Muslim leaders at the Roundtable Conference, 1930-32. There was no purely religious demand or a demand for establishing Islamic State. The Muslim League favoured a federal system with autonomy to the provinces, hoping that the Muslims would have freedom to manage their affairs in Muslim majority provinces.
It was in 1938 that the leaders of All India Muslim League began to think seriously about seeking an alternative to federal system. Despite the passage of the Lahore Resolution, March 1940, that talked of a separate homeland for the Muslims, the All India Muslim League did not give up the option of seeking a political solution within a single federal system.
It was after the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan, 1946, and the controversy on the setting up the interim government that the Muslim League finally made up its mind for pursuing the separate homeland option as the final solution of the Muslim problem. There is no resolution of the All India Muslim League that it wanted a state because Islam was under threat in India and that the Shariah will be the constitution and supreme law of Pakistan.
The founders of Pakistan were convinced that the modern notion of state and governance could be combined with the teaching and principles of Islam to create a modern democratic state, which subscribed to elected governance, constitutionalism, rule of law, socio-economic justice and equality of citizenship.
The Taliban and other extremist and hardline Islamic groups based in the tribal areas or mainland Pakistan have persistently violated the spirit of movement for establishment of Pakistan and negated the principles and guidelines enunciated by Jinnah and other key leaders of the Pakistan Movement.
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