Religious parties are very annoyed with the Prime Minister for saying Pakistan's future lies in a democratic and liberal Pakistan where the private sector thrives and no one is left behind. Reacting to the statement last week, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Siraj-ul-Haq and chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S) Sami-ul-Haq took strong exception to the use of term "liberal Pakistan," presenting a completely distorted picture of history.
The statement, JI chief told journalists, "runs contrary to the Constitution of Pakistan, philosophy of Allama Iqbal, and principles laid down by Quaid-e-Azam. As per the constitution, Pakistan is an Islamic democratic country. We demand of him to withdraw his statement," adding that "we can compromise on everything but cannot compromise on the Ideology of Pakistan." Addressing a gathering of various religious outfits at his Akora Khattak seminary, Dar-ul-Uloom-i-Haqqania (which boasts alumni like the Afghan Taliban's late Emir Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Haqqani network, and chief of the al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent Asim Umar) Sami-ul-Haq said that millions of people had sacrificed their lives for the creation of an "Islamic country", and that the slogan of a liberal Pakistan is a violation of the 'Ideology of Pakistan'. While Siraj-ul-Haq demanded that the Prime Minister should withdraw his statement, Sami-ul-Haq urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of it.
The two Haqs or anyone else has a democratic right to express their view of what Pakistan should look like; but no right to misrepresent facts. As regards Iqbal, who is credited with the idea of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent, the philosopher poet is not known to have envisioned a theocratic state, though he did say "deen-e-kafir fikr-o-tadbeer-e-jihad, deen-e-mullah fi sabeelillah fasad (rough translation: The infidel believes in thinking and planning for the fight, the mullah believes in causing trouble in Allah's name). Needless to say, while the former is a winning strategy the latter is a recipe for disaster, as is on display at present.
About the rest of the issues raised by the two gentlemen a recall of history is in order. As regards Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's principles it would be enlightening to know which of his principles Siraj sahib is talking about. People like him make selective references to Jinnah's speeches in aid of their argument for a theocracy. He did invoke religion at certain public meetings to garner support for the new state, but then politicians are wont to articulate plans and programmes at political rallies in popular idiom. On several other occasions Jinnah said that the new Muslim homeland will not be a theocratic state. And of course in his famous August 11, 1947 speech before the constituent assembly, while formally laying down the founding ideals of this country, Jinnah spoke of a democratic, pluralistic, and liberal Muslim homeland-as opposed to an Islamic state - in which religion, caste or creed "has nothing to do with the business of the state."
It is a matter of record that the JI, the JUI, and almost all religious parties had vehemently opposed the creation of Pakistan arguing that Islam being a universal religion could not be confined within the boundaries of a nation-state. The JI's founding chief, the late Maulana Abu Ala Moudoodi, not only made disparaging remarks about the Quaid but also Pakistan, likening its birth to the birth of a beast, and calling it "a fool's paradise and an infidel state." That, of course, was before he shifted to the new country and appointed self and his party as the custodians of its so-called 'ideological frontiers.'
The term 'Ideology of Pakistan' entered the national discourse long after Pakistan came into being. There was no mention of it in the 1956 constitution, or the 1962 constitution made by the Ayub regime. It was much later that the military regime of a notorious drinker and womanizer, General Yahya Khan, who hobnobbed with the JI for his own purposes, coined and publicised this term. Until 1973, ie, after half of the country, the erstwhile East Pakistan had broken away, this state was known as the Republic of Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government added the prefix 'Islamic' while framing the 1973 Constitution in an apparent attempt to counter the JI's campaign to portray his PPP as an irreligious party for its purported adherence to socialist model of development. Afterwards, the JI, incapable of ever winning popular support on its own, was to join hands with another usurper, General Ziaul Haq, as he sent Bhutto to the gallows and used Islam as an argument to rule. The JI, therefore, far from being a defender of the Quaid's principles can claim credit for veering this country away from his vision for Pakistan.
As for the Prime Minister calling for a liberal Pakistan, the JI and others at Akora Khattak seminary event did not explain what is it that they find offensive about it. For, liberalism connotes democratic values like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and civil liberties. The idea behind the struggle for Pakistan, contested by the religious parties, was to have a country where Muslims would be free from political and economic domination of Hindu majority. The Father of the Nation had envisioned a liberal Muslim state where "in course of time Hindus will cease 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." All the foregoing factual details are unforgettable, irreversible part of history. Therefore, fairness - actually religious uprightness - demands that instead of insisting on falsifying facts, these parties and their leaders should apologise for resisting the struggle for Pakistan. Only then will they have a legitimate right to pursue their religio-political programmes in this country.
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