Pakistan resolution: revisited

12 Apr, 2004

In the article by F.U. Ahmad which appeared on 23rd March Pakistan Day Supplement of Business Recorder, the learned author has stated that "Mahatama Gandhi called it a sin."
Innumerable research theses on the Pakistan Movement and Resolution have been written and compiled by our worthy authors and writers so is there still any need to revisit the resolution passed 64 years back and ultimately turned into a reality.
Today Pakistan is a country of eminence in the world. So what could be the necessity of making the Pakistan Resolution already executed and implemented a subject of hypothetical arguments?
What Gandhi or any other pre-partition leader had to say about Pakistan Resolution is of no material value after coming into being of Pakistan.
Prime Minister Vajpayee at Minar-e-Pakistan during his bus yatra accepted and admitted the birth of Pakistan as a State without any resolution.
On the other hand reproducing their reactions out of our surmises may create a bad feeling for the people at the other end taking us as simpletons suffering from inferiority complex.
Professor Stanley Wolpert is an authority on the political struggle of the subcontinent. He has written in his book, "Jinnah of Pakistan" on pages 185 (fourth impression 1998) and I quote;
"A few days later Gandhi was asked, 'Do you intend to start general civil disobedience although the Quaid-e-Azam has declared war against Hindus and has got Muslim League to pass a resolution favouring vivisection of India into two?
If you do, what becomes of your formula, that there is no Swaraj without communal unity?'
To this he replied: 'I admit that the step taken by the Muslim League at Lahore creates a baffling situation. But I do not regard it so baffling as to make disobedience an impossibility.
The Muslims must have the same right of self-determination that the rest of India has. We are at present a joint family. Any member may claim a division.
This statement of Mahatama is a part of historical record whereas the sin theory appears to be non-coherent and non-meritorious.

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