Jinnah, My Hero

Re: #70

60 years later.... truth comes out...

www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/nb_jinnah.html



Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Pakistan, the nation the Quaid-i-Azam founded, needs him and his values more than ever
By Mohsin Hamid

My earliest memory of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan`s Quaid-i-Azam, or Great Leader, is from my childhood. The electricity had gone because of load shedding, and I was doing my homework despite my grandmother`s insistence that this was bad for my eyes. My textbook was part of the curriculum assigned to all primary-school students in Pakistan, and it described Jinnah as a young boy, himself reading a book by candlelight at his home in Karachi, a hundred years earlier. I had heard of Jinnah before, of course; his name was ubiquitous in Pakistan, a country otherwise unsure of its heroes. But it was the small miracle contained in the notion that he—a character in a book—and I—a reader in real life—were doing precisely the same thing that struck me most, and has stayed with me ever since.

In Pakistan, Jinnah is venerated because his struggles on behalf of the Muslims of India resulted in the establishment of the country. But Jinnah`s true claim to greatness as an Asian leader is more universal: he sought to protect the rights of minorities through constitutional law.

Jinnah was a secular, Westernized, British-trained barrister; himself a Muslim, he married a Parsi, spoke mainly in English and wore European clothes. In 1920, he left Mahatma Gandhi`s Indian National Congress, of which he had been a member for two decades, not because of his own faith but because he believed Gandhi`s use of Hindu symbolism would encourage religious zealotry in politics. As Asia emerged from colonization, among the most vexing problems facing the continent`s nascent nation states was that of their large minority populations. Jinnah`s preferred solution was a legal one: constitutional measures ranging from electoral safeguards to guaranteed representation in state institutions. It was only when his attempts to achieve these measures failed that he began to campaign for a separate state for the Muslims of the subcontinent.


Six decades later, Pakistan has drifted far from Jinnah`s vision of a secular democracy. President Pervez Musharraf, who invokes Jinnah`s values in speeches, has little patience for democracy. The religious opposition parties reject as un-Pakistani the concept of secularism. And the inhabitants of smaller provinces like Baluchistan find themselves lacking the protection for minorities that Jinnah made his life`s mission. If one believes in the rule of law, mistrusts religious zealotry and opposes tyrannies constructed in the name of majorities, one should find it easy to see oneself in Jinnah and to empathize with his struggle. Much of Asia could learn from his example, none more so than those of us who belong to the state he founded.

Mohsin Hamid`s second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, will be published next spring

Nope that honor is reserved for imperialist racist casteist bigot Gandhi.

Jinnah was a Chalabi & Allawi of 20th century.

namaskaram godotji,
i hope chengiz khan does not become your ideal tommorrow.after all the man it seems inseminated women with such an iron will that 16 million illegitimates can proudly claim to be his progeny.

50 Years in TIME

TIME, December 23, 1996

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah2.html



A TIGERISH MAN, ATOP A SECTARIAN TIGER

The chronicle of a leader and the passions he fanned into flames



By Carl Posey

Delhi in the spring heat of 1946 was not relaxed,`` TIME reported that April. ``It was taut with waiting, gravid with conflict and suspense. Two socialist lawyers and a former Baptist lay preacher from Britain had sat of 25 days in the southeast wing of the viceregal palace, preparing to liquidate the richest portion of empire that history had ever seen---to end the British Raj, the grand and guilty edifice built and maintained by William Hawkins and Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley, the brawling editor James Silk Buckingham and the canny merchant Lord Inchcape and by the great Viceroys, austere Curzon and gently Halifax. The Raj was finished.``

Finished, perhaps, but still difficult to put down. The Raj at the end was like one of the unexploded bombs still lettering postwar Europe, and it held the same promise: peaceful independence if you do it right, explosive civil war if you fail. ``The issue,`` said TIME, ``seemed to turn on one man---Mohammed Ali Jinnah.`` On Boris Chaliapin’s portrait cover, the metaphorical tingers of East and West Pakistan stalked the subcontinent.

TIME had watched Jinnah intermittently since 1930, first as an ardent articulator of Indian nationalism, then as a spark flashing perhaps too close to the subcontinent powder keg. ``Where the low, bare limestone ridges of Sukkur, Sind slope like unkempt stairs down to the banks of the Indus,`` TIME reported in December 1939, ``Indians who loudly object to fighting Germans in the name of Empire last week fought each other in the name of their various gods.`` Muslims had claimed a government building near the river as the site of an ancient mosque and ``threatened to hold it until nirvana-come. Whereupon Hindus swept the city, storming, looting, burning Moslem shops.`` It was a chilling preview of bloodbaths ahead.

``The leaders of the Moslems,`` TIME observed, ``usually thinks first about independence for Moslems and afterward about independence for Indians. His name is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and he is probably the greatest single force for disunity in all disunited India.`` As TIME watched the inexorable progress of the cracks that would culminate in India’s partition, that view of Jinnah would be modulated, but it would not fundamentally change.

There was, in fact, a good deal to admire in Jinnah’s tough single-mindedness and the way he played his cards. Talking with TIME correspondent William Fisher in 1942, Jinnah said he would accept a national government that gave Muslims ``a fair break,`` but that he would stop cooperating if the British made peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress Party.

The April 1946 Jinnah cover story reported by Pacific bureau chief Robert Sherrod was more than TIME’s bittersweet obituary for the British Raj; it was one of the world’s first real close-ups of the man who would have Pakistan, in all his coldly tigerish colorations. Here was a charismatic leader who during Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India campaign had ``boasted that if his followers joined Gandhi’s pacifist program, the British would have 500 times more trouble ‘because we have 500 times more guts than the Hindus.’`` It was also a grim prophecy. ``The British Raj had given India a unified defense and a unified region of internal free trade,`` said TIME. ``Jinnah would destroy both ... Between mighty Russia to the north and the main body of India to the south, Pakistan would dangle like two withered arms.``

In August, Jinnah unleashed---perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not---an ugly sample of the horrors to come. Opposed to a British plan for Indian independence that did not also create Pakistan, he designated the 18th day of Ramadan as ``Direct Action Day.`` ``Though direct,`` TIME reported, ``the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta’s streets.

``Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta’s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums ... By the 21 day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more.``

Interspersed with what TIME called ``musical chairs`` of negotiation, in which neither the Hindu side nor the Muslim side could be budged by British nudging, the killing went on and on. ``Perhaps, after all, there would be no independent India,`` TIME mused sadly in May 1947. ``Indeed, there might be no India.``

Pakistan was by then an idea nothing could contain. In August 1947 it became the world’s largest Muslim nation. The forces of hatred unleashed by Jinnah’s rhetoric, however, had acquired a life of their own. By late October 1947 the plague of enmity flared in Kashmir, where a Muslim majority lived under a Hindu maharaja who decided to throw in with India. ``In Moslem Karachi,`` TIME reported, ``Pakistan Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah raged at the news. He ordered Pakistan troops ... into Kashmir.`` But as the raiders pushed into the Vale, ``the blind butchery of neighbor by neighbor had reached Kashmir. Pakistan heard that 50,000 Moslems had been slaughtered by Hindus. British officials said that 100,000 fleeing refugees from Kashmir and nearby Jammu had crowded south into the still reeking Punjab.``

Jinnah, meanwhile, seemed to fade even as his discordant creation took form. ``Last week,`` TIME reported in early December 1947, ``after less than four months of independence, Pakistan was economic wreck, and serious social unrest was rising.`` The new country coul dnot afford to feed its millions of refugees; its checks bounced around the globe. As for the health of the seldom seen Jinnah, TIME added, ``The Pakistan Ministry indignantly said: ‘There is absolutely no truth in the rumors that Quaid-e-Azam [the Great Leader] is seriously ill.’``

In fact, as evidently only he was aware, Jinnah was dying.

``Out of the travail of 400 million in the Indian subcontinent,`` TIME wrote in September 1948, ``have come two symbols---a man of love and a man of hate. Last winter the man of nonviolence, Gandhi, died violently at the hands of an assassin. Last week, the man of hate, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at 71, died a natural death in Karachi, capital of state he had founded.``

Enemies gave Jinnah his due, though. ``The Hindustani Times,`` TIME observed, ``devoted a page to an uncompromising attack on Jinnah’s motives and methods. However, it concluded: ‘A man of destiny, he was perhaps the greatest man of Islam since Mohammed.’`` But, TIME noted warily, his death ``raised the possibility that his political heirs might seek the final solution for insolvent, disorganized governments: war.`` Indeed, Jinnah’s chief legacy proved to be an eternity of discord

Jinnah: making of a myth

By Mubarak Ali

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had all the qualities and characteristics in his personality which go into the making of a myth. He was reticent, reserved, kept his personal matters secret, behaved coolly and proudly and was not warm towards anybody. Thus he created a halo of awe and fear around himself.

Sri Prakash, the first Indian High Commissioner to Karachi, in his book Pakistan: birth and early years gives an account of a reception which was given by the Governor-General of Pakistan, just after Independence to the diplomatic corps. It was also attended by the party leaders and bureaucrats. According to his version, Mr Jinnah was sitting at a distance alone on a sofa and called one by one those he wanted to talk to. He exchanged notes with each one of them just for five minutes. To the High Commissioner, he appeared a lonely man, averse to people. His serious and sombre expression made all those who interacted with him uneasy in his company.

This conveyed the impression that he was the final authority in every matter. The Muslim League and its leaders were merely rubber stamps. His image of being the sole spokesman of his party and people created a number of myths. For instance, the myth about his serious illness which is recounted by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book Freedom at midnight fascinates everybody and compels readers to take it seriously. The version of their story is:

``If Louis Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi had been aware in April 1947 of one extraordinary secret, the division threatening India might have been avoided. The secret was sealed onto the gray surface of a film, a film that could have upset the Indian political equation and would almost certainly have changed the course of Asian history. Yet, so precious was the secret that that film harboured that even the British CID, one of the most effective investigative agencies in the world, was ignorant of its existence.``

These were the X-rays of Jinnah diagnosed as a TB patient. The authors, after creating a suspense, further write that: ``The damage was so extensive that the man whose lungs were on the film had barely two or three years to live. Sealed in an unmarked envelope, those X-rays were locked in the office safe of Dr J.A.L. Patel, a Bombay physician.``

On the basis of the story, Jinnah emerged as the one on whom depended the whole movement of Pakistan. The story further becomes interesting when a Hindu doctor kept the secret at the cost of Indian unity. His professional integrity was more important than his political inclinations.

In 1997, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of India-Pakistan Independence, Patrick French published a book, Liberty or death. After his own investigation, French refutes the whole story narrated by Collins and Lapierre. According to him: ``The idea that Jinnah`s poor state of health was a closely guarded secret is absurd: it was referred to in the press at that time, and it is obvious from photographs taken in the mid-1940s that Jinnah was unwell.

Moreover, the reduction of the Muslim League`s wide popular backing to the whim of one man`s `rigid and inflexible` attitude is indicative of the way that Pakistan history has been traduced. A second problem with Collins and Lapierre`s story is that it is not correct. Jinnah did not go to Bombay in May or June 1946, since he was busy in negotiating with Cripps in Simla and New Delhi. Nor did he have a doctor by the name of J.A.L. Patel. Although it is possible that Jinnah had tuberculosis in 1946, there is no evidence among his archive papers to support the theory.``

However, Jinnah himself on many occasions expressed the view that he was the sole creator of Pakistan. In one of his famous quotes, he said that he and his typewriter made Pakistan. The statement disregarded the efforts of his colleagues and the other Muslim League leaders in the Pakistan movement. It also downgraded the people`s participation in the struggle for a separate homeland.

There is evidence that he did not think highly of the leaders of the Muslim League. He found them mediocre and not capable of leading the nation. Perhaps, that was the reason that Jinnah, knowing his fatal illness, accepted `the moth eaten and truncated Pakistan`. The later history of Pakistan vindicates Jinnah`s assessment of the Muslim League leaders who miserably failed to solve the problems of a nascent nation.

The failure of these leaders has boosted Jinnah`s image as a superman. He overshadowed everybody. The nation also paid respect to him by naming universities, colleges, airports, roads, hospitals, and institutions of different kinds after him with the result that a citizen of Pakistan feels his presence every where in the country, wherever he goes.

Moreover, his image as a ``Great Leader`` (the Quaid-i-Azam) is presented in the textbooks to mould the mind of the young generation encouraging them to follow in his footstep. Scholars are eulogizing different aspects of his life. A film is screened to counter the film Gandhi in which Attenborough distorts the image of Jinnah. These efforts have made Jinnah sacrosanct. Any criticism of him is regarded a treason. He has become a paragon of super human virtues, beyond all weaknesses normal in human being.

The reverence accorded to him is such that mere association with him catapults a person from a humble position to the rank of freedom fighter. People take pride in their claim to have shaken hands with him (though he avoided shaking hands with people), or having seen him, talked to him, or merely attended his public meeting. The rulers of Pakistan, realizing the impact of his association, create myths of their links with him. Z.A. Bhutto claimed that as a student he wrote a letter to the Quaid - it is not known whether he replied to that letter or not, Zia`s sycophant bureaucrats discovered a diary of Jinnah (that was the time when Hitler`s diaries were discovered and later on proved false) which disappeared along with him.

Nawaz Sharif, assuming to follow in his footsteps, called himself `Quaid-i-Sani` (the second leader). One such similar example is found in the history of France when Napoleon III made an attempt to revive the image of Napoleon I in order to legitimize his authority. Marx jokingly comments in The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that ``Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.`` Nawaz Sharif`s self-given title proves it.

Jinnah has become such a symbol of wisdom in the Pakistani society that people visualize Pakistan with his reference. His vision, his agenda, his dream and his ideals, all remained unaccomplished because he died soon after Independence. It is commonly believed that had he lived some more years, the history of Pakistan would have been different. There are few nations which rely so heavily on one individual.

No doubt, Jinnah was a great leader of his people. He was a man of integrity and honesty, but to idealize him to such an extent as to preempt the emergence of another rank of leaders out of his shadow is strange. Every generation has its own dreams and vision which it wants to accomplish without interference. Not imitation but freedom is required to build a new world. Therefore, an attempt should not be made to repeat but to make new history. People should be liberated from the shadows and allowed to flourish in a free society. Great leaders should be respected but not worshipped.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books4.htm

December 25, 2001

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http://www.dawn.com/herald/jinnah/jinnah3.htm

Interview with Indian script writer of film ``Jinnah`` Mr. Farrukh Dhondy. He says Jinnah never wanted a separate country. He set out to win a case and ended up winning a country.

By Syed Ali Dayan Hasan

Q. Did you in fact write the script of the film Jinnah?

A. Yes, I did, and no it was not just a revision of earlier drafts. I wrote the entire script. There was an earlier script by Guy Slater but I never saw it. Akbar Ahmed told me I would not get the credit for it and neither could he acknowledge that I wrote it because I am Indian. I understood his viewpoint completely.

I chose to start working afresh because basically I have been brought up to be out of sympathy with Jinnah or at least out of sympathy with the formation of Pakistan. Akbar Ahmed told me I may get a different impression of Jinnah from the one I had carried so far if I read more about him. So I read extensively including Ayesha Jalal’s work and Wolpert’s biography. From these sources, I formed my impressions of Jinnah anew. While, I had categorically told Akbar I was not going to write a crude propaganda film, I knew that in writing the film I had to be sympathetic to Jinnah because it was meant to present Jinnah’s viewpoint and his imperatives.

Q. Were you paid for writing the script?

A. Yes and there was no quarrel about it. I had a good time with the money. I went to India and spent it. I have no complaint on that score. I kept my part of the bargain and kept the secret. I went to the premiere of the film at the London Film Festival and sat through it very happily. At the end, I congratulated Akbar and told him he had a great script and we both laughed.

Q. How did this whole story enter the public domain in that case?

A. Its coming into the public domain has absolutely nothing to do with me. If Akbar Ahmed and Jamil Dehlavi have fought and decided to bring this whole affair out in the public domain, it is hardly my fault. I have no complaint against either of them. The story was initially aired by the Guardian newspaper here in Britain. I do not know who instigated the Guardian. A reporter from the paper came to me and asked if I had signed a piece of paper selling all my rights in Jinnah for one pound. I did not even remember signing any specific paper and said so. So, the reporter said that that means Mr. Ahmed is guilty of forgery. I told him to not get over-excited and that I would get back to him. I called Jamil and he said yes I had signed this document in his presence and he reminded me of the occasion. So, I called the Guardian and said that yes indeed I had signed the paper and Akbar was not guilty of forgery at all. I did this purely to stop the Guardian from alleging that Akbar had forged my signature when I knew it to be untrue. The reporter, not being an idiot, then said that if I had signed the paper it obviously meant that his hunch that I had written the script was correct. I responded by saying that I was not saying that I had written the script, all I was saying was that I had signed the paper. He was unimpressed with my denial. Eventually, I told him to draw his own conclusions because I had said all I had to say. When I asked him how he had procured a copy of the document, he informed me that Akbar Ahmed himself gave him the document. I was flabbergasted.

Q. What do you think the Dehlavi-Ahmed fight is about?

A. There was an initial falling out over money. Jamil insists that both Akbar and his wife, who were the money-keepers so to speak, did not understand how films are produced. Jamil would keep telling me this during the filming.

The other, more important, reason was that Jamil felt that Akbar was hogging all the limelight attached to the film. Akbar constantly refers to Jinnah as his film. He hosts and attends receptions in honour of the film and constantly markets himself as the maker of Jinnah both in Pakistan and abroad. Jamil felt this was totally unacceptable. Akbar may have brought the team together, eased their way, advised and co-produced the film. But after all, a film is a director’s vision. And Jamil is the director. He argues that he is the director-producer so he deserves some credit. This is the principal reason behind Jamil and Akbar falling out.

As for the financial scandal concerning payments made to Akbar’s son and son-in-law, broken by the Guardian here in Britain, I am personally unaware of those details.

Q. How do you respond to allegations that you and Jamil Dehlavi are part of an Indian conspiracy to undermine the film and the military government of Pakistan?

A. Well, the only person who has ever paid me in connection with this film is Akbar Ahmed and I am unaware of his links with the government of India. There is no truth in the allegation that I work for RAW or the ISI or any other intelligence agency for that matter. I am not even an Indian citizen. However, I was born Indian, I love India and would have liked to see India remain undivided. As far as Pakistan is concerned, as the expression goes ``some of my best friends are Pakistanis.`` I hope there is a rapprochement between the two countries and if General Musharraf can bring that about, I wish him the very best of luck. I understand that General Musharraf is a modernist and a progressive. If he stamps out corruption from Pakistan, he will have achieved more than anyone has in the entire subcontinent to date.

And if General Musharraf is handing out high commisionerships and ambassadorships for writing this script, I would also like to put in a request for one. But I would prefer a place where there is little work Tahiti for example. I would make a very good ambassador because, unlike others, I know when to keep my mouth shut and when to open it. I suppose it would also prove that I am not a RAW agent.

Q. Have you been in touch with Akbar Ahmed since the scandal broke?

A. I tried. But a man called Tariq came on the phone and said ``Dhondy, did you ask for a bribe to buy the film for Channel 4?`` And that really was that. When I began working on the film, I was still commissioning editor at Channel 4. Of course, I had made it clear to Akbar that if I was writing the film, Channel 4 would have nothing to do with it. I informed the managing director of Channel 4 that I was writing this script. Akbar was sent a letter saying that Channel 4 would consider his film when it was ready. That, however, is a standard response. It meant nothing and anyone working in Britain knows that.

Q. How do you view Jinnah the man?

A. I understand Jinnah much better now. Of course, he is not the man the RSS or the BJP or even mainstream Indian nationalists make him out to be. I understand that he was a secular man and wanted a secular Pakistan. He was also a constitutional lawyer. The problem with Jinnah, and I think the film alludes to this, was that he set out to win a case and ended up winning a country. I believe that the truth about the Quaid-e-Azam must be understood not just in India but in Pakistan as well.



http://www.dawn.com/herald/jinnah/jinnah1.htm

Feroz:
THank you for a very good discussion. As always, your candid thoughts are appreciated and very welcome.
Yup, now this is dropping out of the `current hits` at chowk only to give way to other more burning subjects.
I guess we will pick this up again, in the context of some other articles.
For now sit back for some exciting cricket and whatever else our desi biraaders throw up.
At a practise game, 3000 spectators and 13,000 policeman.
Damn it !!!! THEY (the *R`s of course) even hijacked `the beatiful game`

ON a different note:
I wonder what Indo-Pak talks are all about. I wonder what the hell they talk about.
I wonder if Chowk could get transcripts !!!
Would be interesting to say the least.
regards

Re: Rana Ransher`s post #66

Looks like this article will be end up in Chowk`s civic center soon and thus all further dicussions will end due to a laziness to find the right link. Running round in circles? To be honest with you, at times during this discussion I felt like I was searching for a door in a room with no doors while holding a candle in a hurricane!

You hypothesis is a vaild one that Jinnah`s acts in creating Pakistan do not espouse a secularist vision.

Then again, my defination of the term is a western oriented one; separation of state and church, mosque, temple, and any building or institution related with religion.

Let me throw a Hail Mary pass at you. I will add this caveat to your argument why Jinnah wanted a muslim home land. There was a wide spread concern on the part of the Mulims that if they were to remain in India, their own sense of idenity would be diluted within the context of a Hindu political identity, but not a religious one. The whole reason for Pakistan was that Indian Muslims could enjoy political rights in their own right without sharing it with another group. Having said that, the basic reason why Muslim Leaque and Congress were agiating was to politically discipher a post-British reality and the specific political rights of these two groups within that reality. Do we agree so far?

If we do, then the reason for Pakistan becomes self-evident and if we disagree on this point, then all the discussions on this point will tend to be rhetorical. Jinnah in wanting Pakistan was in toto suggesting that Hindus and Muslims could not get together in a political sense. His distinction of Hindus and Muslims as being separte entities was meant in the political sense and not in a religious sense. I can see your rationale in questioning this, but please remember that religious overtones in Pakistani politics did not become pre-dominant till after partition.

Rana sabib, I think, and I might be wrong, but your confusion in this matter is stemming from your understanding of the terms muslim political rights and muslim religious rights. These two terms are different and they do not mean the same thing.

To answer your second part of the question; Jinnah wanted and was hoping that Pakistan would be secular in tradition of Islamic principles of equality and egalatrianism. I know this sounds like an oxy-moron, but just bear with me. Jinnah`s interpretation of Islam was through the prism of classical Islamic postulates, but in this he was in disagreement with the Ullema. Jinnah wanted a home land for the Muslims and not a theocratic state, but the Ullema wanted an Islamic state where religion would be tied, as you suggested, with notions of nation and race. Jinnah did not want this and the reason why we have this present theocracy is, because no one could forcefully articulate Jinnah`s vision for Pakistan, after his death, in face of the orthodoxic obduracy of the Ullema in Pakistani politics.

As to the Hindu right taking Jinnah`s argument and using them as focal point for breaking the Indian confederation, let me just ask you this question: do they really understand Jinnah and for that matter, how many Pakistanis really know what Jinnah wanted? Unfortuneately for us, the debate on what Pakistan should be is still evolving and till it does, Pakistan will periodically swing between the religious right and the secularist vision, but regretablly it will never remain in the middle; a sense of moderation in its polity.

Hope this helps! Incidently, thanks for a stimulating, sometimes annoying and occassionally exsparting, but always an extermely enlightening and an entertaining discussion on Jinnah and the politics of Pakistan. Vielen dank mein Herr! Merci beacoup! Gracia!

By the way, we just had two storms pass over Utah and most of the ski resorts got plenty of fresh powder, Brianhead alone got 58 inches of new snow last night!

re: Ferozk

Thank you for your reply and the info on Utah skiing.

Yaar......regarding the replies, I agree with most of what you say, but we seem to be going in circles with regards to the term `secularism`. We (and Jinnah) obviously have different definitions of the term. To ask for a separate nation on the basis of a religious identity is NOT secular, in fact it is the biggest violation of secularism, no matter how you justify the action. The confusion about Islamic identity, secular Islamic country, secular state with a majority Muslim population is all a legacy of this ACT.
Jinnah, afterall, was a big believer of there being 2 nations in South Asia (a Hindu nation and a Muslim nation for over a 1000 years, as he put it). You may choose to ignore the anthropologists, geneologists and linguists, but even historically speaking this was never true for South Asia. (re: one of my earlier posts which details this). This theory finds credence ONLY in the Islamic ideology of the Ummah where RELIGION is equated with RACE, NATION and even HERITAGE. Jinnah may have wished for a state which was not ruled by the Sharia (and Ulemas, etc.) but that does not mean his vision becomes secular.
As a matter of fact, not one participant on this forum has pointed to any ACT of his which was truly secular. Everybody just alludes to him abandoning his secular front because of the Hindu Right.
With the act of partition Jinnah made his vision a reality.
I am not trying to castigate Jinnah for the present state of affairs in pakistan, but I am holding him responsible for creating 2 ( and then 3) nations in the sub-continent. However, as you can see this did not solve ALL the problems.
Today there is a need for a secular foriegn policy between these 3 nations. Whether the dispute be Kashmir or Babri Masjid it needs to be dealt with a secular hand ?
However, with such different views on the term secularism itself, I am very pessimistic about any such developments.
On the flip side, in India this is a very contemporary issue. In the last 10 years Indian polity has seen the same `abandonment` of secularism because of a presence of a Muslim right (within India and beyond). Issues like ISI`s involvement in the religious (not-so-secular) war in Kashmir are gaining center stage. Ironically, the Hindu Right in India today quotes Jinnah when they assert the need for a Hindu nation.
Jinnah`s vision of a Hindu Nation and Muslim nation have become almost true, complete with Nuclear arsenals.
It may not be long before the Hindu Right starts asking for a Hindu nation with a further `exchange of populations` (per your advise I refrain from calling it ETHNIC CLEANSING) and use ALL of Jinnah`s arguments for it.
Feroz, taan phir ki hoyegaa ?
Would you still think that would be a very secular move ?

Re: All, I apolgise for the lenght of this post.

Re: Temporal post # 63

Thanks for the information. Did you confirm that the doctor was from Bombay also?

Re: Amit`s post # 61

Not to be sarcastic, but I was not aware of a Pakistani intellectual class!

You have raised an interesting question. First of all, before I try to answer this question, I would need to know excatly what you refer to as an ``intellectual class``. Are we talking about the academia or the educated elite in Pakistan? Secondly, what do we mean by intellectualism in Pakistan? Non religious orthodoxy, secularism etc.?

On the second part of your question; I would agree with you. The vast majority of ``thinking Pakistanis`` have no interest in realigning the Present Line of Control either. The reality of the situation is that present LoC has been the defacto frontier for nearly 50 yrs. now. Personally, I think that Kashmir is a thorn in the side of Pakistan-Indian relations and it needs to be removed post haste. As to a compromise on this issue, ala North Ireland, there has to be a political will to do so. Presently, in Pakistan, compromising on Kashmir would be akin of wishing a political deathwish.

As to the normalization of relations with India, the same logic applies. There has to be a political will to achieve such a normalization. I agree with you on all the benefits which could accrue from such a detente, but then again we are talking common sense. A commodity which has not existed in our political market place and probably will not exist within our life times. In my humble opinion there will no normalization of relations with India as long as the immediate post-partition generation is still alive. As long as there is a living memory of partition, this issue will remain moot.

Do the intellectual classes have a vision for Pakistan`s future, I do not know, but I am pretty confident that they a vision for their own future. How Pakistan`s interests play out in that vision; are those interests antithetical or complimentary to Pakistan remains open for debate.

Re: Rana Ransher`s post # 64

I am going to approach this from the end up.

I think the problem vis a vis a Muslim majority and an Islamic identity is that there is no clear cut defination of the term. Those two buzz-words are still evolving and this problem will persit till there is a workable defination of the problem. What do we, as Pakistanis, mean by those two terms? I wish, I could answer this for you, but to me, in a personal sense, the question is fraught with pitfalls. The leadership of Pakistan, which argued for its creations, was secular. I know this, because they did not want a theocracy. In their opinion, the Ullema was poorly equiped to deal with problems of a modern state and their education, grounded in orthodoxy, did not enable them to be competent in matters of the day to day running of the state.

I agree with you. Jinnah did not speak for all the Muslims and there were many, including the Ullema, who chose to remain with Congress. Muslim right, as you so quintly put it, and its ideology was not responsible for creating Pakistan. These same champions of Islam who want to make Pakistan a theocracy today were against the idea of Pakistan itself! Pakistan was created through the sheer will of people like Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and other secular minded Muslims and in this they were bitterly opposed by the Islamic Ullema of India. In fact Jinnah was called apostate because he wanted Pakistan; an idea that was thought to be un-Islamic by the Ullema. The fact that Jinnah won Pakistan despite all their obstacles did not sit well them and still rankles them to the present.

Soon after Jinnah`s death, these same people tried to remould themselves in the eyes of Pakistani people. All the subsequent Pakistani contitutions have been held hostage by them and it was they, not Jinnah and his lieutants, who were responsible for fositing an Islamic ideology on Pakistan and arguing that it was an Islamic state. The present day Pakistan is nothing what its founding fathers wished it to be. It is a tragedy of Pakistani political life that anyone who questions the motives of these Ullema is branded an apostate to Islam and is blessed with a fatwa on his head.

To capsulate, the Muslim religious right was not responsible for creating ``an electorate`` for Pakistan. The reason that Pakistan came into being was, because many Muslims agreed with Jinnah`s vision, inspite of the Ullema`s anti-Pakistan fatwas, of a Muslim, not an Islamic homeland for the Muslims of India. The domination of the Pakistani politics by the Ullema is regretable, because they are trying to pass themselves as the rightful heirs of Jinnah`s legacy. The co-equation of race with nation was bitterly opposed by the Indian Ullema and it was only after the creation of Pakistan, that these same persons began adovcating for a religious state. Hence, I disagree with your contention that the creation of Pakistan was religiously inspired.

Realistically, I can not speak for the Pakistani politicans and their ideé fixé since paritition. Has their preceptions changed? All I can suggest to you is read a web site for a Pakistani newspaper and you`ll have your answers. However, to be perfectly honest with you, there are many voices in Pakistan, though non-governmental, which are calling for a re-think of the post-paritition reality as it exists today.

I would also like to make a crucial point here and this is, perhaps, the most important indicator of our attitudes towards India. The vast majority of Pakistanis are not interested in a perpetual conflict with India, but are eager for basic amenities of life; clean drinking water, electricity, safe neighborhoods and the primacy of the rule of law. We, as a people, realize that fifty years of conflict with India has gained us nothing. Why is the present Pakistani government not reflective of this viewpoint? That my friend is another debate. As the editor of The Economist, Bagehot, once said, ``democracy is the illushion of something and not the reality of anything``, we do not have a democratic government despite what our leadership claims.

However, getting to the crux of your question: the presense of a Hindu right justifying an abandonment of a secular front.

I do not think that I can answer this question to your complete satisfaction. The loss of the secular front, to the Hindu right, in my opinion was to the growing disparity of interests between the Muslim right and the Hindu right. I honestly think that the secular front got marginalized, isolated and ignored in the racial hatred which seemed to be dominanting the Muslim and Hindu political discourse. As to the Hindus not making a Hindu based consititution and the Pakistanis creating a consititution on the tradition of Sunnah and Sharia, the answer to which lies in the fact that neither Jinnah or Liaquat Ali Khan were alive when the Pakistani consititution was being framed. As I said before, there were no Pakistani secular leaders left who could contest the religious platforms of the Ullema.

Lastly; did Jinnah have ``blue print for Pakistan``. Again, I am not sure what you are looking for in this case either. Jinnah`s blue print for Pakistan, by reading his speeches and via reading his letters, was for a modern Muslim state with a bi-cameral legislature and an independent judicary, based on the British common law and not on Sunnah as mentioned earlier. Jinnah wanted a polity not dominated by race relations, but based on the principle of equality and egalatrianism. Jinnah`s blue print was for Pakistan not be a theocratic state and he repeatedly stressed home this point. Now, what happened to Pakistan since 1947 can not be blamed on Jinnah, but on the political leaderships that followed him. The fact that Jinnah`s blue print did not end up being created, is not the man`s fault, but in a more real sense, our own. Jinnah should not be blamed for the mess Pakistan is in today. In the American parlance, Jinnah did not drop the ball, but we did.

On a lighter side; you can buy alcohol in bars in Utah, and in stores. There are state liquor stores which sell all beverages with an alcohol content of higher than 3.2 percent i.e wine vodka, cognac (my favorite) and single malt scotch (another favorite). Alcohol is available in Utah, but its use is frowned upon because the dominant relgion, Mormonism, considers it a sin. In other words, Utah is a like a small piece of Pakistan Middle East in the middle of America. If you want my two-cents, I think the powder in Utah is much superior to Tahoe. Also, since Utah is gearing up for 2002, there are a lot of pre-Olympic package deals being offered. I would try the Utah tourism website.

re: Ferozk

``I discerned a bit of revisionism in your reply and that you seemed to be judging the actions of the 1940s based on what we know in the present! Please remember that those people who made these choices did not have the benefit of our historic legacy``
THere is no revisionism on my part. Revisionism implies I am changing history in some way to suit my present day standards. INcidently we agree about most of the historical facts discussed in the context of this article. The fact is at the time there was a 1) Hindu Right a 2) Muslim Right and a 3) Secular Front. I agree that the future of the state was the big question mark. But in my opinion, you are not answering how the presence of a Hindu Right can justify abandoning your supposed secular front. (same question to Jinnah or any other person claiming to be secular).
Incidently, the same ``Hindus`` went on to make a constitution that was not based on any Hindu text, this despite a Muslim right with an age-old exclusive history for the Ummah.
ANd what were Jinnah`s blueprint for the state anyway ? I admire your stand of defending him, even though you have very little to work with.
You keep saying the Congress should have made compromises with Jinnah. How about giving us some insight into what compromises Jinnah was seeking ?

``As an aside, lets discuss the issue of ethnic cleansings. Yes, it was that and it was wrong, but to inforce the present politically correct standard to that time and those people is an example of historic revisionism at its worst!``
Absolutely NOT ! It was ethnic cleansing then and now. So what if we did not use the same term for it then. We are now wiser and should at least not make the same mistakes. BTW there are present day Pakistani politicians still calling for `plebiscites` all over India. Has there thinking undergone any changes since the partition days ?
IN fact, if you study the Bosnia situation, you will see the parallels (Catholic nation, Protestant Nation, Ummah). It just so happens that the Muslims are not calling for a separate nation, the others are ? Double standards on your part, maybe ?

Also, as a History student, you shouldn`t necessarily assume Jinnah spoke for all the Muslims. There were a lot of influential Muslims who maintained their secular stand. So all the Muslims in India are not necessarily abandoned by Jinnah, some of them believed in the secular dream.
IN your analysis, you conveniently forget the Muslim right and its ideology of creating an exclusive `electorate` by equating religion to race and Nation (when convenient). In fact, this is something strange since these are the only real consistent arguments FOR partition. (Iqbals was the strongest, most convincing such voice). And they have dominated Pakistani politics since 1947 (making it an Islamic state, ZUH`s Islamization, and now Mianjis CA-15). You see it is very hard to oppose Islamization `cause then you are labelled `an enemy of the religion``.

How a secular state (without a Muslim majority as opposed to one with it) threatens Islamic identity, still beats me ?

On a different note: I am thinking of going to Utah for a ski trip. I have done some Internet research on it. When they say `no alchohol` does that mean they don`t even sell it in stores or they just don`t have bars ?
Will help me choose between Utah and Tahoe, though.

regards

Feroze:

Just received a one sentence reply to my query from Mr. Cowasjee--``Dr. Jal Patel was a parsee.``

Am rushing off....

regards

My two cents:

Two Nation theory was a total failure!!! That there are only two nations in the sub-continent - muslims and hindus is complete false. This theory failed when Bengalis were massacred by Paki Jawans (were they not muslims??) resulting in the separation of east pakistan. If we were all ``one`` nation then why three army actions on balochistan in which thousands of baloch freedom fighters were killed and their villages destroyed!!

BTW I must warn everyone to be careful in writing anything against Jinnah - the punishment for saying anything against Jinnah is 14 years rigorous imprisonment (chaudah saal ba mushaqat) - this is in the constituion of Pakistan!!