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“Pakistan was made in the name of Islam” is a phrase that we’ve all heard time and time again…but where did this phrase come from? Contrary to popular belief, Jinnah never once uttered this phrase, and neither did the Muslim League. As Joseph Goebbels once said, “if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth”.
Let’s just put this into perspective and assume for one minute that Pakistan was indeed “made in the name of Islam”.
Okay, now ask yourself these questions:
1. Why were the three main Islamic parties (Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami) opposed to Pakistan's independence in 1947?
2. Why did Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami refer to Pakistan as “Najistan” and Muhammad Ali Jinnah as “Kafir-e-Azam”?
Have any of our Islamist friends, right wing conservatives or fake nationalists ever dared to answer these questions?Of course not and what's even more disheartening is the fact Pakistan Studies refuses to even acknowledge this (more on that later)
In order to understand what the argument here is, we need to understand the difference between a Muslim country and an Islamic country. Pakistanis today have completely confused and correlated the two together.
MUSLIM COUNTRY VS ISLAMIC COUNTRY
Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League were mainly Muslim nationalists ranging from leftists and centrists on the political spectrum. They most definitely weren’t Islamists and hence were fighting for a country whereby Muslims could live in freedom without suffering from second-class treatment, as had become the norm under the British Raj following the failure of the 1857 War of Independence.
An
ISLAMIC country, or
"Islamic Republic", is a nation whereby civil and common laws are based strictly on the Islamic Sharia code, and imposed forcibly on its citizens. All matters relating the economic, religious and cultural matters are handled through an appointed Mullah or an elected council of Mullahs. Personal independence of individuals is significantly curtailed in these countries and consumption and sale of alcohol, idol-worship, non-Islamic clothing, blasphemy and apostasy would be considered illegal. Such countries that mimic this concept include
Saudi Arabia, Iran and recently
Afghanistan.
A
MUSLIM country is a nation whereby civil and common laws are based loosely on Islamic values and principles – hence Sharia is not imposed forcibly on its citizens. Modern democratic values are promoted and entertained in matters concerning economic, religious and cultural matters while personal independence of individuals are respected. Such countries that mimic this concept include
Turkey and
Malaysia.
Now that we have a basic difference between the two ideologies, let’s dive into what the ML and Jinnah envisioned Pakistan to become. For that we will need a detailed history lesson.
BRITISH COLONIAL RULE (1842 to 1947)
By 1840, the British had conquered much of the subcontinent stretching from Burma (present-day Myanmar) to the Ganges plain (present-day North India) and Deccan (present-day South India). Now the British set their sites on the Indus Valley. Sindh was the first to fall in 1842, followed by Kashmir in 1846, Punjab in 1849 and the territories forming Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between 1876 to 1880. While conquering these territories, the 1857 War of Independence broke out, but was sadly crushed by British colonial forces. Following the establishment of “British India” in 1857, the British were now sole rulers of the entire subcontinent.
Naturally, the British saw little value in anything Muslim – many in London had become untrustworthy of the Muslims of India, as they viewed the 1857 "mutiny" as a Muslim led event. The Hunter Commission concluded that "
Muslims are bound by their religion to rebel against the Queen". This led many in London to conclude that to subdue the Muslims and prevent another uprising, the British would have to form a political alliance with the Brahmin Hindus of North India.
BRITISH - BRAHMIN ALLIANCE FORMS
“
The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. This ancient proverb suggests that two opposing parties can or should work together against a common enemy. From a British perspective, there were three main reasons for the alliance to be established.
> Hindus were the vast majority of the population; hence keeping the majority happy meant keeping the entire colony relatively stable.
> Using the inbuilt Hindu caste system by empowering Brahmins was seen as a mechanism to project British power through the complex prism of caste and tradition.
> Empowering the Brahmins both politically and economically meant Muslim sentiment could be curbed, as Muslims were the largest opposition to British rule.
From the Brahmin establishment perspective, they echoed similar reasons:
> The alliance would prevent Muslim rule from reestablishing itself in the subcontinent.
> Would be seen as a vessel by which the much-fantasized “Akhanda Bharata” could be established as In their eyes, the British had already done the hard work by forcibly uniting the subcontinent into one big colony
It was argued that one day the British would no longer to be able control the colony and power would be handed over to them. Hence both parties had much to gain from the other.
MUSLIM DISCRIMINATION AND ANTI MUSLIM SENTIMENT GROWS
Prior to British rule, Persian was the lingua franca and a widely used official language of South Asia, primarily under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire which had introduced the language to the region. Persian held official status in the court and the administration within these empires and was heavily influencing many of the local languages, particularly Khariboli which led to the formation of Urdu. Persian also strongly influenced Balochi, Pashto, Punjabi and Sindhi languages and cultures. Persian was most importantly seen as a unifying symbol of the Muslims of the subcontinent. It was used in courts, education and a mode of official communication.
When British rule was established in 1857, the banning of Persian was deemed necessary as to psychologically destroy the Muslim community. Persian's official status was already being replaced with English as early as 1835, but after 1857 Persian was outright banned and English gradually replaced Persian in all walks of life. Along with that, Madrassas were forced to close down and replaced with state schools. This had a very detrimental effect on the Muslim community, as many Muslims would refrain from sending their children to British state run schools, as they were deemed "untrustworthy".
In comparison, the Brahmin Hindus were being educated and being brought out of the medieval ages, while the Muslims were increasingly becoming isolated and remained stuck in the medieval age. By the 1880s, the Muslims had essentially become second-class citizens through institutionalized discrimination and isolation. The British colonialists and Brahmin Hindu establishment viewed the Muslims by this time as uneducated, violent and untrustworthy - an idea that would eventually trickle down towards the rest of the Hindu community. An unhealthy environment was being created.
MUSLIM RESPONSE
By the 1880s, the Muslim community had collapsed into disarray. They were divided, isolated, uneducated and increasingly paranoid against colonial rule. As a result, many Muslims turned towards the Masjid for help, support and guidance – this included many moderate and secular Muslims as well, who might not have been particularly religious, but were seen as part of the larger “Muslim problem” by the British-Brahmin alliance. One common misconception that Pakistanis have today is that the term "Muslim" only meant religious people. This is wrong...from a British perspective, every Muslim was viewed as an enemy of the state, despite the fact if they were conservatives, moderates or liberals. Even secular and non-practicing people with Muslim names were not spared from this institutionalized discrimination. Keep this in mind for later.
SOCIAL POWER & INFLUENCE OF MULLAHS
One of the biggest benefactors of this distrust and fear between Muslims and the British were the Mullahs. As the British continued to support the Brahmin Hindu elite into power, Muslims continued to alienate themselves further. This indirectly began giving large amounts of influence and power to Mullahs in local Muslim communities. In many cases, the Mullahs actually promoted the divide between the Muslims, British and Hindus. From the Mullah's point of view, keeping the communities apart was socially and economically beneficial to himself.
MUSLIM AWAKENING
The movement for a Muslim self-awakening and identity was started by the Muslim modernist and reformer Syed Ahmad Khan. People like Sir Syed were witnessing how the Brahmin Hindu community had, in some form, embraced British rule and were being rewarded for it, while Muslims had rejected British rule and were being punished.
His strong advocacy for British education and political activism had inspired a large section of moderate and liberal Muslims. He hosted the Muhammadan Educational Conference in 1886 in a vision to uplift the cause for British education especially science and literature, among Muslims. The conference, in addition to generating funds for Sir Syed's Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), also motivated the Muslim upper class.
The conservative Muslims led by the Mullahs opposed this concept outright and a divide began forming between the conservatives led by Mullahs and moderates led by Sir Syed. In turn, this new awareness of Muslims helped stimulate a political consciousness, which would help to establish the Muslim League in 1906, much to the despise of the Mullahs.
MUSLIM LEAGUE ESTABLISHED
In December 1906, the Muslim League was established in Dhaka. Attended by 3000 delegates, its original political goal was to define and advance Muslim civil rights, which had been denied to them under the British–Brahmin alliance. Furthermore, the Muslim League wanted to “build bridges” between the Muslim community and British colonial government, which had severely been dented during following the events surrounding 1857. In addition, the Muslim League wanted to forge good relationships with the Hindu majority and the Brahmin Hindu dominated Indian National Congress party. After World War One broke out, there was a degree of unity between Muslim and Hindu leaders, as typified by the Khilafat Movement. Relationships cooled sharply after that campaign ended in 1922.
Jinnah was convinced that once the British left, the Brahmin Hindu elite who dominated Congress would eventually transform itself into a “Hindu Raj”. In Jinnah’s address to the 26th session of the Muslim League in Patna in 1938, Jinnah stated “the High Command of the Congress party is determined, absolutely determined, to crush all other communities and cultures in this country, and to establish a Hindu Raj”. Evidence for this came in the same speech, in which he highlighted:
“Vande Mataram” - this was not a national song as Congress claimed, but rather a prayer to the goddess Durga. Furthermore, the poem was found in a Bengali novel entitled 'Anandmath' by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Bankim was a known Hindu fundamentalist and believed that Hindus had been marginalized by Muslims of India, and wanted the subcontinent to be transformed into one Hindu Raj.
“Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti” - a movement which Congress supported, which sought to eliminate Urdu and replace it with Hindi. They demanded that the Nastaliq script of Urdu be replaced with Devanagari script and that the language be called “Hindi” instead of Urdu. The proponents of “Hindi” argued that the majority of people in the region spoke “Hindi” and therefore introduction of Devanagari script would provide better education and improve prospects for holding Government positions. This despite the fact, Urdu had been the lingua franca of Muslims and Hindus in the Ganges plain for hundreds of years. Congress also argued that Nastaliq script made court documents illegible and encouraged forgery and promoted the use of complex Arabic and Persian words, which was unfounded.
"Gandhi Harijan Seva Sanjha" - a movement that Gandhi set up and was supported by Congress to consolidate lower caste Hindus (Sudras, Dalits etc.) and prevent them from converting to Islam and Christianity to escape upper caste oppression.
These are just a few examples of what worried Jinnah and the Muslim League.
PAKISTAN MOVEMENT
In 1928, communalism grew rapidly, forcing the Muslim League and Congress apart.
The Muslim League then rejected the Nehru Report, arguing that it gave too little representation (only one quarter) to Muslims, established Hindi (Devanagari) as the official language of the colony, and demanded that the colony turn into a de facto unitary state, with residuary powers resting at the centre.
The Muslim League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature and sizable autonomy for the Muslim provinces. Jinnah reported a "parting of the ways" after his requests for minor amendments to the proposal was denied by Congress leaders. At the leadership level, the proportion of Muslims among delegates to Congress fell sharply, from 11% in 1921 to under 4% in 1924.
Relations between the Congress and the League began to sour and the idea of an independent Muslim majority country was gaining traction. The poet philosopher Muhammad Allama Iqbal provided the philosophical exposition of the idea, while Muhammad Ali Jinnah translated it into the political reality of a nation-state. Allama Iqbal's presidential address to the Muslim League on 29 December 1930 is seen by some as the first exposition of the two-nation theory in support of what would ultimately become Pakistan.
OPPOSITION TO PAKISTAN
Congress naturally opposed Pakistan's independence, but what’s more interesting is that Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami also opposed Pakistan. As mentioned earlier, a division had occurred in the late 1880s, whereby moderate Muslims went on to form the Muslim League, while conservative Muslims remained isolated. As communalism began growing in the 1930s, some conservative Muslims became politicized and formed several different political parties to try and siphon off support from the Muslim League. They opposed the Muslim League and hence opposed Pakistan's independence. But why?
1. An independent Muslim majority country would spell an end the Muslim-Hindu divide, and hence the power of the Mullah in Muslim communities would evaporate. With no “existential threat”, Muslims would be free and it was argued they would no longer need the Mullah or the Masjid. By remaining second-class citizens in a "United" India, the mullah could maintain power over marginalized Muslim communities.
2. The Islamic parties viewed Jinnah and the Muslim League as too secular, since they insisted that Pakistan would support social reform, minority rights and liberation of women.
3. Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam stated they would only support Jinnah if he proclaimed Pakistan as an Islamic State and denounced Ahmedis as infidels. Jinnah refused, and angered Ahrar to the extent where they referred to him as "Kafir-e-Azam".
4. Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind argued that establishing Pakistan would leave the remaining Muslims in India weak, by which Jinnah responded that Muslims in a post-British "United" India would be weak anyway.
These are the root causes by which the Islamic parties opposed Pakistan. It should be noted that some members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami resigned from those parties to support Pakistan’s independence. But it should be stressed that those were individuals, and not representatives of those parties.
POST INDEPENDENCE
Following Pakistan’s independence in 1947, the nation was established as a Muslim country. This wasn’t by accident – the Muslim League had no intention of wanting to create a nation based on an ideology (Islamism) which opposed it in the first place.
This can be proven by numerous quotes of Jinnah. During Jinnah’s address to ABC Radio in Australia on 19 February 1948, he stated
“…the great majority of us are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad (peace by upon him). We are members of the brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in rights, dignity and self-respect. Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake: Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it. Islam demands from us tolerance of other creeds and we welcome in closest association with us all those who, whatever creed, are themselves willing and ready to play their party as true and loyal citizens of Pakistan”.
Then a few days later, during Jinnah’s recorded address to the people of the United States, he stated
“…we will be the democratic type, embodying the essential principles of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fair play to everybody. We are inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be theocratic state – to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims – Hindus, Christians and Parsis – but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan”.
It was evident by his quotes that he was not looking for an Islamic state. Despite opposing Pakistan, a faction of Jamaat-e-Islami shifted to West Pakistan in 1947, in which they immediately began a campaign to transform Pakistan into an "Islamic State".
PREMATURE DEATH OF JINNAH
The premature death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1948 was the biggest blow to Pakistan. He could have cemented the ideology of the country had he been around for a few more years and given the nation concrete steps to follow forward. Instead as soon as Jinnah died, Mullahs saw this as an opportunity to takeover and take back what they had lost in the political chaos that ensued in the 1950s. Eleven years after independence, the "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" was established in 1958 and a political conflict began growing between secular moderate forces who had established Pakistan, and conservative forces who intended to takeover. However, things remained relatively stable as progressive minded as politicians kept the mullahs at bay. Furthermore, General Ayub Khan wasn't too fond of mullahs and was known to crackdown on them harshly. This sadly, wouldn't last.
MILITARY COUPS
The refusal of the military to allow democracy to mature in Pakistan is one of the main reasons why many Pakistanis started becoming disillusioned with the idea of democracy. By the 1970s, political Islam would begin spreading throughout the Muslim world and in 1977, the military would once again arrest the development of democracy when General Zia ul Haq tookover in a western backed military coup to overthrow Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was regarded as a leftist socialist.
~ Zia's Islamization Programme ~
Many today are well aware of Zia ul Haq's brutal military regime and the public floggings that would take place, but what many are unaware of is how General Zia destroyed Pakistan's social fabric and began forcing Pakistan into becoming an "Islamic country", rather than the Muslim country the League, Jinnah and Allama Iqbal had envisioned.
General Zia did not want independent and rational thinkers, but rather obedient sheep that did not question authority. Thus beginning in 1982, General Zia began implementing his Islamification program - a program that sought to destroy Pakistan's social fabric. He viewed the media and education as an important means of creating an “Islamised society” and as an instrument for forging a new national identity based around Islam, rather than the original ideology put forth by Allama Iqbal and the Muslim League.
Under General Zia's new Islamic rules, the media was attacked. Newspapers were either forced to follow the state line or be closed down, while progressive thoughts and ideas were essentially banned. This almost immediately led to the collapse of Pakistan's vibrant film industry and theatre scenes in the mid-1980s.
Education was next on the list to be targeted - in particular Pakistan studies and social studies.
In social studies, students with empathy, moral sense, and capacity to reason independently was not just unnecessary, it was considered undesirable and teachers were told to pick out such children who behaved in such a manner as "troublemakers".
In Pakistan Studies, the entire curriculum was re-written and a directive to prospective textbook authors was released specifying that the objective of the new course is to:
“To demonstrate that the basis of Pakistan is not to be founded in racial, linguistic, or geographical factors, but, rather, in the shared experience of a common religion. To get students to know and appreciate the Ideology of Pakistan, and to popularize it with slogans. To guide students towards the ultimate goal of Pakistan - the creation of a completely Islamised State". (University Grants Commission directive, quoted by Azhar Hamid, et al. Mutalliyah-i-Pakistan, Islamabad: Allama Iqbal Open University, 1983, p. xi.)
TODAY
The changes General Zia ul Haq made in the 1980s to education only began being felt in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when students from the 80s became adults in the 2000s. It's no coincidence that around the same time period, Pakistan began witnessing it's most troubling years. Suicide bombings and violent religious mob reactions towards non-Muslims as well as Muslims who were perceived as apostates or secular was becoming a weekly event on the nightly news. It wouldn't be until 2015 that Pakistan's "troubling years" would come to an end.
Where do we stand today? Has anything changed? To a certain degree yes, the civilian and military leadership all seem to agree that terrorism must be tackled and done away with; but what about extremism? No army can eliminate that, extremism is born and bred in our social values and education.
For example, the class-6 social studies curriculum document (1995) issued by the Federal Ministry of Education demanded that students learn to “
acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan”, be aware of “
India’s evil designs against Pakistan” and “
make speeches on Jehad and Shahadat” (these are exact quotes).
Education was and continues to be centred upon religious ritualism, paranoia and violence. What good can come from this?
When we say “we want Jinnah’s Pakistan”, it’s not because we’re delusional…it’s because Jinnah’s Pakistan has been stolen from us. In 1977, power was literally handed over to the same group of people whose forefathers opposed Pakistan. What good could possibly come from that?
CONCLUSION
Me personally I have a completely different view on the two-nation theory. I've always argued that Pakistan should revert to an Indus nationalist ideology. However, I do understand the difficulties in this happening in my lifetime. That being said, when given the choice between the two, I would choose a Muslim Pakistan over an Islamic Pakistan any day of the week. A Muslim country would guarantee me personal independence and a right to believe in anything I want, including an Indus nationalist ideology which I strive for.
