Muslim history is full of repeated betrayals by men of this faith with the national freedom struggles of their own countries to free them from the yoke of foreign occupation. Pakistan could never have been created if the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP not voted to integrate into Pakistan.
It is an historical fact that the movement for a separate homeland was started in Bengal in 1905-06, much before anybody even felt the need for a separate identity. It was Allama Iqbal who finally gave the vision and blue print for a separate nation. There was no dearth of Mir Jaffers who through their intrigues tried to damage the pace of the movement in Punjab because they were convinced that the sun would never set for British Colonial Raj in India.
When a Nawab replaced Allama Iqbal as the President of Punjab Muslim League because of his health, on firm assurances of his loyalties and financial support, the gentlemen collaborated with members of the All India Muslim League Parliamentary Committee and the Unionist Party led by Sikandar Hayat at the Lucknow session held in 1937, which withdrew the affiliation of Punjab Muslim League with the central league and supported the formation of a Punjab Provincial Parliamentary Board with the majority composition held by Unionist Party, to which he earlier belonged.
Allama Iqbals letters to Quaid-e-Azam written on 1st and 10th November 1937 very clearly expose this betrayal. It is also a fact that when Allama Iqbal died, his faction of the Muslim League which started the struggle in Punjab had been disaffiliated by Central Parliamentary Committee dominated by members from Muslim minority areas. This committee surprisingly dealt the same blow to Bengal Muslim League headed by Sher-e-Bengal Fazal-ul-Haq. The Quaid-e-Azam accepted this grave injustice when the Unionists of Punjab refused to join the Muslim League after the elections in 1938.
To this date the politics of Pakistan and, in particular Punjab, suffer from their domination because these feudals had been given hundreds of squares of land by the British for their services and loyalty to the Raj and they had no ideological commitment to Quaid’s vision of a democratic welfare state. These feudals have welcomed every military dictator in Pakistan and continue with their rampant corruption till today without any shame or remorse.
RASHID ORAKZAI
Quetta
