Every year in August, some liberal intellectuals try to remind their fellow Pakistanis of what the father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, said on August 11, 1947 while addressing the first Constituent Assembly – “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan.” That was the Quaid’ vision for the new country; he promised equal rights to all of its citizens irrespective of their religious or sectarian affiliation, color, caste or creed. However, in today’s Pakistan, many people still are intolerant of difference and are preyed upon by reactionary forces and obscurantist elements. Therefore, 65 years after the country creation, the Quaid’s dream has not move forward while the country plunged into ethnic, religious and sectarian warfare.
We might have won the independence from the British in 1947 but unless we fulfill the Quaid’s dream of a progressive and enlightened Pakistan, Independence Day celebration on 14 August will be no more than a reminder of an incomplete task.
MASOOD KHAN
Saudi Arabia
