Shattered dreamsy

What did Jinnah want?

Both India and Pakistan need at this time all the wisdom and humanity they can muster to save themselves from the cataclysm that threatens, and it is a cruel irony of history that at precisely this time both countries have been deprived of the two most wisest and most humane men in the sub-continent. Ours is very much the greater and more grievous loss.

(Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s editorial on Jinnah’s passing in the Pakistan Times 13 September 1948.)

The last decade has not been kind to Pakistan. So profound has been the lack of confidence in the state that many have begun to question the wisdom of having Pakistan in the first place. Increasingly Mr Jinnah, the founding father of this state, has been subjected to criticism within the country for what some call barefaced contradictions and others shortsightedness.

While criticism is always good, much of the criticism leveled at Jinnah is by people who have not read Jinnah’s record in entirety and that record even in entirety layered in nuances; an inevitable consequence of the subtlety of mind that Jinnah possessed. What may seem like barefaced contradictions to some fall into place logically as if pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Jinnah’s personal story – of a self-made lawyer confident and self assured rising to the pinnacle of his profession and of politics- is just one piece of this puzzle and needs no reminding, beyond repeating a few facts about Mr. Jinnah’s illustrious political career. One: For 33 years out of 41 year long political career Jinnah championed the cause of a united India and dismissed the idea of a separate homeland for Muslims. Two: Jinnah is the only politician in the history of the subcontinent to be called the best ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity. Three: Even as late as 1946, Jinnah accepted the plan for a united India at great loss of esteem with his followers.

Imbibing political liberalism from greats like John Morley, Jinnah had come out in support of unpopular causes right from the beginning. His earliest political experience had been in support of the Suffragette Movement and for women’s equality – a lifelong commitment which saw him exhorting his supporters to take women as comrades in the national struggle. As one of the few Muslims who joined the Indian National Congress, Jinnah’s constitutional struggle was for the rights of Indians and other races of the Empire to become equal partners in progress. Jinnah’s record as a legislator in the Indian Central Legislative Assembly speaks volumes about his vision for modern India. That record shows that Mr. Jinnah stood for civil liberties, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, universal education and equal rights of all peoples regardless of their religious beliefs, gender, caste or other distinguishing features. It also shows that Jinnah’s idea of the Indian federation was neither a watered down one as the “Punjab thesis” forwarded by Sir Fazl-e-Hussain and others, nor was it a highly centralized state operating out of Delhi as advocated by Jawaharlal Nehru and most of the Congress Party. Jinnah believed in a strong federation with residuary powers staying with the provinces and universal adult franchise. Long before the 14 points came the Delhi proposals which had paved the way for adoption of joint electorates by the Muslim community. More importantly Jinnah believed that princely states should enter the federation on terms pari materia to the provinces and not on special conditions as was advocated by the princely chamber.

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‘His legacy has suffered on account of inept successors and pygmies who followed. Yet despite going from crisis after crisis Pakistan has managed to stumble along. One hopes that with enough cycles of democracy, it may well resolve those contradictions that have plagued its existence.’

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The events of UP during the Congress ministries from 1937-1939 convinced the Muslim salariat that they would not get a fair deal from the Congress and a Hindu majority. Their fears were confirmed by two other very strange decisions on the part of the Congress. The first was the decision to adopt Hindi as the national language instead of Hindustani. Hindustani was a broad name for both Hindi and Urdu. In other words it was one language two scripts idea. Congress’ adoption of Hindi and not Hindustani was seen as a cultural imposition by the Muslims from Barabanki to Lucknow. The second strange decision was to adopt Bande Mataram as the national anthem. The main Muslim objection was Bande Mataram was that it was from a novel called Anandmath by Bankim Chandra Chatterji which was decidedly Hindu in character conflating Hinduism with Indian Nationalism. More frighteningly its villains were Muslims and at times the British are seen as liberators from Muslim tyranny. All of this convinced the Muslim intelligentsia that in a Hindu dominated India, their cultural identity would be at risk and that they needed some sort of device to even the odds and defeat the arithmetic of Hindu Majority v. Muslim Minority. It is in these circumstances that the two- nation theory was to become an instrument of a consociationalist compromise between the two largest communities of India. At no time did it state that Hindus and Muslims could not live together. No it spoke of the need to recognize that a permanent cultural majority ought not to dominate a permanent cultural minority with sheer numbers alone.

It would be a perverse oversimplification of this argument to state that Jinnah did not want a Pakistan. On the contrary Jinnah wanted a Pakistan which was not necessarily based on a partition of India. Reading the Lahore resolution reveals a number of alternative futures, which Jinnah as an adroit lawyer may well have calculated. The first choice was the creation of one or two Muslim majority states in India (as at present) with territorial adjustments. The second possibility was of the creation of a Pakistan and a Hindustan with notional political unity, defence cooperation of some kind and a consensual foreign policy. The final option would be a variant of a federal compromise. This is what Cabinet Mission Plan provided. A number of critics have argued that Jinnah accepted the Plan because he was certain the Congress would reject it. There is no evidence for that and in any event would have been a massive risk to take. Simply put there was no way a man as careful as Jinnah would have gambled unless he would have been prepared to accept all outcomes of the said move.

Pakistan as it was created was a pyrrhic victory for Jinnah. Not only were the two largest provinces of Jinnah’s Pakistan partitioned but any hopes he may have had treaty relations between India and Pakistan were dashed at its inception. Regardless of our present reality, Jinnah had imagined Pakistan as a modern state. Only a modern state could help uplift the Muslim community from socio-economic backwardness. It meant inevitably that such a state could not be a theocracy. Repeatedly – and not just on August 11 – Jinnah spoke of a state which vested sovereignty in the people regardless of their religion caste or creed. On a few occasions he also argued that this was compatible with Islam. He was speaking in the language of his people.

It was Pakistan’s misfortune that a towering figure like Jinnah was removed so early on by the hand of fate. As Faiz wrote – ours was indeed the most grievous loss, because Gandhi in India had a Nehru to fall back on, Jinnah had no one of that stature. The stabilizing hand of Jinnah may well have resolved the many conflicts and so-called barefaced contradictions of the nation state. His legacy has suffered on account of inept successors and pygmies who followed. Yet despite going from crisis after crisis Pakistan has managed to stumble along. One hopes that with enough cycles of democracy, it may well resolve those contradictions that have plagued its existence.