He should have gone Quaid’s way
It appears that Imran and his advisers have little knowledge of history and particularly of Gandhi’s civil disobedience movements. On September 8, 1920, Gandhi moved a resolution in the Extraordinary Session of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement. Quaid-e-Azam vehemently opposed it. Nothing could swerve him from the constitutional path and when Gandhi asked him to contribute his share for the movement, he bluntly refused. Eventually when in December 1920 the Civil Disobedience Movement Resolution was actually passed, the Quaid resigned from the Congress and declared that “Mine is the right way – the constitutional way is the right way”.
Gandhi could not control the movement and when an unruly mob attacked a police station at Chouri Choura (a town in Eastern UP) and set it on fire killing 24 policemen including officers, Gandhi called off the movement. He apologized, relented and went on a fast as a penance.
I want to remind all those who consider Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah as their Quaid and follow and practice the path he followed and what he stood for, that he never acted unconstitutionally and never broke the law.
Campbell-Johnson in his book “Mission with Mountbatten” while narrating the events of 3 June, 1947, states that in the meeting of Muslim League and the Congress with the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten when the Viceroy inadvertently called the interim government the “Cabinet”, Jinnah immediately corrected and said, “A spade should be called a spade – I always think in constitutional terms.”
The Quaid was consistently a man of principles from which he never wavered. His way was the Constitutional way. That is how he achieved Pakistan against all odds and in spite of opposition by Congress, Mahasabah and the British.
On 30 July, 1946, the Quaid after the Muslim League Council meeting stated:-
“What we have done today is the most historic act in our history. Never have we in the whole history of the League done anything, except by constitutional methods and by constitutionalism. But now we are obliged and forced into this position. This day we say good-bye to constitutional methods”.
However, the door of negotiations was never closed and as a result of hard negotiations between the Viceroy and Jinnah, the Muslim League joined the interim government at its own terms at the invitation of the Viceroy on 15 October, 1946. During the one and a half months of the negotiations the League refrained from any illegal or unconstitutional act.
August 17, 2014, was a sad day when Imran Khan decided to follow Gandhi instead of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and announced to launch a Civil Disobedience Movement if his demands were not met.
Imran must realise that politics is not cricket; it is not a sport. The most that can happen in sports is losing a game, a match or at the most a tournament. In politics the wellbeing, the future and sometimes the very existence of a nation is at stake.
I call upon Imran Khan to emulate the founder of this country and immediately start negotiations rather than following Gandhi, the man who opposed the establishment of Pakistan tooth and nail.
sir, that's a fantastic article. and very rightly said Imran khan should follow Jinnah;s path. what he / we needs to learn is that there is no winner or loser in politics. because if there is a winner then there is a total power grab (means centralized decision making) and if there is a loser than state is at stake. in politics there is only a lesson to learn from every happenings.
Ghandis people were attacked by police and killed first. Their burning if a police station was mere retaliation. There’s always two sides to history. Jinnah was a great man, but ghandi was exceptionally great.
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