Author: Muhammad Abbas
Publication: Pakistan Times
Date: March 23, 2004
URL: http://www.pakistantimes.net/2004/03/23/guest2.htm
It does not need or call for any
debate any more that Pakistan came into being on the basis of Islam. It
was only Islam, which galvanised Muslims and lined them up behind Muslim
League. Other factors, political and economic ones, also played some part
in uniting Muslims to struggle for Pakistan but Islam was the preponderant
factor as it serves as a cementing force for Muslim society and is the
primary link between Muslims the world over. Everything else follows Islam.
The entire struggle of the Muslims of the subcontinent was to have a state
where they could freely maintain their Islamic entity. No other factor
was so clear & intelligible for Muslim masses. Let us have a look on
the ideology of Pakistan in retrospect.
It was none else than Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan who, as early as 1884, said that Hindus and Muslims are two nations
and different from each other. If we dig deep into the socio-cultural and
historical foundations of Pakistan movement and subsequent creation of
Pakistan, we will certainly come to the irrefutable and logical conclusion
that Pakistan's establishment was nothing else than Allah's will (Amre-Elahi)
and according to the tenets of Islam which in effect imply that wherever
Muslim are in majority, they should establish a state of their own so that
they could live freely and order their lives according to Islam.
The fact is that the Indian subcontinent
was never one social or political entity throughout its history. It was
only for short spans of time that India was politically one. Two distinct
nations had lived in it since 711 AD when first Muslim stepped on the soil
of the subcontinent. The areas included in the Indus basin had been part
of various kingdoms. Even the biggest non-Muslim rulers such as Asoka had
never ruled the entire subcontinent. For more than ten centuries since
711 A D Muslims, Hindus and followers of Jainism and Buddhism lived together
but remained distinct in all imaginable ways of living, culture, religion
and creed. It would be distortion of history to say that Indian subcontinent
was and had been a cultural unity or its people lived according to agreed
social codes. In his book "India", (1888) Sir John Strachey observed "This
is the first and most essential thing to learn about India-that there is
not, and never was an India".
Hinduism, which had succeeded in
absorbing or eliminating to a great extent, other creeds, totally failed
to absorb Muslims despite Bhagti Movement or movements in the name of humanism,
deen-e-elahi and secularism. Muslims and Hindus had been 'poles apart'.
That the Muslims of the subcontinent from the very beginning had been a
separate entity does not need any authentication. Yet it would be worth
while to note that Hindu intellectuals and thinkers were convinced of this
fact. K M Pamaikar in his book "A survey of Indian History" has said that
"Before the tenth century Hindu society was divided horizontally and neither
Buddhism nor Jainism affected the division. They were not unassimilable
elements and filled in easily with the existing divisions. Islam, on the
other hand, split Indian society into two sections from top to bottom and
what has now come to be known in the phraseology of today as two separate
nations came into being from the beginning. At all stages they were different
and hardly any social communications or intermingling existed between them".
Even the low cast 'Shudras' despite
adopting Hinduism remained different from mainstream Hindu community because
of caste system of Hindu society. Since there were inherent weaknesses
and lack of social dynamism in Bhudhism and Jainism both creeds could not
survive in the subcontinent. But Islam being forceful and dynamic way of
life, survived all Hindu moves to absorb Muslims. As a result Muslims remained
totally different and maintained their separate identity, culture, beliefs
and social code. Besides, Islam brought with it the concepts of equality
of mankind, brotherhood and social justice and it retained its vitality.
The Muslims stuck to their beliefs, ideas, dress code and cultural traditions.
When the time came the sharp differences between Muslims and Hindus manifested
themselves in political movement of Muslims based on Islam and Hindus preferred
secularism as understood and defined by them. The myth of secularism and
oneness of the subcontinent was bound to be exploded.
Decline and downfall of Muslim rule
in the subcontinent led to the colonisation of the subcontinent by the
British. Hindus became willing partners of the British and sided with the
foreign rule. The result was that Muslims were the worst sufferers at the
hands of the British and majority population - the Hindus. The war of freedom
initiated and fought by the Muslims failed because the Hindus sided with
the colonising power. But every cloud has a silvery living. The Muslims
were not to be cowed down forever. Their leaders, thinkers and educationists
remained in the field and Muslim masses, though dormant and somewhat disappointed
and frustrated, refused to accept the situation as it obtained and started
waking up.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was the first
to give the wake up call and decided to prepare Muslims to fight the adversity
with similar weapons - modern education and knowledge, employed for domination.
With him, his Aligarh movement, his books and magazine Tahzibul Akhlaq,
he started an awareness movement. He prepared the ground for uniting and
galvanizing Muslim community of the subcontinent. His colleagues including
Nawab Mohsinul Mulk and others created conditions which led to the establishment
of All India Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906, a landmark in the history
of Pakistan Movement.
On March 22, 1940 in his presidential
address to the All-India Muslim League Lahore session, the founder of Pakistan
M A Jinnah made it plain that "The Hindus and the Muslims belong to two
different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They
neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two
different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and
conceptions. He further said Musalmans are a nation according to any definition
of a nation, and they must have their homeland, their territory and their
State.
"Two-Nation" theory implies that
Muslims of the subcontinent were a nation quite distinct and separate from
the Hindus. In an interview with Beverlay Nicholas, the founder of Pakistan
Muhammad Ali Jinnah said in 1944 "You must remember that Islam is not merely
a religious doctrine but a realistic and practical code of conduct. I am
thinking in terms of everything important in life. I am thinking in terms
of our history, our heroes, our art, our architecture, out music, our laws,
our jurisprudence...In all these things, our outlook is not only fundamentally
different but also often radically antagonistic to the Hindus. We are different
beings. There is nothing in life, which links us together.. ("Verdict on
India" by Beverlay Nicholas, PP58-59).
The fact is that two-nation theory
and Pakistan are the same. All States except Pakistan have been created
on the basis of geography, ethnicity and economic interests. This is the
uniqueness of Pakistan.
The writer is an Islamabad-based
analyst of grand repute and ex-Director General, Radio Pakistan.
