Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
What Mohammad Ali Jinnah was not?
Mowahid Hussain Shah
This is not to denigrate India, a country difficult to match in the range of its cultural diversity. But no honest Indian would contend that India is a safe haven for Muslims. But no lofty claims are made here for a secular order. Yet, some Pakistanis would still like to reassess the utility of the creation of Pakistan and the wisdom behind the founding. The debate would be conclusively answered by asking the single question: Are the Muslims of India better off than the Muslims of Pakistan?
By some accounts, India has more Muslims than Pakistan. But that fact, apart from tokenism, is not reflected at the helm of affairs. Sikhs, for all the agitation, were (and still are) far better represented than Muslims despite their significantly smaller size. Secularism is intellectually attractive but, in effect, fraudulent. The obvious needs to be restated. But for Pakistan, there would not have been too many generals, business moguls, sport superstars and bureaucrats of the Islamic faith. Having said that, it does not necessarily follow that the experiment of a Muslim homeland has been an unqualified success.
Feelings About the Father of the Nation
By G.C. Contreras
We know by experience that young nations like my own, Mexico, or like Pakistan, when they relinquish a colonial past, go through difficult and hazarduous moments for the first years of their independent life, moments full of weaknesses and dangers which test the reserves and potential energy of their human material.
Not only the culminating moment when the new nation, product of a long ideological and political struggle, has begun her life is decisive, but the daily process of maintaining her alive ensuring that she prevails against all contingencies. Notwithstanding, when a community has the will for becoming a nation, armed with its high ideals and the wish of an independent life, her place among the free peoples is assured. Of you, I can say, in the very words of Jinnah, “Pakistan has come to stay and no power on earth can destroy it.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a man of great wisdom, strong ideals, an enemy of injustice who fought so that his community could exercise its due rights. His strong determination through a long and difficult struggle for the Independence of the Indian Subcontinent led him inevitably, within the historical circumstances, to the ideal of the creation of Pakistan as a free and sovereign nation.
Jinnah’s Last Message
It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948:
" The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can".
In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote richard Symons,
"contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survivial".
He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said,
"Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".
A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the recipient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint.
The Aga Khan considered him
"the greatest man he ever met"
Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him
"the most important man in Asia",
Jinnah: The Man of the Hour
Much has been written about our Quaid, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, about the amazing leadership qualities that he possessed and the determination and strength with which he fought for the attainment of an independent State for the Muslims of the subcontinent. His personality and his grace won the admiration of friends and foes alike.
However, there is a section of Pakistani society that deems Jinnah irrelevant to the present day Pakistan and does not miss any opportunity to belittle the impact that this great man had on humanity. There is a reason for this charade; Jinnah is a threat to the self-proclaimed ‘democratically elected’ leaders of Pakistan who are steeped in corruption and nepotism.
In the Pakistan of today, we see political parties loyal to ‘Quaid-e-Awams’, each focusing on their own particular mantra or slogan, each waving their own flag. The one leader who united us, who taught us the meaning of dignity and courage, is missing not only from the walls of the President House, but also from the hearts and minds of the sheeple who blindly follow these so called leaders. This particular section of society seems to think that Pakistan was created for the elite. The concern that Jinnah had for the Muslim Ummah, the very community that Pakistan was created for, has been set aside and the poor and downtrodden who in the words of Allama Iqbal were encouraged by Angels to ‘shake the foundations of society’ , have been forgotten. While the Pakistani elite continue to grow stronger through political alliances and inter-marriages, common Pakistanis are struggling to break away from this stranglehold.
Thank you Mr Jinnah
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By Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain
Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they had nobody like Jinnah leading them — someone who had the foresight and the courage to accept the partition of Palestine. Instead of accepting partition, the Palestinians and the Arabs attacked the newly formed Jewish state
Whenever a few Pakistanis or Pakistani expat ‘liberal’ types get together, after a couple of libations to lubricate ideas and speech, often the conversation comes to the question whether we in Pakistan would have been better off if there were no partition of India.
Now I am not a serious student of the history of partition and am aware only of the basic facts. These being that the Muslim League won most of the Muslim seats during the elections held in 1946 and as such also won the right to represent the Muslims of India. Jinnah, as the leader of the Muslims, decided to opt for Pakistan when the All India Congress led by Nehru and Patel rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan. And this Pakistan that came into being was not quite what Jinnah had expected.
Some historians have said that Jinnah referred to the country he got as a “moth-eaten” Pakistan. Whether that is true is not material since Jinnah accepted whatever he got and it laid the foundation of one and then two Muslim majority countries in the Indian subcontinent, something envisaged by the Lahore Resolution of 1940. It is also an undeniable fact that we in Pakistan could indeed have done a lot better for ourselves.
By Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain
Whenever a few Pakistanis or Pakistani expat ‘liberal’ types get together, after a couple of libations to lubricate ideas and speech, often the conversation comes to the question whether we in Pakistan would have been better off if there were no partition of India.
Now I am not a serious student of the history of partition and am aware only of the basic facts. These being that the Muslim League won most of the Muslim seats during the elections held in 1946 and as such also won the right to represent the Muslims of India. Jinnah, as the leader of the Muslims, decided to opt for Pakistan when the All India Congress led by Nehru and Patel rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan. And this Pakistan that came into being was not quite what Jinnah had expected.
Some historians have said that Jinnah referred to the country he got as a “moth-eaten” Pakistan. Whether that is true is not material since Jinnah accepted whatever he got and it laid the foundation of one and then two Muslim majority countries in the Indian subcontinent, something envisaged by the Lahore Resolution of 1940. It is also an undeniable fact that we in Pakistan could indeed have done a lot better for ourselves.
Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan - Uneasy relations?
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Sir Ebrahim Currimbhoy and Sir Wazir Hassan with the Quaid-e-Azam
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Quaid-e-Azam on Women
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| Quaid-e-Azam with Dehli Women's Muslim League members, 1947 |
The great personality and Founder of Islamic Republic of Pakistan , Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said:
“Another very important matter which I want to impress upon you, is that no nation can rise to the height of glory, unless women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity to shut up women within the four walls of houses as prisoners. Let us try to raise the status of women according to Islamic ideals and standards. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable conditions in which our women have to live. We should take the women along with us as comrades in every sphere of life. We cannot expect a woman who is ignorant herself to bring up our children properly. Women have the power to bring up children on the right lines. Let us not throw away this asset. (Muslim league meeting at Muslim University of Aligarh March 10, 1944.)
He also said:
"I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world. One is the sword and the other the pen. However there is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”
The Founder’s Vision and Ideology
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan first mooted the idea of an independent Muslim nation in late nineteenth century. Subsequently Allama Sir Muhammad. Iqbal in 1930 proposed the establishment of an independent Muslim state in the northwestern part of the Asian Subcontinent. However the idea of Pakistan was first propounded by Mr Ch. Rehmat Ali in his pamphlet “Now or Never” in 1933. At that time the Muslim League leadership including Mr Jinnah did not support or even consider it. Up till that time Mr Jinnah was an ardent supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity in British India. The Manchester Guardian best describes his attitude and views of that period “Mr Jinnah’s position at the Round Table Conference was unique. The Hindus thought he was a Muslim communalist, the Muslims took him to be pro-Hindu, the princes deemed him to be too democratic, the British considered him an extreme nationalist, with the result that he was a leader without a following.”
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