Ideology of Pakistan Pervaiz Alvi via e-mail

Syed Osman Sher has very eloquently expressed his point of view on the subject of the ideology of Pakistan. Like him, I am very much saddened by the plight of the Muslims and other minorities in India. However, the demand for a separate homeland by the Muslims of geographically contiguous northwestern and eastern zones of the British Indian Empire, and the support they received from their fellow Muslims living in other parts of the empire, was not a queer phenomenon nor a strange and unique demand as Mr. Sher puts it.

The independence of Pakistan as a separate state was not a break up of any one country but the rightful division of an empire that was set up by a foreign colonial power. If Mr. Sher is looking for any parallels in history, he should look at the fall of other empires which like British India went through a similar process. When empires, unions or confederations of states fall, they revert back to the individual states or group of states. Such has been the situation in the case of the Mughal Empire and, later, the British Indian Empire. Unfortunately, the state of Pakistan further subdivided into Pakistan and Bangladesh. What lies ahead for the present-day union of the Indian states only time would tell. At this juncture, we only know that Kashmir, Assam and Tamil Nado do not wish to be part of the Indian union. So much for India being one country and Indians being one nation.                         

If Mr. Sher is looking for an example of a helpless minority being oppressed and brutalized by a majority, he should look at Kashmir where the poor Kashmiris under Indian occupation have been suffering for so long and have yet to receive their right of self-determination. It was the vision and leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and others that spared the citizens of Pakistan from the oppression of the majority and the bloodbath that would have followed had colonial power not divided its empire among its rightful citizens. If Mr. Sher and others like him see British India as one country and Indians as one nation then they would definitely see the demand for Pakistan as a strange and queer phenomenon. And in the post-independence era, if they wish to continue to see the Muslims and Hindus of South Asia as two nations then they will not know where to place the Muslims of India today. I submit that the two-nation theory ended at the independence of Pakistan and India. Indian Muslims should try to assimilate into their own political system and wish Pakistan well in overcoming its political and economic difficulties.

On the second point raised by Mr. Sher I have this to say: It is true that Quaid-i-Azam and others on the subject of nationality, in the context of the British Indian Empire, considered and argued about Hindus and Muslims being members of two separate civilizations, but when it came to the demand for a separate homeland they only asked for those contiguous areas of the empire where the Muslims were in the majority. They did not ask for any sovereignty over the Indian citizens of Muslim faith. There was no intention or constitutional provision to transfer the minorities to the other side of the border, even though some did so due to their own circumstances and were warmly welcomed by their hosts. Even though the Lahore Resolution does not mention the provinces by name but by implication it clearly specifies the areas that would constitute as Pakistan. East Bengal was intentionally left out of my argument because it is no longer part of Pakistan and is not subjected to the criticism and hostile propaganda reserved for Pakistan and its ideology.