Rahmat Ali had conceived the idea of Pakistan in 1933. However, he did not envisage the migration of Muslims from areas of ‘Hindustan’ to ‘Pakistan’. Pakistan was not to be the homeland for the Muslims of Hindustan. It was to be the land of the millat : “a national citadel” for the Muslims of Pakistan and “a moral anchor” for the Muslims of Hindustan.
In 1940, Jinnah subtly changed the goal: Pakistan was to be the homeland of the Muslims of Hindustan and not merely the land of the millat carved out of areas in which Muslims were in a majority. The homeland concept effectively implied that Muslims in Hindustani areas would become Pakistani nationals, domiciled in India, and would eventually migrate to their homeland. On 22 March, 1940, Jinnah in his presidential address endorsing the Lahore Resolution spoke of Pakistan and Hindustan as the homelands of two nations. He emphasized that Muslims were not merely a minority community but a nation and that Hindus and Muslims could never evolve a common nationality and could not be yoked together. On 10 Jan, 1941 at the Muslim Educational Service League at Bombay, Jinnah reiterated the most reckless of propositions – “to resettle the Hindus and Muslims in their respective nations ….”.
[quote]The seeds of Pakistan's 1971 dismemberment had been sown by Jinnah himself in 1946[/quote]
The “Pakistan Resolution” of 1940 had envisaged the creation of two independent states - East Pakistan and West Pakistan - autonomous and sovereign. In April 1946 however, Jinnah manipulated a material shift whereby the two zones would constitute a single state of Pakistan. Indeed the seeds of Pakistan’s 1971 dismemberment had been sown by Jinnah himself in 1946.
In his discussions with Mahatma Gandhi in Sept 1944, Jinnah had claimed that the right of self-determination in the Muslim majority areas of Punjab, Bengal and Assam would be exercised only by the Muslims and that the non-Muslim residents had no such right. The latter were deemed to be non-nationals even though, in actual fact, these areas were their homelands. The creed of discriminating against “minorities” had already begun.
Pakistan was also positioned as the homeland of Indian Muslims on Quaranic considerations. Muslims are required to perform hijrat, to migrate from the land of the infidel to the land of the faithful, the land of Islam. The Quran ayat S.IV.91 says “Live not in places hostile to Islam, if you are able to migrate ….”. The doctrine of hijrat (in the absence of power to initiate jehad with reasonable hope of success) was invoked to make Pakistan a homeland for Indian Muslims.
By 1946, the Muslim League was already changing its tune. The Dawn reported on 15 Nov, 1946 a statement of Jinnah’s that after the establishment of Pakistan, the minorities “will … settle down as minorities” … “minorities can live only as minorities and not a dominant body”. “Once they realize that they have to live as minorities, then I think you will have a really stable and secure government in Pakistan and Hindustan….”. The minority Muslims of India were no more being termed a “nation”. In fact, Jinnah’s statement of 15 Nov, 1946 goes to the root of the matter: if the minorities could continue to live in Hindu majority areas, what really was the justification for the creation of Pakistan? This question remained without a convincing answer.
In 1946 and 1947, Jinnah vehemently demanded undivided Punjab and Bengal, (despite their large minority of non-Muslims) and Assam (predominantly Hindu), be included in Pakistan. It is inconceivable that the most ardent protagonist of the two-nation theory and of incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims should have opposed the partition of the multi-religious provinces of Punjab and Bengal. In 1940 Jinnah had asserted that the two communities could never evolve a common nationality and could not be yoked together under a single state. His 1st May, 1947 statement completely traverses his justification for the division of India and negates the Pakistan resolution of 1940. The statement reconfirms that Jinnah had subtly abandoned the notion of Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of the minority provinces. Now, Pakistan was merely to be a state carved out of areas where Muslims were in a majority.
The architects of Pakistan
As recorded in the Transfer of Power documents, Vol IX, Mountbatten made an acute assessment on 9 April, 1947 of why Jinnah fumbled in pursuing the goal of creating a homeland for Muslims of the minority provinces of India : Jinnah “…gives me the impression of a man who has not thought out one single piece of the mechanics of his own great scheme and he will have the shock of his life when he really has to come down to earth and try and make his vague idealistic proposals work on a concrete basis”.
Jinnah had established in his own words “a truncated and moth-eaten Pakistan” and at the same time gravely undermined the position of the Indian Muslims for whom the homeland of Pakistan was ostensibly created. Jinnah’s parting message to the Indian Muslims while leaving for Pakistan in Aug 1947 was an anti-climax – now that the country was divided they should be loyal citizens of India. It was a total repudiation of the two nation theory and of the movement for Pakistan.
[quote]Pakistan went on to completely ban any further migration of Muslims[/quote]
Let us now move to postpartum Pakistan – starting August 1947. The Pakistan movement was meant to be for the “protection” of Muslims of the sub-continent from Hindu domination. Ironically however, Pakistan was created out of regions where the Muslims were already in overwhelming majority and were in no need of that much vaunted protection. In effect Jinnah and his Pakistan movement compatriots gave themselves the power and patronage of a new State while leaving 30 million Muslims (now 180 million) abandoned as an even smaller minority in Hindu majority India. Amazingly, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, himself an emigree from India, on 10th Oct 1947, barred the entry of Muslims from India except those who belonged to East Punjab. By 1950, Pakistan went on to completely ban any further migration of Muslims from the rest of the sub-continent into Pakistan. The very raison d’etre of Pakistan was violated. The ban continues till today. More mohajirs are not welcome. In comparison, even tiny Israel welcomes all Jews to its bosom, anytime from anywhere in the world - of black, brown, or white color.
This sad lack of tolerance continued to be demonstrated in Pakistan’s treatment of Bengalis in East Pakistan - arrogantly considered inferior citizens and lesser Muslims. Feroze Khan Noon, a leading politician of West Pakistan and Governor of East Bengal in 1952 called East Bengalis “half muslims”, being converts from low caste Hindus. Bengalis were denied political power and drained economically, their cultural aspirations were crushed, and the Bengali language was denied national language status despite Bengalis being the majority community in “democratic” Pakistan. They rose against their oppression by West Pakistan and this culminated in the slaughter of Bengalis by the West Pakistan army, prior to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Gary J. Bass in his 2013 book “The Blood Telegram – Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide” states that “The slaughter in what is now Bangladesh stands as one of the cardinal moral challenges of recent history …… In the dark annals of modern cruelty, it ranks as bloodier than Bosnia and by some accounts in the same rough league as Rwanda” – with Nixon and Kissinger aiding and abetting Gen Yahya Khan. It is a sad fact that till today Pakistan has shown little sense of remorse for this episode.
Since the 1971 war of Bangladesh, an estimated 300,000 Bihari Muslims remain in ghettoes in Bangladesh - ostracized for having sided with the West Pakistani regime in the 1971 war of liberation. Poignantly, while marooned in Bangladesh, they raise the Pakistani flag and sing the Pakistani national anthem on Pakistan’s national days. Yet Pakistan has not allowed these loyal fellow Muslims into their country. It would be instructional to ask Chaudhary Nisar the question that for all his passionate exhortations of Muslim identity over Pakistani nationality, is he willing to accept Bihari Muslims from Bangladesh? Like Qader Molla, they too pass the test of “loyalty to Pakistan”.
Those who are not contrite about their own transgressions are condemned to re-inflict them.
Yuvraj Krishan is the author of Understanding Partition (2002)
