By Syed Atiq ul Hassan
On 23 March 1940, the Muslim leaders in India under the leadership of Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah passed a resolution to create a separate Islamic State from the united India where Muslims can live with freedom, fairness, and equality – the golden principles of Islam. This is the core philosophy of a separate country for Indian Muslims which is called the ideology of Pakistan. Pakistanis celebrate this day as the ‘Resolution Day’ or ‘Pakistan Day.’
The Resolution of Pakistan was passed in the All India Muslim League’s annual session held in Lahore on 22-24 March 1940. It is a landmark document of Pakistan. The Resolution marked the transformation of the then Indian Muslims into a nation with its distinguishing socio-cultural and political features, a sense of history and shared aspirations of the territories where Muslims were in Majority. The Resolution made of five key demands:
- The Resolution rejected the federal system of government (in British India) as envisaged in the Government of India Act, 1935 because it was unsuited to and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of then British India and was altogether unacceptable to Muslims of British India.
- The Muslims would not accept any revised constitutional plan unless it is constituted with their consent and approval.
- The adjacent territorial units should be demarcated into regions that may involve some territorial adjustments in a manner that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in north-western and eastern zones of India become independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
- The Resolution offered adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards for religious minorities in the Muslim majority units for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them. Similar rights will be given to the Muslims in other parts of India.
- The Muslim League Working Committee was asked to formulate a constitutional scheme on the basis of the principles outlined in the Resolution.
The 25 Working Committee Members of the All-India Muslim League attended and passed the Resolution were Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, Sir Shahnawaz Khan Mamdot, Amir Ahmed Khan Raja Sahib of Mahmudabad, Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq, Sir Abdullah Haroon, Al-Hajj Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin, Amjadi Bano Begum, Molana Muhammad Akram Khan, Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, Nawab Muhammad Ismail Khan, Sir Currimbhoy Ebrahim, Ali Muhammad Khan Dehlvi, Qazi Muhammad Isa, Sardar Aurangzeb Khan, Abdul Mateen Chauhdry, Ashiq Mohamed Warsi, Haji Abdus Sattar Essak Saith, S.M. Sharif, Syed Abdul Rauf Shah, Mohammad Latif ur Rahman, Abdul Rehman Siddiqui, Malik Barkat Ali, Sadullah Khan Umarzai.
It is to be noted that the great Islamic scholar and Muslim leader, Allama Muhammad Iqbal, whose dream was to see an independent state for Indian Muslims (Pakistan) was died in 1938 but his dream came true through leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Paying the sacrifices of millions of Muslims, consistent struggle and extraordinary historical movement , Pakistan, in the form of West and East Pakistan contained the Muslim majority states of united British India, was finally created on 14 August 1947.
Unfortunately, the founder of Pakistan, Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, died on 11 September 1948 (when Pakistan was only one year old) leaving behind a dedicated hard working, committed, honest and sincere team under the leadership of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaqat Ali Khan. However, greedy and self-centered Choudhry, Vaderay, and Tribal Leaders having political power of West Pakistan could not spare the patriotic Bangalis and East Pakistan leadership. Consequently, the army dictator General Ayub Khan removed the democratic government and brought military dictatorship in 1958. The rulers of West Pakistan – military and political leadership – rule the country against its resolutions and that led to the separation of East Pakistan. Eventually, in 1971, as a result of the bloody clashes, the people of East Pakistan freed themselves from West Pakistan’s rulers and created their own homeland Bangladesh.
Then, West Pakistan’s rulers restructured the federal system into the provincial system based on the former four provinces, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and NWFP, which is today’s Khaiber Pukhtoon Khwa under new constitution of 1973. Therefore, as a matter of fact, the ideology of Pakistan was burried, and Pakistan’s ruling system was constitutionalized into the provincial system by the civil and army rulers. Then on the name of given rights to the provinces further changes have been made into the constitution of Pakistan. The resources, powers and key federal ministries were given to the Provinces. Having done this, it doesn’t matter what the political and army leadership claim today, Pakistani nation practically more identifying themselves as Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pathan, Muhajirs and demand more rights as being the citizen of a province rather than as a Pakistani.
Further dilemma is that the provinces are run by politicians who are actually feudal, landlords and tribal leaders. They injected provincial thoughts among people of their state rather than as Pakistanis. Today, the selfish politicians play politics in the name of rights for the Province than uniting all Pakistanis as one nation. Also, they imposed discriminative system like Quota System in Government jobs and higher education. Again this was against the direction of the founder of Pakistan – Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The founder of Pakistan, Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was totally against the Provincialism. On 21 March 1948 addressing a large public gathering in Dacca, the founder of Pakistan, Quaid e Azam said, If you build up yourself into a nation···. Give up this Provincialism; Provincialism has been one of the curses, and so is sectionalism— Shia, Sunni, etc.
On 25 January 1948, addressing to the Bar Association, Karachi, Quaid-e-Azam said about Provincialism, ‘I want Muslims to get rid of Provincialism disease.’
On 28 March 1948 in radio speech from Dacca Quaid-e-Azam said ‘If we begin to think of ourselves as Punjabis, Sindhis, etc. first and Muslims and Pakistanis incidentally, then Pakistan is bound to disintegrate. Do not think that this is some abstruse proposition: our enemies are fully alive to its possibilities which I must warn you that they are already busy exploiting.’
Hence the founder of Pakistan believed in ‘One Pakistan,’ and he was totally against the provincialist thoughts. He called Provincialism a desease for Pakistan.
Today, the Pakistanis are disappointed and complained about the corruption ruling system, corrupt & incapable fraud politicians, unjust judiciary, shameful health and education system, rising crimes and corrupt media. And then the terrorism, rising separatist movements in Baluchistan, Sindh and KPK. No surprise as all these would had to happen as was already warned by the founder of Pakistan Quaid e Azam. Qauid-e-Azam, as mentioned above, at many occasion said that Pakistan will disintegrate if Pakistanis will believe more on any kind division than unity.
Today, how much the younger generation of Pakistan knows about all Indian Muslims Leaque and their families who passed the Resolution of Pakistan struggled and sacrified for Pakistan. Where are the family members of many of them today?
Today Pakistanis only know about those politicians who created the corrupt culture on the name of Pakistan, promoted Provincialism over Federalism, and destroyed almost all the institutions and the failed ruling system.
The fact of the matter is that unfortunately, since the army took over the country in 1958 by General Ayub Khan, the military and civilian rulers did precisely the opposite to what the founder of Pakistan delivered the direction to the nation. General Ayub Khan, General Zial ul Haque, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardar, General Musharraf and now Imran Khan maintained Provincialism and divided the nation on the name of rights of the provinces.
Dividing a large territory into small states on an administrative basis always runs the country’s administration efficiently and provides public services better. Nevertheless, in Pakistan, the four provinces are created on ethnic grounds, which is wrong and against Pakistan’s ideology.
Today, the economy, GDP, Reserves, and Exports of Bangladesh are far better than Pakistan. Pakistan has been suffered from economic crises, foreign loans, lack of basic facilities for ordinary people, then substandard facilities & resources in health, law & order, justice, and minimum opportunities in employment, trade, and small businesses built up in the last 60 years. The rulers are incapable to handle the situation almost in every department. The ruling party allocates more budget on those projects which can be visible and claimed as a development like highways and housing rather than in education and health. The country has billions of dollars foreign loans and fraud politicians become billionairs with overseas unaccountable assets.
Pakistan’s integrity and sovereignty can only maintain until we return to the reasons for which Pakistan was created and follow the teachings of the founder of Pakistan – Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Indeed Pakistanis have to celebrate Pakistan Day and Pakistan Independence Day with dignity and honour; however, by observing these days with having a national holiday and organizing dinner nights, entertainment shows, outdoor picnic, Pakistanis fulfill the aims of Quaid-e-Azam for Pakistan.
By organizing flag hoisting ceremony, raising the national flag on the parliament and other government buildings fulfill our duty as emphasized by Pakistan’s founder? On these national days, it is the moral duty of all Pakistanis, whether they live in Pakistan or abroad, to make them aware of their new generation on national days, the founders of Pakistan, and the leaders. They made Pakistan, especially Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The next generation should know how much sacrifice and dedication this Islamic country has come into being.
(Writer is a Sydney-based journalist, a political analyst, editor Tribune International, his email is shassan@tribune-intl.com ).
23 March 2021
