To understand how religion
came into the politics of Subcontinent and resulted creation of Pakistan,
Roderick Mathews, in his book Jinnah Vs Gandhi says “Gandhi began his career looking for a way to realize his religious
aims in political terms, while Jinnah ended his career looking for a way to
fulfil his political aims in religious terms. Both mixture of religion with
politics and means with ends, produced drastic and momentous decisions that can
only be described as misjudgments” (Jinnah Vs Gandhi page 39)
Although Mr. Gandhi who was
leading Congress Party in British India, never believed the role of religion in
politics but his way of life, teaching of non-violence and preaching of moral
values were a kind of religious mindset.
Majority of the top leaders in Congress Party were all Hindu and some of them
were even hardliners. Congress Party being a leading political power and
Hinduism being a dominant religion of Subcontinent, resulted a political and
social discomfort in minority groups which include Muslims, Sikh, Christian
and Zoroastrians.
In 1906 All India Muslim League came into
being. In its initial period, Muslim League was not a totally monolithic Muslim
majority party. Majority of the Muslims Ulma and Scholars opposed the idea. Even
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was not convinced in such kind of division in Indian
Subcontinent.
Some of the Muslim leaders
tried to unite the Muslims of Subcontinent around the definition of a single nation.
There were no other strong geographical, ethnical and linguistic bases of this nationalism
and the only base was religion. Therefore, the two nation theory came into
being which asserted that Muslims and Hindu are two separate nations and cannot
live together. This ultimately convinced Muhammad Ali Jinnah to demand a
separate country for the Muslims of Subcontinent. Muhammad Ali Jinnah has his
own interpretations of a Muslim Society which were not harmonized with majority
of the hardliner Muslim scholars. For Jinnah, Islam was all about humanity,
social justice and equality.
Jinnah’s idea of separate
country was strongly opposed by the major Muslim Ulma which included the then
Chief of Jamaat-I-Islami Mawalana Abul Ala Maududi. According to Maududi,
Jinnah himself was not a full practicing Muslim with limited knowledge of Islam
and Sharia. So he was not competent enough to create an independent Muslim
country. Some Muslim leaders like Mawlana
Abul Kalam Azad opposed the idea on the basis of scattered Muslim population in
subcontinent. According to him, a separate country consisting of the Muslim
majority provinces will create problems for all those Muslims who were living in Hindu majority states
(which were more in numbers then the Muslims living in Muslim majority
provinces) will be in minority and suffer in future.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah kept the
ideology of Pakistan as vague as possible. He never professed that Pakistan
will only be an Islamic country nor denied it. The reason behind this vague
strategy was to get the support of both liberals and conservative Muslims. His clear stance might hamper any one of the group which ultimately jeopardize the whole movement.
This vague strategy provided everyone an opportunity to interpret Jinnah’s
vision of Pakistan for their own vested interest after the partition.
In the initial period soon after
the partition, Pakistan was a somewhat liberal and tolerant country but over a
period of 68 years it became a theocratic and conservative state. How this happened,
we will discuss in our next blog. Meanwhile, I will appreciate your comments
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