Adil Najam
Today is 9/11. Much will be written and much discussed on the 5th anniversary of the cruel attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, on what has happened since, on all the ways in which the world changed, and on all the other ways in which it did not. Today is a sad day, and at ATP our hearts and prayers go out to the dear ones of the victims of this tragedy, and to the loved ones of all who have lost their lives in the events that were unleashed by it.
While 9.11.2001 will be much debated elsewhere, we here at ATP want to recall the events of 9.11.1948.
For Pakistanis, 9/11 has always been a sad date. A date on which – barely a year after the nation’s birth – its founding leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, died. Here is a short (50 sec) newsreel video clip on Mr. Jinnah’s death :
Like every year, APP has announced in advance how the “nation” will mark this occasion, and every newspaper (e.g., Dawn) has printed this “news” on its front page:
ISLAMABAD, Sept 10: The nation will observe Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s 58th death anniversary on Monday with a pledge to transform Pakistan into a vibrant, progressive and enlightened country as envisioned by the great leader.
I am glad that the APP has he psychic power to know exactly how this “nation” will observe the anniversary, even before the occasion. They have been making the same stale prediction every year for as long as I can remember. Maybe, we as a “nation” do actually make that “pledge” every year. Its just that we have not been very good at keeping the pledge.
Some might argue that the “nation” had already begun to let Mr. Jinnah down even in those brief 13 months that he lived in the country he had founded. Others like to believe that Pakistan’s history might have taken a very different path had he lived longer. It may well have. I am just not sure what that path might have been given that tensions between him and those who were running day-to-day Pakistan had begun to appear even while he was alive.
His death, and the circumstances of his death, was itself not without controversy (see, for dramatic effect, the opening scenes of the movie, Jinnah, here). But today, September 11, should not only be a sad reminder of his untimely death. It should also be a moment to reflect on his life. And, maybe, it should be a moment to reflect on what lessons that life might have to offer for the future.
From its very inception, ATP has had an ongoing discussion on the legacy of Mr. Jinnah and the various meanings it has for different people. Today seems to be an appropriate day to continue that discussion; to think, yet again, about the meaning of the life and death of Mr. Jinnah.
Related ATP Posts:
– Read about the Other Side of Mr. Jinnah
– Watch Jinnah: The Movie
– Read about Jinnah’s first message to the nation
– Watch historic footage from August 1947
– Read about the Jinnah-Gandhi relationship
– Listen to and watch Mehdi Hassan’s classic, “yeh watan tumhara hai”, which is in many ways Jinnah speaking to the rest of us.
PS: Another thing that bothers me… and I will raise this issue here because Bhupinder Singh sounds like a reasonable fellow… is the willingness by certain Indian idealogues… never historians… to distort Jinnah’s life by adding to Jinnah’s life.
For example… Jinnah never said “We’ll have India divided or we’ll have India destroyed”. Patrick French conclusively proved that he never said it … in his fine book on India’s partition but every Indian repeats this unsourced statement (apparently the source is a misquote which refers to a speech that doesn’t contain it) as an article of faith.
It unnecessarily poisons the whole atmosphere.
Thanks for the correction on CPI.
Partition of India doesn’t necessarily equal Pakistan btw.. Muslim League’s terms of agreement (12 May 1946) envisaged two autonomous federations in one Confederation of United India…
Muslim League’s demand as is was based on federating units realigning themselves around new center.. therefore Congress’ insistence partition of Punjab and Bengal opened a pandora’s box… because it raises, logically, the question of Muslim districts in India…
Point being that partition as it happened was not really along the lines the ML wanted it…
Very interesting insights, Yasser.
A couple of minor corrections- Dr Adhikari’s thesis was withdrawn by the CPI before the partition/ creation of Pakistan, after due “self- criticism”. MN Roy is disowned by the Indian Communist movement and is largely perceived as an anti- communist after 1929 once he broke with the Communist International.
Dear Bhupinder,
Occam’s razor would imply that you are right… but history cannot be seen in those terms.
Just to mix things up… you’d be interested in knowing that Zia-ul-Haq’s main supporters in 1977 Mufti Mahmood, Maududi and the ANP were all either Pro-Congress or at the very least anti-Pakistan. I am sure you know that religious parties were against Pakistan. I don’t know your perspective essentially represents the left liberal point of view… in India. It is well known that Communist Party of India had then endorsed the Muslim League point of view.. and that M N Roy, probably the greatest leftist produced by your country, wrote a very moving obituary in which he defended Jinnah.
However… to cut the long story short… Khilafat Movement, encouraged by Mohandas Gandhi, made the question of Islamic identity a non-negotiable factor in Indian politics… and this movement sidelined secular Muslims like Jinnah… Jinnah and ML represented the counter-coup of the Modernist Muslim camp …
What was his legacy… first and foremost… Jinnah’s contribution is to the Muslims who he forced to modernise, study commerce and allow women in all spheres of life.. but in Pakistan, he is also the symbol the country’s religious minorities rally around…
Adil,
Frankly, a full post on the legacy of Jinnah is needed. I am still not clear on how his legacy is perceived in Pakistan- there would surely be different schools of thought.
Personally (and possibly because I have not seen the other side of the argument) I do not see his legacy positively- and I think that in this I represent the left- liberal Indian perspective.
In essence my criticism is based on the fact that it was a strategic mistake to call for a division based on religion- Yasser Hamdani is very right in establishing why a cosmopolitan, anglicized lawyer in uniting the Muslims in India, in reality there is no monolithic Muslim community.
Having established a nation based on religion, Jinnah’s call for a secular state was at best an honest but unrealizable dream, and Zia ul Haq’s Islamization drive a conclusion of the logic that created Pakistan.