Adil Najam
This picture is carried today by both Dawn and Daily Times. Dawn’s title is “Still Heroes” and the caption reads: “Bronze statues of Quaid-i-Azam, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Allama Iqbal put on display at the Science and Technology Expo-2007 being held at National Memorial Museum in Shakarparian in Islamabad.”
A visit to the Museum is on the top of my ‘To Do’ list when I return to Islamabad end of the month. I hope they are still there.
My first thought on looking at the picture was to note how both Jinnah and Iqbal are wearing suits here (this penchant of ours – me included – to dress up these guys in the garbs of our desires has been has been quite a remarkable historical see-saw!). My second thought was to wonder what the folks at Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa might have to say – or do – about this. I hope there is significant security against vandalism here.
But even more than that, I wonder what these three men are sitting there thinking about what is happening today in the country they helped conceive. Late at night when the museum is closed and the statues come alive and walk about, what is it that they sit together and talk about?
Oh, and by the way, Mr/Ms YLH, your position of calling my argument meaningless about muslims opposing pakistan’s creation is negated by your own good self when u say that infact we need to defeat those people again today. So, they do/did exist, rite? :P
Ismail H – thanks for the response. However, its on expected lines. I was looking for greater insight along the lines of why Pakistanis dislike Gandhi specifically.
Indian dislike of Jinnah cannot be an accurate answer because Gandhi and Jinnah attempted two different things: and hence the motivating factors of the dislike could be different (and I think are).
Yasser Latif,
Thaks for the book recommendation. I will try and get my hands on it. I am nearing the end of Wolpert’s Jinnah book and so far I must say, nothing to suggest a ‘dislike’ of Gandhi is actually warranted. Maybe an appraisal of him thats less laudatory than systemic and simple India is prone to, but certainly not dislike.
Had pakistan been created in the name of budhism or sikhism, then those religions, would you think, have allowed another religion’s followers to practice and lable their religion which contradicted buddhism or sikhism as buddhism or sikhism?
Ahmadis were in the forefronts of creation of pakistan, great! They are no less pakistani than any muslim pakistani. But does that give them the right to practice something other than islam and call it islam?
Zulfiqar ali bhutto and the father of Mr. Qasoori administered the legislation about Ahmadies, are you implying that they were pakistan’s enemies too(to me bhutto sure was close to that, but thats another topic).
My point that wasn’t that some muslims opposed pakistan’s creation. Read it again: I said Muslims who were against the creation of pakistan and jinnah were no different than those that are desecrating your social peace in the name of religion today in pakistan, i.e. ur hafsa imbeciles.
My grandfather was in Ehrar, and no offense but I never asked anyone to lie about ehrar’s character, its not the topic here. So, I’ll recommend reading after wiping the foam from our mouths, and it sure is a sunny day:D
Tina,
Excellent post.
Infact, people here don’t understand that by making this argument about the plight of the Indian Muslims, they are in essence saying “look Pakistan was made but the Indian Muslims are still in the pits”…
60 years down the road… it is not even an issue really. Indian Muslims are Indians… just like Pakistanis are Pakistanis. As co-religionists we should wish our Indian Muslim brethren well… but nothing more.
Sulman mian some facts:
1. Pakistan was not created in the name of Islam. That is simply a myth. Pakistan was the result of a political issue…. had the religion of the minority that got Pakistan been Buddhism or Christianity, things would have still been the same.
2. Ahmadis were in the frontrank of the Pakistan movement. Sir Zafrullah Khan – you maybe aware – was the principal author of the Lahore resolution. People who have gotten them declared non-Muslim are actually the same people who were the enemies of Pakistan only 60 years ago.
3. Majlis-e-Ahrar was a horribly fanatical right wing party. If someone’s grandfather was part of it, doesn’t mean I should lie about it. Majlis-e-Ahrar took every opportunity to stab the greater Muslim cause in the back… as is their wont. They are also the people agitating against Ahmadis in Pakistan.
4. Regardless of what assorted variety of beards opposed Pakistan, 87% of the Muslim electorate voted for the Muslim League… so your point that some Muslims were against Pakistan is meaningless. Infact we need to defeat the same people again today… at the polls to save Jinnah’s Pakistan.
Pakistan Zindabad.