Adil Najam
Tomorrow we will all celebrate Pakistan’s Independence Day – Yom e Azadi.
Today, let us take a moment to think about just what ‘independence’ – Azadi – means.
Azadi – independecne – is not a destination, it is a journey. It is not something that we ‘achieved’ on August 14, 1947. It is something that we must earn, and preserve, every day.
On this particular Yom e Azadi, there can be no better reminder of just what the continuing journey that is Azadi really mean than the daily struggles of internally displaced Pakistanis (IDPs). Those who remain homeless in their own homeland.
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Beena Sarwar
She is not the grave-visiting sort. A white-haired dynamo with luminous eyes, she pioneered teacher training and teaching English in Pakistan (as a second language in large classrooms with limited resources). The activism inculcated in her native Pratapgarh in UP, India, remained with her after the migration to Pakistan in the late 1950s, later nurtured and encouraged by the life partner she found.
Zakia met Sarwar after moving from Lahore to Karachi in 1961. The unconventional, long-limbed Allahabad-born doctor was known as the ‘hero of the January movement’. Visiting Karachi for a holiday after Partition he had stayed on after being admitted to Dow Medical College.
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Adil Najam
Today is August 11.
Sixty-two years ago, on this day, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan, made one of the most important speeches of his – and of Pakistan’s – life. A speech in which he laid out – in the most unambiguous terms – his vision for Pakistan and the rationale for that vision.
In this speech Mr. Jinnah laid out a detailed case for his argument and famously proclaimed:
…in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the [Pakistan].
Read full text and a detailed analysis of the speech here.
Today is August 11.
Barely ten days ago in Gojra, in Mr. Jinnah’s Pakistan, over 50 houses belonging to Pakistani Christians were burnt down by a mob and at least half a dozen Pakistani Christians were murdered for still unproven charges under a draconian law neither whose intent nor whose vigilante implementation Mr. Jinnah could ever have tolerated.
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