Do you know your Jinnah?

Just a thought, left for me by a friend: when Narendra Modi and his Hindutva warriors are bent on driving secularism out of Indian politics, can we, in Pakistan, give it refuge?

In other words, will it help improve Pakistan’s image in the world, in its present confrontation with India on its annexation of Kashmir, if we project a more progressive and democratic view of our polity?

We have seen how the BJP bigots have betrayed India’s secular ideals. But we, too, have problems about how the world looks at us, particularly in the context of religious extremism and orthodoxy. Hence, it is hard to even broach the concept of secularism in a serious national discourse. At least, not now.

So why have I brought up this subject? Actually, I have been thinking of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. I think that it is time we seriously debated his vision of Pakistan, particularly with reference to that August 11, 1947 speech. You might say that this topic would be appropriate for that date, three Sundays ago – and that too in a rather ritualistic sense. Not only that speech but, perhaps, Jinnah himself may now have become somewhat irrelevant.

After all, this question does reverberate in media commentaries on the current situation of Pakistan: is this Jinnah’s Pakistan or Zia’s? At the same time, though, our leaders continue to harp on what they profess to be the Quaid’s vision. We have anniversaries that are celebrated with the projection of his portrait and some selected words that he had spoken. That his credo of “unity, faith and discipline” was sought to be changed to “faith, unity and discipline” is another matter.

Incidentally, having missed August 11 because of my travels, I have a peg this week to invoke the legacy of the Quaid. A section of Karachi’s elite was present at a ceremony held on Thursday in which Liaquat Merchant made an extensive presentation on the fourth edition of The Jinnah Anthology compiled by the Jinnah Society. Mr Merchant is the grandnephew of the Quaid and president of the Jinnah Society. The first edition of the book was published 20 years ago and this is to be its last edition.

It would be possible for me to attempt a proper review of The Jinnah Anthology, which has contributions from the likes of Stanley Wolpert, Johan Kenneth Galbraith, S M Burke, Ayesha Jalal and Sharif Al Mujahid. But let me just say that the idea behind this project was to re-emphasise Jinnah’s ideals. As Mr Merchant explained, the anthology covers Jinnah’s views on democracy, justice, equality, integrity, tolerance, supremacy of rule of law and the rights of women and minorities.

The idea, really, is to present Jinnah as the role model for our leaders. Yes, there can be many conflicting and problematic assessments about the making of Pakistan in those tumultuous times. Valid arguments can be made, in light of what the Quaid had said on different occasions, to contend for either an Islamic state or a democratic system that incorporates secular ideas.

It is easy to argue that the August 11 speech was a secular manifesto. We have to imagine the circumstances in which that speech was made and the historic occasion that the Quaid had picked to present his views that, apparently, were shaped by the madness of the communal violence that no one had anticipated. Or you could say that the leaders of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League were not fully aware of the intensity of the primitive passions that had been awakened by the politics of that era.

Times certainly were out of joint, then. So are they now. So much has happened since the creation of Pakistan more than seventy years ago. In many ways, we have not yet been able to come to terms with the break-up of Pakistan in 1971. We have now to deal with what we believe to be the unfinished agenda of Partition. That is how the immortal longings of the people of Kashmir are invested in this crisis.

Unfortunately, we are not able to objectively reflect on the entire situation because our rulers have wilfully restricted the scope for serious intellectual deliberation either in the media or in the academia. We are increasingly becoming incapable of well-informed, rational debate on national issues, including on the Quaid’s vision. Could he ever have approved regressive and discriminatory laws? Or freedom of expression being restricted and human rights being suppressed?

An urgent task for us is to find ways to improve Pakistan’s image as a modern and enlightened democracy. But that would call for a paradigm shift. Our rulers have for long been wary of liberal and progressive ideas. Instead, militant orthodoxy that breeds intolerance has been allowed to flourish. Many individuals, who would otherwise be considered the pride of this nation, are not able to operate freely in their respected domains.

We know that a drastic shift in the ruling ideas is not feasible. It would take time, even when the rulers are willing to benefit from the obvious lessons of contemporary history, to liberate the Pakistani mind from its existing trappings. But what seems certain is that things will eventually change. And that will not be some kind of an expedient U-turn.

Talking about Jinnah as a role model, there is a lot to learn from his character and from the courage of his conviction that he displayed during a long career. His integrity was beyond reproach. But these attributes of his leadership are incontrovertible. What we get confused about is his vision. The speech he made on August 11, 1947, does raise some questions.

I find it extremely instructive that an attempt was immediately made to censor some passages from the speech. What happened to its recording is also a subject for research. This means that there is something congenital about our refusal to face facts and contend with ideas that challenge our beliefs and our not so deeply thought out opinions. Over time, we may be losing our capacity to fully understand our predicaments and revise our strategic policies.

So now, for the sake of our survival, we need an environment of intellectual freedom and unrestricted debate. This exercise should include a thoughtful analysis of what it means to say that religion is not the business of the state.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com