Will the deaf hear?

This column appears on March 23rd. The day when a resolution was presented by Sher-e-Bengal, A K Fazlul Haq, in the general session of All India Muslim League held in Lahore in 1940.
This is also the day when the three sons of the soil, the great freedom fighters, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, were hanged in Lahore in 1931.
On March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh was just 23. He was the moving spirit behind the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and belonged to the league of men with impeccable character and commitment to the freedom of India, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan and Ram Prasad Bismil. All were martyred during the course of their struggle.
The resemblance of their fight against colonial masters can be drawn to an extent with the revolutionary zeal of Subhash Chandra Bose, the formidable leader of Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army), who, like Bhagat Singh, admired Mahatma Gandhi but found his means and methods to do politics flawed and unacceptable. Bose was also killed in dubious circumstances while leading an armed resistance against the British in 1945.
What a pity that it is not common knowledge in Pakistan that there was no other but Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who raised the loudest voice in support of Bhagat Singh and his comrades on the floor of the Central Legislative Assembly of British India in 1929. I find this speech as significant as his first speech to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1947. In 1929, he made a fairly long speech over two sessions with a few intermittent comments by others.
While concluding Jinnah said, “As the last words I wish to address the government are, try and concentrate your mind on the root cause the less difficulties and inconveniences there will be for you to face, and thank Heaven that the money of the taxpayer will not be wasted in prosecuting men, nay citizens, who are fighting and struggling for the freedom of their country.”
Nine years after Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom, the Lahore Resolution was passed. This was the time when Jinnah was disgruntled by the flamboyance of the Indian National Congress and dismayed by the liberal use of Hindu religious symbolism in Indian politics. The resolution passed in Lahore, under Jinnah’s leadership, categorically said, “No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary.
That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.” And furthermore, “... adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in the units and in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights.” Thus, the resolution defines the premise for the creation of Pakistan as a decentralised power structure, autonomy of the federating units, equal citizenship and minority rights.
When Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt hurled two bombs on the floor of the legislative assembly from the visitor’s gallery in 1929, neither were there casualties nor was it the intention. When the hall was filled with smoke, Singh and Dutt raised slogans of Inqilab Zindabad (Long live revolution) and showered leaflets which quoted the French Anarchist, Auguste Valliant, “It takes a loud noise to make the deaf hear.”
In the country he founded, Jinnah is someone who is the least heard.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and author. Email: harris. khalique@gmail.com