Hazrat Qaid-E-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Alehe Rahmat"

[HalalPork]

Gujrati Saint "Hazrat Qaid-E-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Alehe Rahmat" by Anwar Shaikh

"Hazrat Qaid-E-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Alehe Rahmat" is
the title of the other Gujrati saint, who was born as
Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Karachi during December, 1876.

This description bestows a greater dignity on him than that
of a Muslim saint. It is an outcome of the Hindu tradition,
which makes ancestor-worship an integral part of Dharma,
and clearly shows that the Muslims of the Indian
subcontinent share a common culture with the Hindus and are
racially the same people. Without this unity of background,
Jinnah could not have been treated by the Pakistanis as if
he were one of the spiritual luminaries of Islam.

A title of the Prophet Muhammad is "Haadi-e-Azam" i.e., the
great guide. Jinnah's title: "The Qaid-E-Azam" means very
much the same. Again, the use of "Hazrat" as prefix
and "Alehe Rahmat" as suffix, further add to his devotional
splendor.

He has been honored as such for being the founder of
Pakistan. It is only the success that should be saluted;
failure cannot be applauded because it eliminates the
difference between fortune and fiasco.

Such a great political hysteria was whipped up during the
second decade of the 20th century that the mutual Hindu-
Muslim hatred assumed inhuman proportions. Using Dr. Iqbal
as a scapegoat, the Muslim League led by Jinnah, claimed
that the Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations; as
they could not live together, India must be partitioned to
create a separate homeland for the Muslims. This was
considered the panacea for all the Muslim ills - religious,
economic and political.

Should Jinnah be allowed the saintly title that he has come
to possess? This is an honest question, and can be answered
sincerely only if one can establish objectively that
Pakistan has solved the major problems of all the Muslims
of the Indian subcontinent. If it has, then Jinnah was
certainly one of the greatest saints that ever lived, but
if it has not, then his status must be reviewed in light of
the results that the partition has produced.

To start with, let us weigh up the concept of Pakistan
itself. It meant that the Indian provinces (Punjab, Sindh,
Baluchistan, N.W. Frontier, Bengal and Bihar) where the
Muslims were in majority, must be treated as the Homeland
of the Muslims, and separated from India as an independent
state. This was a crazy idea for several reasons:

1. There was a distance of about one thousand miles between
East and West Pakistan. It was impossible to reach Karachi
from Dacca by land, sea or air without consent of the
Indian government, which was bound to be hostile for the
simple reason that Pakistan would serve as a symbol of the
Muslim hatred against the Hindus. This being the truth,
diplomatic relations between the two states could not
remain cordial, and they would exist only to demolish each
other. It also meant that their budgets would be dedicated
to the national defense instead of public welfare,
resulting in poverty with its concomitant vices such as
bribe, nepotism, tyranny, injustice and mal-administration.

History shows that one can have a far-flung empire, but it
is impossible to think of a homeland whose parts lie a
thousand miles away intercepted by a long hostile
territory. The leader, who thinks of such a plan as the
elixir for national ills, does not know the difference
between mirth and misery, fruition and fiasco, delight and
disaster. Yet, Mr. Jinnah insisted on the formation of
Pakistan!

His followers have, no doubt, offered mitigating factors to
support his soundness of judgement, but this is an exercise
in futility. The fact is that he did secure Pakistan
consisting of Eastern and Western wings, which in essence,
is a proof of political incompetence. The man, obviously,
wanted to be a hero at the expense of innocent people.

2. As I shall explain later, nationhood is not founded on
religion but blood ties, a common culture and homeland, yet
he insisted that the religion was the corner-stone of the
Muslim nationhood. If this were true, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. would have been one
state. As we know, it has never happened, and these
countries are as independent from one another as England is
from France, and China from Russia.

However, if Jinnah had some secret knowledge of history or
some special powers to mould the Muslims of India into a
separate nation, he should have spent his energies to this
effect. After all, the Prophet Muhammad had devoted his
life to welding the various warring Arab tribes into one
nation. Genghis Khan had also spent considerable time in
uniting the Mongolian hordes into one nation. But Jinnah
did nothing to forge one nation out of the Muslims
scattered throughout India. Delivering occasional lectures
from a high pulpit, canopied by an unswerving loyalty to
the British Crown, was totally insufficient to accomplish
this task. In a nutshell, he did not go through the
laborious rehearsal, which is absolutely essential before
staging the play. Either he did not realize or deliberately
ignored the fact that the secret of Muhammad's and Genghis
Khan's success lay in the fact that their people were
already racially one nation, who had become divided into
clans. Of course, the Muslims of India were racially and
culturally Indian, but Jinnah had undertaken an entirely
unnatural task of splitting it into two nations based on
religion. It has never happened in this world because
religion is not the natural unit of nationhood.

The force of his argument was emotional and exploitative.
He used the religious appeal as a bait to bring Muslims
into his political net. He played upon the religious
susceptibilities of people to make them believe that the
Islamic state is the sure guarantor of peace, prosperity
and plentitude, but he never explained the complexity,
nature and purpose of the Islamic Law, the main vehicle of
bringing about this Divine Revolution. Being a lawyer, it
was his foremost duty to do so. This was the only way to
make people realize what was required of them. The fact
that he did not do it, makes him less than honorable.

One must bear in mind that Jinnah was not a practicing
Muslim, yet he advocated the establishment of an Islamic
state. On the contrary, the formidable Muslim divines such
as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni,
Sayyad Ata Ulla Shah Bukhari, Maulana Abut Ala Maududi, and
many more, opposed the concept of Pakistan and the Two-
Nation Theory.

There is no evidence whatever that an Islamic state has
ever exited according to the Koranic principles. Nor can it
be proved that Islam requires establishment of a single
state for all Muslims to share its bounties, benefits and
blessings. The Indian Muslims boast a good deal about
the "Islamic Welfare State" established by the Second
Caliph, Umar, the Great. Yes, he did invent the system of
giving social benefits to the Arab children, but where did
the money come from? The finances were raised by robbing
the newly converted Muslims of Egypt and Iran, whose
children cried from hunger and disease. There is no record,
whatever, to show that the Egyptian and Iranian children
were given any stipends from the Arab funds; it was for the
Arab children only!

The truth is that the much-vaunted Muslim Law falls far
short of the universally accepted legal standards. What is
law?

The law is a set of enforceable principles, which seek to
establish rights and duties between person and person, an
individual and society, as well as people and the state.
The following peculiarities give the law its true
distinction, deference and decency:

a. The law is never made for the benefit of one person. It
is enacted for a whole group of people.

b. The law is strictly neutral in its application, that is,
it applies to the low and high and great and small with
equal force.

Incredible it may seem but the truth is that the Islamic
law has nothing to do with the public good because it
revolves around the convenience of the Prophet Muhammad.
For example, the Koran lays it down that a Muslim can have
no more than four wives at the same time, but this law did
not apply to the Prophet:

And any woman, believer, if she gave herself to the Prophet
and if the Prophet desires to take her in marriage, for
thee, apart from the believers. (The Confederates, 33: 45)

It clearly states that the Prophet can have more than four
wives at the same time, and this law applies to him only at
the total exclusion of all other believers! This is the
reason that he had nine wives at the same time!

Also bear in mind the following Koranic law, pertaining to
polygamy:

" .....marry such women as seem good to you, two, three
four; but if you fear you will not be equitable, then only
one....." (Women, 4: 1 )

Thus, the clause of equity is the pivot of having more than
one wife. It is well known that the Prophet could not
maintain balance of fairness among his wives. As the Koran
witnesses, it led to a lot of acrimony in the household.
Instead of enforcing the clause of equity, Allah gave
Muhammad dispensation from it:

"You (Muhammad) can suspend any of your wives as you will,
and receive any of them as you will: and whomsoever you
desire of those whom you have set aside, it is no sin for
you." (The Confederates, 33: 50)

In simple English, it means that the prophet is not bound
by the Law of Equity, the basic condition of polygamy: he
can treat his wives as he thinks fit. Since it is Allah,
who makes the law a play-thing for Muhammad, one wonders if
Allah and Muhammad are not one and the same person. It
certainly led me to this conclusion.

The law, which is exclusive to a person for serving his
convenience, or if it is flexible at will, it ceases to be
the law. In this context, I ought to remind the reader that
the Prophet was at liberty to marry the widow or divorcee
of another person, but nobody was allowed to marry his
widow (or divorcee). All his wives were raised to the
status of Ummahaat-ul-Momineen (Mothers of the believers)
so that nobody could marry them. When the Prophet died, his
wife Aisha was only 18, and lived to be 73 as a lonely
widow!

One can find many more examples to this effect, but I think
that I have said enough to illustrate the purpose and
nature of the so- called Islamic Law. However, I may add
that the poverty-stricken Muslims of India believed that
the Islamic Law stood for economic equality. We all were
led to think that way. Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto openly
equated the Islamic Law with the Marxist concept of
nationalization, for this reason, whereas the truth is that
Islam allows unlimited accumulation of wealth in any form,
including land, and is the only source of feudalism in the
modern age.

It is this ambiguity about the Islamic Law, which has
become the bane of Pakistan. Half a century has elapsed but
Islamic Law has not yet been enforced in Pakistan despite
the fact that India was divided for this reason. The truth
is that there is no Islamic Law to be enforced. What is
called the Islamic Law is the result of the far-fetched
interpretations of the Koran and Hadith; it also includes
the vestiges of the legal contrivances that were developed
by the Arab and Turkish rulers to meet the demands of their
times.

In fact, the Islamic Law is the biggest myth that the
Muslim divines have dreamt up all over the world. It is
because, the Prophet Muhammad declared himself to be the
Behavioral Model for the believers:

"You have a good example in God's Messenger ( Muhammad )
for whosoever hopes for God and the Last Day." (The
Confederates, 33: 20)

As seen above, the Prophet was not bound by any law. This
is the essence of his being the Behavioral Model.
Therefore, there is no such thing as the Islamic Law. Since
Jinnah did not explain this point including the Islamic
Economics, he was leading the Muslims of India to the God
that did not exist. As he did not live an Islamic life, and
only talked about it, one can easily see that he only
wanted to elevate himself, and was least interested in the
Islamic ideology..

3. It is difficult to believe that Jinnah even believed in
the integrity of Pakistan itself. Eventually, when the
Hindus agreed to the partition of India, they sprang a
surprise on him. They demanded that certain parts of the
Punjab and Bengal, which were to constitute Pakistan, must
also be divided. Instead of defending the integrity of the
yet unborn Muslim state, he succumbed to the Hindu pressure
and accepted its truncation as if it were a play! It was
the Muslims of these provinces, who suffered untold loss of
life and property.

It is not surprising because the man who had no loyalty to
his Motherland (India) how could he care about the
integrity of Pakistan, which was still in a notional state.

4. While assessing the personality and intentions of
Jinnah, one should also bear in mind that he accepted
Pakistan without knowing its exact boundaries and without
agreeing to the division of assets that were to be shared
between India and Pakistan.

The Boundary Commission that was headed by Radcliff,
delivered its verdict after the declaration of Pakistan.
Though the Hindus failed to have Lahore included in India
despite their frantic efforts, they did succeed in securing
Ferozepur. This arbitrary demarcation is the fountain of
the Kashmir problem, which has become the bane of Pakistan.
Had Jinnah made sure that these affairs were settled before
the Partition, the trail of murder and loot that ensued
from this folly, would not have occurred. Why was he in
such a hurry?

The true reason was, his search for personal glory. He had
been seriously ill for a long time but hid it successfully
even from his closest colleagues to avoid a challenge for
the leadership of his party. He suffered from tuberculosis,
which was a fatal disease at that time. He could see the
specter of death hover over his head. So, he was in a
desperate hurry to create even a truncated Pakistan as
quickly as possible to glorify himself. It is not
surprising that he died within two years after the
Partition. His admirers say that he died of hard work. The
truth is that he did not have the physical capacity for
hard work; he died of tuberculosis, which had reached its
climax by then.

That he did not care a jot for the Muslims, is proven by
his treatment of the Indian Muslims. As Jinnah left for
Karachi to be the ruler of Pakistan, in a valedictory
message, he wished his Indian followers well and told them
to be the loyal citizens of India! These were the people
who were his most zealous adherents, but were now in a
horrendous situation. The Hindus had come down on them like
a ton of bricks. Their life, property and honor were under
siege. Fancy the Qaid-E-Azam leaving them in their hour of
need to become the Governor General of Pakistan! He should
have stayed with them in India and let someone else govern
Pakistan. This was the minimal demand of loyalty and
sincerity. He deserted them most ignobly, yet he is
considered a Saint.

Judging by his actions, Gandhi was a greater friend of the
Muslims than Jinnah, who claimed to be their leader.

5. Finally, I may discuss the most lethal theory that
nationhood is formed by religion. When deserted by Jinnah,
the Muslims of India realized that they had been deceived
by him because until the last moment they thought that they
would be treated as Pakistanis within the boundaries of
Bharat, the divided India. Simply stated, they believed,
the two-Nation Theory meant that they would have the same
political rights in India as their fellow-Muslims in
Pakistan. Nobody ever explained the whole truth to them.
They were used by Jinnah as pawns in the political game.

It is high time that somebody states boldly that people of
the Indian subcontinent are One Nation and not Two, just
because they have different religions. It is quite clear
from the split of Pakistan that nationhood is not formed by
religion. If it were true, the fifty-two countries of the
world that claim to be Muslim, would have been One State,
but it has not happened, and there is no chance of its ever
happening because the factors that constitute a nation, are
opposed to the theory of religious nationhood, which is
just an emotional mumbo - jumbo.

What are the components of nationhood? Such components are
many but the major ones are the following;

1. Homeland

It is a matter of common observation that children born in
good homes fare better than those, who are born in
caravans, or on the roadside. History shows that
Civilization means gradual shifting from nomadic ways to
sedentary life. It clearly demonstrates that man has a
natural tendency to move away from wandering in search of a
home. In fact, homelessness is a great curse. Ask any
homeless person looking for asylum, and he will confirm
that no blight is worse than homelessness.

What a home is to an individual or a family, a homeland is
to a group of people. Since homelessness fosters a sense of
insecurity and acts as a barrier to one's personal
development, one yearns for a home. This is the reason that
fighting homelessness has always been an integral part of
every social revolution. Thus desire for a home is a
natural instinct and acts as the fountain of love for one's
home.

The geographical tract, which provides home to a large
number of people inhabiting it, counts as their homeland.
As without proper care, an individual's home is likely to
become derelict, creating nasty problems for its dwellers,
without constant vigilance, a homeland is bound to fall
prey to the designs of the foreign predators. This is the
reason that every modern state spends tremendous sums of
money on its defense. Anyone, who does not take part in
protecting one's homeland or behaves in a way, which is
derogatory to the safety or dignity of the homeland, is
considered a traitor.

2. Lineage:

It refers to the common ancestry of a group of people and
therefore, it is an expanded form of a family. As blood
ties make the members of a family father, mother, sons,
daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, grand-parents,
etc., and foster mutual love, consideration and respect in
them, exactly the same way they create a nation, which is
an enlarged form of the family. Of course, mankind is the
ultimate form of humanity but it is too large a unit that
can be administered socially and politically. The
dedication to humanity is the greatest virtue but there are
only a few who can live up to such an ideal; for 99% of all
people, it is not a practicality. The size of a nation is
eventually determined by the boundaries of the homeland .

As everyone is born into a family, exactly the same way, we
all are members of a nation, whether we like it or not. Of
course, one can emigrate and adopt a new nationality or one
can come to live among other people and become a part of
them by naturalization, but these are exceptions and do not
affect the basic role of sanguinity i.e. blood ties.

Frankly speaking, I ought to add that Civilization is not
possible without recognizing the sanctity and significance
of the blood- relationships. Without it, there will be no
father, no mother, brother or sister in the sense we know
it. There will be no concepts of morality or law of
inheritance, no ancestry, no family life and so on. In view
of this fact, it is mad to deny the natural existence of
nationhood.

3. Language:

May be nobody is born with a language, yet the truth is
that we are usually allotted the language of our parents.
It is their language which serves as the means of
communication between children and parents, next door
neighbors, the city-dwellers and people of the country.
This is the reason that a common language arouses feelings
of oneness, intimacy and friendship. This is why that two
strangers, say, an Arab Muslim and an Indian Muslim cannot
speak to each other during a journey but two Indians
irrespective of their religions, shall talk to each other
with a sense of intimacy and friendship. Here is a small
episode which appeared in the Daily Sang, London, on second
May, 1997:

In 1986, the Punjabi language stopped the imminent war
between India and Pakistan. The negotiation for peace, was
being conducted through the English language, and was
heading towards a stalemate. During the tea break, the
Pakistani General, who came from the Punjab, started
speaking in the Punjabi language to his Indian Counterpart,
who also belonged to the Indian Punjab. The warmth of the
language mellowed their attitudes, eliminating the looming
threat of war."

Again, language creates poetry and literature, which
represents the culture of the people, whose tongue it is.
It, thus, creates a bond of common kinship.

Of course, a nation can adopt a foreign language, and can
maintain its national spirit, but it is a rare occurrence.
Even then the adopted language represents the culture of
the nation that has adopted it. As a general rule, every
nation has been endowed with its own language, which acts
as the vehicle of communication.

In the Indian context, Arabic has never represented the
Indian culture. Therefore, it cannot form part of the
Indian nationhood. Its influence on India has been anti-
national, anti-social and anti-rational.

Urdu, on the contrary, is an Indian language, having its
grammar, idiom and ethos like any other Indian language
such as Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Madrasi, etc. It is an
offshoot of Sanskrit and not Arabic or Persian though it
has been made to look as such through a foreign script and
abundance of Arabic and Persian words.

4. Culture:

It is the geographical conditions, the general traditions,
and the lingual influences that basically act as
constituents of nationhood. One cannot exaggerate that it
is culture that shapes the destiny of a nation. Pride in
one's own culture makes a nation great, grand and gorgeous,
but indifference leads to disunion, diminution and
devastation. Of course, great nations willingly accept
foreign influences when they are likely to prove beneficial
but the second class nations such as Indians, Pakistanis
and Bangladeshis do so for lack of dare, determination and
dourness. Owing to absence of respect for the indigenous
culture, they become docile, dastardly and despondent. As
time goes on, they become blind imitators, for having no
cultural backbone of their own. Take for instance the
Arabs. They have lost their political pomp for the last
1,000 years and are one of the developing nations, yet they
are the most revered people in the whole world because they
practice, not only their own culture known as Islam, but
have been marvelously successful in imposing it on the
Muslim nations, who have been completely brainwashed in the
name of religion. The Arab excellence shines like a major
star every year when millions of pilgrims perform Hajj,
which is essentially an Arab Cultural rite, at the same
time displaying their own national inferiority by spending
all they had saved during their life-time.

Culture represents the character of a nation. The nations
which give up their culture, lose their national ethos.

5. Religion:

It is a great folly to think of religion as an ingredient
of nationhood. Religion in this context, is like a garment
but lineage is a person's skin: the former can be discarded
but the latter cannot. Since blood-relationship is the
foundation of nationhood, a son maintains his kinship with
his parents and family even when he changes his religion.
It is for this reason that a Jew remains a Jew even when he
no longer believes in Judaism. The Arabs are one nation
because they are racially one people having the same
culture. They preach Islamic nationhood because it is
extremely beneficial to them at the expense of other Muslim
peoples. If Arabs really believed in Islamic nationhood,
they Would share their oil-wealth with them and make their
land a free zone for Muslims of foreign lands. in fact,
they treat Muslims from other countries as foreigners like
any other nation.

Why did Bangladesh break away from Pakistan despite the
fact that the Bengali Muslims have a greater devotion. to
Islam than the Pakistanis? It is simply because religion is
a mythical element of nationhood. Muslims all over the
world have never been able to form one government or come
under the same banner for any length of time. The hysteria
of "One-Muslim-Nation" is generated by those who specialize
in fooling the Muslim faithful to promote their own
interest.

6. Economic Interest:

As in any partnership, the pursuit of profit unites its
members and they try for its success and survival, the
common economic interest creates love for the geographical
boundaries of a homeland. It may lead to the union or
confederation of the adjoining lands whose economic
interests as well as liberties are better served this way.
Great Britain and the United States of America are some of
the examples. However, it must be borne in mind that the
economic interest in no way negates the value of the
ingredients of nationhood already discussed; it serves as a
complementary national factor only when people have a lot
in common such as cultural values.

7. Color:

Color is not a significant factor of nationhood; it is one
of the means of identification, say, in an all-white or all-
black country.

From the above discussion, one may conclude- that I believe
in racism or fanatic nationalism, such as Nazism or
Fascism. This type of nationalism is a form of mental
illness, and borders on inhumanity. To me, nationalism is
an expanded form of family, which serves as the basis of
mutual love and consideration. There is no internationalism
without nationalism. As one's love of family is not a
rational cause for hating other people's families but a
source of respect for this institution, the love of one's
nation must inspire reverence for other nationalities
because it is the sum total of nationalities, which
constitutes the overall concept of humanity. The
nationalism which does not achieve this goal, is the
fountain of moral degradation, leading to inhumanity. All
nations are equal and entitled to equal rights.

This is the type of nationhood that I adore, and I adore it
because this is the foundation-stone of social
organization, and the fountain of innumerable benefits. The
person, who thinks of his nation, has the collective
consciousness and acts nobly. On the contrary, a religious
fanatic believes in his own salvation and whatever he does,
he does to promote his personal end; his acts of piety are
no more than a veneer of hypocrisy.

Even the animals have what is called "herd instinct," that
is birds of a feather flock together. The only exception to
this rule seems to be the Muslims of the Indian
subcontinent. To gratify their inferiority complex, they
pretend that they are children of the foreign Muslim
invaders, and to make this claim good, they have given them
Arabic and Persian names whereas the truth is that 95% of
them are Hindu converts, and are thus racially Hindus. The
remaining 5%, who have lived in India for several
centuries, do qualify as Indians through permanent domicile
and adoption of the Indian culture. The person who claims
to be an Arab, Iranian or Mughal, despite having lived on
the Indian soil so long, has got to be grossly misled or
mentally retarded.

This inferiority-complex of the Indian Muslims was
exploited by Jinnah and his troupe. The plain truth is that
the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent share the same
nationhood with the Hindus because:

1. They have the same homeland.
2. They have the same lineage i.e. blood ties.
3. Their provincial languages, including Urdu, spring from
Sanskrit, and not Arabic.

It is a false assumption, indeed, that the Muslims of
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh practice a common Islamic
Culture.
The basic social principle practiced by both the Hindus and
Muslims is the Caste System, which is considered Vedic.
Most rites performed at birth and death are also Vedic
except circumcision and burial, which are the result of the
Arab dominance. Dowry, ancestor-worship, the joint family
system, monism, general way of dressing, speaking etc., are
very much the same, and are totally different from those of
the Arabs. One can tell an Arab from an Indian, but it is
not easy to tell an Indian Muslim from a Hindu.

An equally important cultural fact is, that the Muslims of
the Indian subcontinent practice the Vedic fine arts such
as poetry, music, drama, dance, painting and sculpture,
which are presided over by the Vedic goddesses Ila,
Saraswati and Mahi. These arts are expressly forbidden by
Islam, yet the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent learn and
enjoy them because it is a part of their cultural heritage,
which they hold in common with the Hindus.

Why did Jinnah advocate the Two-Nation Theory despite the
opposition of the Muslim divines? The first reason is that
he was a highly ambitious person and wanted to go down in
history. Secondly, it was in his family background to hate
the Hindus, and he sought revenge to appease his ego. Louis
Fischer has stated on page 151 of "Gandhi":

" ......Jinnah was a Khoja Muslim. The Khojas were recent
converts to Islam. Many Khojas maintain the Hindu joint
family system and carry Hindu names in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, the Khojas attempted to return to
Hinduism but were repeatedly rebuffed. This may have been
an unconscious factor in Jinnah's hatred of Hindus .... "

This is highly likely. The belief that a person can be
Hindu by birth only and all non-Hindus are untouchable, has
wrought the ruination of Mother India. Pakistan, which is
the Muslim symbol of hatred against the Hindus, is the
creation of these unsocial and inhuman Hindu attitudes.

Stated politely, the third cause is Jinnah's own unhappy
disposition. He was a sad person; hardly anyone ever saw
him laugh. When he was forty-two, he married an eighteen-
year-old Parsee girl (Dina). The marriage broke down after
seven years in such a manner that he never felt the desire
to marry again. As his daughter grew up, he stopped her
marrying a man of her own choice on religious grounds, and
threw her out for good. He also ruined the life of his
sister, Fatima, by forbidding her going through a nuptial
ceremony with a non-Muslim despite the fact that he himself
had married a Parsee woman! Possibly, it was a deliberate
manipulation. Having lost his family, he wanted his sister
to remain his companion for life. And so she did. It is
likely that he treated his daughter and sister harshly to
restore his reputation as a sincere Muslim for enhancing
his political career. His character had been tarnished by
the fact that he had married a non-Muslim woman against the
Islamic behest; he also ate and drank what Islam expressly
forbids.

Obviously, the man who had lacked personal happiness, could
not care much about the happiness of others and wanted to
vent his grief by making others unhappy. This is the reason
that one million Muslims suffered carnage at the inception
of Pakistan, and are still getting deeper into misery,
malice and malevolence. Yet this man is called Qaid-E-Azam!

Everything has been misinterpreted to create the Two-Nation
Theory for turning the Muslims against the Hindus: Take for
example, Dr. Iqbal, a great intellectual and poet, who
believed in the integrity of India, but has been projected
as the thinker of the concept of Pakistan. So great has
been the force of propaganda that I myself thought of Iqbal
as the one who had initiated the notion of Pakistan i.e., a
separate homeland for the Muslims of India. This is what
led me to some wrong conclusions about him. I was pleased
to read in the Daily Jang, London, of 8th May, 1996, the
statement of Muneeb Iqbal, the grandson of the late Dr.
Iqbal. He said: " ...Dr. Iqbal's financial condition was
not very sound. Once he had expressed his desire to be
appointed as a judge, hoping that it might cure his
financial ills, but the then Chief Justice Sir Shadi Lal
turned him down. Had Dr. Iqbal been made a judge, he would
have pressed some other hobby, and the concept of Pakistan
would have receded into oblivion."

Continuing his statement, Muneeb stressed: "Dr. Iqbal had
never dreamt the partition of India. He only wanted to see
the Muslims of India economically happy, but they are still
in the same pickle as they were at that time."

Even in the much-quoted Allahabad session of the Muslim
League in 1930, he did not advocate a separate homeland for
the Muslims of India. He did express his desire to
amalgamate into one state the provinces of the Punjab.
North West Frontier, Sindh and Balochistan, but it was to
remain a part of the federal India.

As far as I know, Iqbal was the first Indian national poet
of any consequence. He believed India to be the best of all
homelands; he taunted at the Brahmin "who observed God in
the statutes only" whereas he (Iqbal) could see God in
every particle of the Indian dust. Of course, this is also
true that later his poetry took an Islamic turn, but even
then it seeks an ideological grouping of the Muslims as
Millat i.e. general brotherhood of the Muslims-of various
countries. He had begun to think of the concept of homeland
as a symbol of profanity. How could he have advocated the
idea of a separate homeland?

People quote Iqbal as anti-Hindu. This is a malicious
propaganda to widen the Muslim-Hindu rift. Iqbal had Hindu
blood in his veins. It was his grandfather, Sahaj Ram
Sapru, a Kashmiri Brahmin, who adopted Islam, and settled
in Sialkot. How is it possible for one to forget the
culture of one's grandfather? Thus he was culturally Hindu
as well. In fact, he believed in, and preached the Hindu
philosophy. Let me give two examples:

1. As Mard-E-Qalandar or Sufi, he believed in the monism
(Hama Ost) of "Pir Raumi," which is strictly a Hindu
doctrine, explicitly described in the Rgveda and several
Upanishads .

2. His philosophy of "Khudi" (self) is nothing but a copy
of the Hindu doctrine known as Atman. It is a pity that his
overzealous anti-Hindu annotators go out of the way to
ascribe it to the influence of Nietzsche and Bergson. These
European thinkers might have influenced Iqbal in some other
ways, but his concept of Khudi or Self is nothing but the
Hindu doctrine of Atman. To understand its meaning, we must
realize that the Hindus believe in "an uncreated, eternal,
infinite, transcendent and all embracing principle, which
being the sole reality, is the source and goal of all
existence. This ultimate Reality is called Brahman. Since
everything emanates from Brahman (God), He is in every
thing and is the Self of all living beings." It appears in
Iqbal's poetry as "khudi" i.e. the self of every human.
Only the naive interpret Iqbal's concept of Khudi as self-
respect. It is the spiritual ego, whose development raises
man's status to that of Divinity.

Now add to this description, the mystical approach which is
the essence of Hinduism, but a blasphemy in Islam. It says
that the ultimate goal of man is to seek the union of Self
(roughly translated as soul) with that of Brahman (God).
This Hindu doctrine has been copied by the Muslim mystics
all over the world as soul's union with God, without ever
acknowledging its source. Since in Islam, God is the Master
and Man is slave, the union between the two is unthinkable.
This is the reason that Mysticism i.e. Tasawwaf, that Iqbal
preached, has been held as un-Islamic by the orthodox
Muslims .

Iqbal's famous verse:

"KHUDI KO KER BULAND ITNA KE HER TAQDEER SE PAHLE; KHUDA
BANDE SE KHUD PUCHCHE BATA TERI TAZA KYA HAI" is an echo of
the Hindu doctrine i.e. union of man's self with God
because this verse suggests that man must raise his self to
the height that man's will becomes God's will. This is
another description of man's union with God, and can be
understood with reference to his several other poems on the
subject.

Iqbal was neither anti-Hindu nor a separatist. He seems to
have been offended by the rejection of the Hindu Chief
Justice, Sir Shadi Lal, and the chagrin thus engendered
might have led to his extreme pro-Islamic proclivities.

Pakistan as a separate homeland for the Muslims of India
was a brainchild of Chowdhry Rahmat Ali. As his name
(Chowdhry) clearly demonstrates, he was a man of Indian
descent, yet he preached that the Muslims were not the
natives of India, but had come from abroad as invaders.
Further, he stressed that India was not a country but a
continent inhabited by several nations, and each nation had
maintained its separate identity until the British advent
on the Indian scene. Thus Muslims of India were a separate
nation, entitled to an independent homeland, which ought to
be named as Pakistan. This is the theme that Jinnah took
up, and publicly declared in August, 1942: "Before the
coming of the British, India had never been under the rule
of one government. India is divided among more nations than
Europe is. Therefore, we (the Muslims) want a government of
our own. "

Though a man of Hindu lineage, Rahmat Ali, harbored a
special grudge against the Hindus. I do not know its exact
cause but am inclined to put it down to the evil Hindu
doctrine, which refuses to accept back non-Hindus into its
fold. Through the slavish mentality that they have
developed over the many centuries, the Hindus have become
mule-headed, and lost their sense of national honor, which
requires patriotic unity at all costs.

Of course, it has been remarked lately that it is not
Chowdhry Rahmat Ali, who had dreamt the concept of Pakistan
but Khwaja J. A. Rahim, who coined the term Pakistan and
made a demand for it, but being a civil servant, could not
take part in politics. True it may be, but Rahmat Ali's
name has come to be associated with the concept of Pakistan
so strongly that it cannot be removed without a cogent
proof to the contrary.

What did Rahmat Ali want? Exactly the same thing that
Jinnah desired. He sought immortality through India-
bashing. In a letter published in the Daily Jang of April,
1997, the correspondent revealed: "Owing to his efforts for
the creation of Pakistan, while he was in England, Chowdhry
Rahmat Ali wanted to be appointed the President of the
Muslim League, but when this dignity was bestowed on
Jinnah, he became a bitter enemy of both Jinnah and Muslim
League." So great was his disgust that he decided to live
in England permanently, and made a will to the effect that
his bones must be interred in the English soil.

What a love for the land of Pakistan this man had! And can
he be taken seriously as the messiah for the Muslims of
India?

There is no genuine reason to believe that Pakistan was
created for the benefit of the ordinary Muslims. Of course,
the Hindu doctrine of untouchability was derogatory to the
Muslims, but so was the Muslim conviction that held Hindus
as the Kafirs. There is no doubt that the Hindu Baniyas had
become leeches to the Muslims, but they were even greater
leeches to the Hindus themselves. A Baniya is a Baniya; he
is a businessman; his Dharma is making money; religion is
no part of it. The truth is that the Hindu- Muslim hatred
had been manipulated by the politicians of both faiths for
their personal gains. The Muslims had won almost all the
battles against the Hindus, and in the United India, they
would have secured a commanding position. Even now, the
Muslims of Bharat are more affluent than their Pakistani
counterparts, and the same applies to civil liberties. In
fact, the Bharti Muslims enjoy a favorable discrimination
against the Hindus. This truth is quite conspicuous in the
fields of education and religious privileges such as Hajj.

The real fear of the Muslim League was not the degradation
of the Muslim populace but the fact that in the Undivided
India, democracy was bound to prevail as the form of
government, which would be in a position to attract Muslim
votes by passing legislation favorable to the ordinary
people, including the Muslims, who were practically
enslaved by their own feudal lords. The undivided India
meant the same thing to the Muslim feudal lords and
business magnates what deposition is to a hereditary ruler;
the law of monogamy is to a polygamist or loss of blackmail-
money is to a scoundrel .

There is no exaggeration in this point of view. The history
vouches for this truth: all the Muslim feudal from the
Punjab, for instance, aligned to the Unionist Party,
promptly switched over to the Muslim League. Feudalism in
Sindh, the land of the Bhuttos, is the worst in the world
even today.

The Muslims were led to believe that the Islamic concept of
equality, also applies to economic sharing, whereas the
truth is that Islam is the patron of feudal because "Allah
gives unlimited wealth to whom He likes." This deliberate
connivance of the truth also applies to the post-partition
Indian Muslims, who believed that they would be treated as
Pakistanis living in India, having the same rights as the
Pakistanis themselves. Fancy, the man given the
title: "Qaid-E-Azam" by these zealous fools, deserting them
when their life, property and honor were threatened with
annihilation. Jinnah's act of deserting the Indian Muslims
in their most critical hour of need is no different from
that of a bridegroom, who runs away with his mistress on
his wedding night, or the sentinel, who sets fire to the
building he is supposed to guard, or the insane mother
eager to boil her own baby to satisfy her hunger. The fact
that he did nothing to weld "his" people into a nation, and
relied on the mythical unity of the religious appeal is an
unpardonable crime. The Eastern Wing of Pakistan collapsed
in December 1971 for lack of national solidarity. What is
left of Pakistan suffers terribly from provincial hatred.
There are four distinct nations, each feeling sick of the
other and waiting for the opportunity to break away. The
biggest tragedy is that those who migrated from India to
settle in their new home, Pakistan, do not think of
themselves as Pakistanis because after fifty years, they
still call themselves "Mohajirs" (immigrants), and not
citizens of Pakistan. Equally, they are rebuffed by the
Pakistanis. Addressing a meeting in Kasur (Punjab) on May
3rd, 1995, Mrs. Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan,
said, "Thief (Mohajirs) hearts are not with you (the
Pakistani people). They have not that blood which runs in
your veins nor those tears which roll down your eyes. They
have no love for the soil of Pakistan, which reverberates
in your hearts."

Had Jinnah dreamt of a prosperous, powerful and prestigious
nation and succeeded in securing this aim, he would have
certainly earned the title: The Qaid-E-Azam. Since what he
has achieved is exactly the opposite; which makes Pakistan
a flaming hell morally, legally, economically and socially,
bestowing such an honor on this man appears to be an irony
of history. Making fun of the Hindus as idolaters, has been
a favorite pastime of the Muslims. The truth is that the
Muslims of India have inherited this tendency from their
Hindu ancestors. Fancy treating an ordinary politician as
the equivalent of the Prophet Muhammad by calling him the
Qaid-E-Azam. Worse still, the criticism of Jinnah renders
one as much a criminal as criticism of the Prophet Muhammad
makes the critic: Shatim-E-Rasul. If this is not idolatry,
then what is it?

Since Pakistan has failed to materialize as the Messianic
ideal, and is in a real danger of further disintegration,
Jinnah is being shown over-reverence to create him as the
central force of political unity. The truth is that the
colleagues of Jinnah, who had offered him unswerving
loyalty, believing him to be a sincere idealist, lost
respect for him soon after the creation of Pakistan. He
neither offered himself for re-election, even as reverence
to the doctrine of democracy, nor did he consult anyone,
including the Parliament in appointing ministers. Realizing
that he thought of himself to be the proprietor of
Pakistan, they turned against him. When Jinnah was in a
sanatorium at Ziarat (Balochistan), he was suddenly visited
by the Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan. Before he came in,
Jinnah said to his sister, Fatima, " Do you know why he has
come ... he wants to know if I am going to last any
longer."

Nobody knows the exact contents of the conversation that
took place between them but when the Prime Minister left
after an hour, and Jinnah's personal doctor entered, he
found him in tears for experiencing emotional distress.
Refusing to take the medicine, he said, "I do not want to
live any longer."

His death certainly took place in mysterious circumstances.
As his airplane landed at the Karachi Airport, nobody came
to receive him. Not only the ambulance that was sent to
pick hum up, ran out of petrol after a journey of four
miles but also it became immovable owing to some technical
failure. The second ambulance did not appear for several
hours! As he reached the Governor General's House, he was
treated immediately, but it was too late to save him. This
is how the man, who had played with the lives and honor of
millions for personal glory, met his Maker. No matter what
has happened to Pakistanis, he has certainly become "Hazrat
Qaid-E-Azam Aleh Rahmat." Jinnah touched the spiritual
pinnacle.

What a tale of this Gujrati Saint!

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