1) Pakistan’s premise was Pakistan for Muslim was intrinsically immoral on the grounds that whatever geographical areas were going to be Pakistan would have had substantial numbers Hindus, native to that region. Which by the premise of Pakistan are unwelcome citizens by the very definition. On what moral grounds would a person of the soil be considered unwelcome on her own soil?

2) If Pakistan was meant for Muslims, what was its obligation to the Muslims of the whole India? Was it obliged to facilitate the migration of each and every willing Muslim living in the pre-partition India? Was that a practical commitment? If not what was promise of Pakistan?

3) It should have occurred to the elite that there would be a substantial fraction of Muslim left within the borders of the new India. If the elite had been so convinced of the plight of Muslims in independent India, where was their consideration for the Muslims who would have been left behind? Additionally by the act of mere partition what additional burdens were the Muslim elite burdening the left behind Muslims?

4) The leadership had not considered these vital issues. This leaves us with an arguable conclusion that the Muslim leadership was only concerned about what was good for itself and not as purportedly the good of the Muslim community. While I am sure there was a good segment of the clerics, perhaps the majority that was dogmatic about the scripture, the so called non-theocratic leadership found it useful to take the cover provided by the clerical bigots. They all conspired to be the big fish in a small pond rather than be small fish in an Ocean that was India.

5) The conclusions of my previous bullet are well proven by the fact that Pakistan, sans about 10 - 15 years perhaps, has had a Khaki rule for the past 63 years. Creation of Pakistan has not been a complete boon to all the muslim communities within Pakistan either. After 63 years there isn’t single week that doesn’t pass without a Shia mosque being bombed or vandalized, etc, etc.

6) After 63 years people of other religions have voted with their feet. Which is very evident from the population distribution. That begs the question, how can a country make the sons and daughter’s of the soil feel unwelcome. What protections has sit provided to the minorities? Wasn’t it incumbent upon the leadership that had argued that its community would suffer under Hindu hegemony, to enshrine the very same guarantees that it was afraid it would not have been accorded, for its minorities? wasn’t that leadership morally decrepit and hypocritical in failing to do the same, that it wanted for itself?

7) In retrospect, looking at India, wouldn’t Shia or an Ahmedia, wonder if they would have been better off, if only their parents or grandparents had opted to stay back in India? While there are periodic religious riots, aren’t the Muslims in India feel that they do get a fair shake there. After all some of the most richest people in India are also Muslims, across all walks of life. For all its faults, secular India seems to have provided more equitable opportunities to Muslims, than Pakistan due to its shriveled economy.

All partition had done is that the rich landed gentry stayed back in India and take chances than sell their inheritances and the very poor and uneducated who could not afford to migrate. Thjs had led to a Muslim community of enormous disparities. Which was easy to succumb to the rabble rousing clerics from time to time. Despite that due to the secular laws they have made gains.

9) I know one cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube, however it is incumbent of the educated and the elite of Pakistan to introspect about the folly of the two nation policy. This should be unvarnished for your country to make any progress and to hold the current leadership accountable.

The Two-Nation Theory was the basis for the Partition of India in 1947. It stated that Muslims and Hindus were two separate nations by every definition, and therefore Muslims should have an autonomous homeland in the Muslim majority areas of British India for the safeguard of their political, cultural and social rights, within or without a United India.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Nation_Theory

Pakistan’s Muslim population today: 140,278,140 ie, 97.0% of total population
India’s Muslim population today: 144,198,760 ie, 14.0% of total population

Source: http://www.factbook.net/muslim_pop.php

Considering the facts above, we have more muslims in post-parition-India than Pakistan. Does that sound like objective and ideology of Pakistan was a woolly? What gives Pakistan the right to let the larger Muslim population of the reigon to suffer under Hindus? OR rightfully why do we still continue to exist as Pakistan? Isn’t the basis now all folly?

Interestingly, IF there was no Pakistan then today Muslims would be approx 28% population of India. A major minority in secular India whose Prime Minister is Sikh and President is Muslim.

My two cents.

AFTER the question of Partition of India was settled in 1947, Mountbatten, the then Viceroy, noted in his personal record that the Indian leaders would regret the decision they had taken in haste. In his speech to the Constituent Assembly in Pakistan on August 11, 1947, Jinnah said, “Any idea of a united India could never have worked. In my judgement it would have led to a terrific disaster. May be that view is correct, may be it is not; only future will tell — that remains to be seen”.

To Nehru, it was the Partition but to Jinnah, it was a division. For the Muslim League it was a compromise but to the Congress, it was a settlement. Krishna Menon called it a “shock solution”. The Partition resulted in about half-a-million casualties, and the migration of about 12 million people. The kindest thing that can be said about those who took such momentous decisions for the destiny of millions then that they knew not what they were doing. Statesmen who was make no allowance for the unforeseeable, mortgage the future of their country.

A spate of historical literature has appeared on Partition of India. A grandiose publication, Transfer of Power in 12 volumes covering five years, (1942-47), each volume containing about a thousand pages, unfolds how British policy was hammered out week by week, day by day, hour by hour. This work edited by Nicholas Mansergh, formerly Smunts Professor of the History of British Commonwealth, University of Cambridge, is wonderfully a solid performance. Of course, the perspective is British!

Indian political leaders appear in these volumes as social climbers, trembling poltroons, small petty lawyers and banias fighting over trifles, while the British high-ranking officials imbued with a lofty sense of duty and rectitude were advancing India’s cause of self-government. Mansergh completed these 12 volumes in 13 years.

As a counterprise, to give an Indian point of view, Indian Council of Historical Research planned in 1976 to produce and publish documents entitled Towards Freedom, covering the period, 1937-47. During these 22 years only two volumes have appeared; the first in 1985, and it is due to the initiative of the present Chairman of the Council, Professor Settar that the second volume in three parts appeared early this year.

The Jamia Hamdard, Delhi, planned to bring out three volumes on the Partition, covering the period, 1937-47. The first volume, 1937-39, published early this year edited by S.A.I. Tirmazi contains 537 documents using some portion of the Quaid-i-Azam papers but in this plethora of diverse documentation Mr Jinnah lies hidden. I have said Mr Jinnah. When the Aligarh Muslim University wanted to confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1944, he declines it saying that he was known as Mr Jinnah and would die as Mr Jinnah, nothing more, and nothing less.

Although history may often seem to be a scientific study of the past, its interpretation, however much we may refine our techniques of historical analysis, remains stubbornly national than we often realise. To counterprise our national prejudices, we have to re-examine our pre-suppositions and see the other side of the case. What was really Mr Jinnah’s case? Therefore the study of 80,000 pages of the Quaid-i-Azam papers which has 23 volumes of newspapers, and personal clippings is central to the historian’s interests.

Jinnah was a man of few words. He wrote no book. He kept no diary. He produced no memoir. He did not go to prison. A prison is often the nursery of memoirs. He was not known as a prodigy of learning. At times his silences baffled others. Nothing could fathom him. He confided in no one except, in Raja of Muhmudabad, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan and of course, Sir B.N. Rud until their relations soured, when the latter became the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Jinnah wrote when necessary. Law books he read for his profession, particularly those relating to property and company law. He did not tidy up his correspondence like Nehru with an eye on posterity. His favourite book from which he often quoted in his public speeches — for this man who was often dubbed as obstinate and most uncompromising — was John Morley’s book entitled Compromise published first in 1874, an exposition of liberal principles, which emphasises that compromise is to politics, what devotion is to friendship.

The National Archives of Pakistan has brought out the first series of Jinnah paper comprising two volumes in three parts. Originally Dr I.H. Qureshi, sometime Professor of History, at St Stephens, and later Vice-Chancellor, Karachi University, initiated the idea of compiling and publishing Jinnah papers. He took up the matter with President Ayub Khan who approved the proposal, but it was General Zia-ul-Haq who provided the infrastructure. Dr Z.A. Zaidi, a senior researcher in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, was appointed the Editor to undertake this work. He has brought out these volumes in 30 years.

Strangely enough, these volumes are published in reverse order, i.e. from 1947 which is like putting a cart before a horse, denying the reader a consecutive picture of the evolution of Pakistan through successive stages. Volume I (in two parts), Prelude to Pakistan, covers the period, February 20 — June 20, 1947. The text comes to 1800 pages. The second part consists of 14 appendices containing extracts from Mansergh’s Transfer of Power volumes and newspapers such as Dawn and Pakistan Times, etc.

There is nothing startlingly new in these documents and they add little to our understanding of Jinnah, and his politics and strategy. Only on three or four themes there is new documentary material drawn chiefly from India Office Records and Churchill papers at Cambridge. It is a pity that Zaidi, though mainly based in London, has completely ignored the valuable Intelligence Department reports ‘Loss of Control’ which Patrick French has recently used in his work Liberty or Death.

These volumes are limited to the period from February 20 to June 30, 1947. Jinnah’s interminable negotiations with the British, his bitter wrangling with the Congress, his total involvement in the civil disobedience movement in Punjab and North-West Frontier left little time to him for correspondence. Of the 1071 letters published in these volumes, his letters number 125. His letters deal with matters of trifling nature such as thanking his donors, congratulating his party workers, sending goodwill wishes to political organisations, giving instruction to his bankers and dealing with his property and shares. The title “Jinnah papers” is a misnomer. Jinnah is mostly a recipient of letters than a letter-writer. He appears supremely an elusive presence throughout on the margin rather than at the centre of affairs.

Some historians insist that Jinnah did not want Pakistan nor did he will it. Nor was he responsible for it; it was, however, the only possible outcome, a product of the curious circumstances for which the chief responsibility lay with the Congress. The first protagonist of the view was Ayesha Jalal, the author of The Sole Spokesman. Jalal tells us what Jinnah did not want, but doesn’t tell us what really he wanted. Jalal presents Jinnah as a sad, lonely dying man, utterly helpless, overpowered by events, looking like a sick eagle at the sky. These documents completely dispel this notion.

Jinnah was completely in command of the situation. He was determined to fight for Pakistan. He told Mountbatten on April 3, 1947, that he would have a few acres of the said desert provided it was his own. With great feeling he wrote in May 1947 on a piece of paper meant for himself which Zaidi has reproduced. Jinnah wrote “Pakistan means not only a matter of power and security, of loaves and fishes; there are things of the spirit involved in it. It means sovereignty of people and it will be all that it stands for. Will not people say with those Arabs who said, ‘What does it matter, how weak and poor our homelands are, if only we are masters in them’ (Vol. I, Document No. 516).

Mountbatten has been strongly criticised by historians in Pakistan and England for what they call a sinister design on his part in altering the India-Pakistan boundary at the last stage. Zaidi’s volume throws light on this controversial question, Zaidi has drawn evidence from India Office Records which he has partly used ignoring what exists in the Transfer of Power volumes.

Sir Cyril Radcliffe was appointed the Chairman of the Boundary Commission to delimit the India-Pakistan boundary. He was Lord Chancellor Jowett’s nominee. Jinnah had suggested his name first. Nehru had wanted Maurice Gwyer to be the Chairman. Radcliffe had never visited India before. He knew no Indian language, nor did he possess Raginald Coupland’s grasp of the Indian constitutional problem. A brilliant Oxford product, and a reputed lawyer, he was known for his long stretches of silences. In India he didn’t meet any political leader. He did not attend any hearing of the claimants to the disputed areas. Motilal Setalwad told him then the entire procedure adopted by him in respect of the Boundary Commission proceedings was strange and farcical. Radcliffe completed his work in 36 days, left India having destroyed his papers. Later when asked whether he would return to India, said “God forbid, not even if they ask me. I expect they would shoot me out of hand, both sides”.

The question is whether Mountbatten persuaded Radcliffe to alter the boundary award. Was Radcliffe made a scapegoat in Mountbatten’s hands ? This issue was raised in the British Parliament, and later in the United Nations in 1948. Curiously enough, V.P. Menon is silent about it in his books.

The documents in Jinnah papers show that the Radcliffe Award almost corresponded with the detailed demarcation of the boundary made by Wavell on February 7, 1946, which he communicated to the Secretary of State, Pethick-Lawrence. The proposed boundary outline that Wavell despatched was actually drawn by V.P. Menon and B. N. Rau, thereby including the Muslim majority areas of the district of Gurdaspur, and Amritsar. The matter does not rest there. There is in Zaidi’s volume K.M. Pannikar’s note The Next Step which readily provided a starting point for the Menon-Rau delimitation of the boundary. Pannikar, a veritable opportunist of the first order, who nurtured ambitions of being appointed the Viceroy’s constitutional advisor, wrote a note that the country be partitioned and he laid down the guiding principles for the division of Punjab and Bengal.

Pannikar did not append his signatures to the note, two copies of which were sent in the names of his friend Guy Wint and Freda Martin (Mn Guy Wint) to Wavell and Cripps. They form a part of the correspondence exchanged on January 11, 1946, between Sir William Croft, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Indian office and Sir David Monteath, the permanent Under-Secretary. It was thus Menon-Rau note based on Pannikar’s communication which provided almost a readymade material for Radcliffe to prepare his award. The point is that in examining the factors underlying British policy in the period under study it is not so much to Whitchall that we must look but to varied local pressures in India as well as to the harsh force of circumstances and the initiatives of certain individuals holding pivotal position who exercise influence on the formation of policy.

These volumes confirm that it was Winston Churchill who finally persuaded Jinnah to accept the Partition plan. Churchill remained consistent in his hatred towards India and the Congress. These volumes show that Jinnah was closely in touch with Churchill. Jinnah had met Churchill on May 22, 1947, a little more than a week before the Partition plan was to be announced. Zaidi has used Churchill papers, and some part of Mountbatten’s papers in the Transfer of Power volumes.

Historians have wondered who this Elizabeth Gilliat was whom Jinnah was writing to occasionally. For long it was thought that it was a fictitious name that Churchill adopted. These volumes clear the mist. Elizabeth Gilliat was Churchill’s Secretary. Jinnah was adopting dilatory tactics in accepting the Partition plan as he was opposed to the partitions of Punjab and Bengal. Zaidi does not, however, include other documents relevant to Churchill’s message which Mountbatten conveyed to Mountbatten. This message is available in the Transfer of Power volumes. The message was to threaten Jinnah that all British troops would be taken away from India, if Jinnah didn’t accept the Partition plan. Churchill had added, ‘By God, Jinnah is the only man who’s can’t do without British help’.

It has almost remained a mystery why the Prime Minister of Punjab, Khizer Hayat Tiwana who was bitterly opposed to the Muslim League. Suddenly resigned on March 2, 1947, to the chagrin of the Congress and Akali leaders whom he didn’t care to consult. It must be emphasised that the Unionist Ministry wouldn’t have lasted due to the popular Civil Disobedience Movement in Punjab. The documents in Volume I show that it was Jinnah’s emissary Sir Mohammed Zafarulla who persuaded Khizer not to betray his community in the hour of trial. It appears that the letter of resignation was drafted by Sir Zafarulla.

There is ample evidence in these volumes (particularly in 2nd part of Vol. I) drawn chiefly from the newspapers Dawn and Pakistan Times that Jinnah masterminded the Civil Disobedience Movement in Punjab and the North Western Frontier. His object was to topple the Khizer and Khan Sahib ministries and to disturb the communal ratio in Assam so that he could grab for Pakistan the largest possible area. In this the designs of the two members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, Abdul Rab Nishter and Ghaznafer Ali Khan are laid bare. The Civil Disobedience Movement had a popular support in which large number of students of Aligarh Muslim University, burqa-clad women, Pirs and Sajjada-Nashin participated. The newspaper material is extremely valuable which is not available in this country, though, sadly enough, extracts from Urdu newspapers and journals are omitted.

This work suffers from a lack of proper editing and annotation. For example, the reader is at a loss to know who. K. Rallia Ram is, a fervent correspondent, who informs Jinnah regularly about the political developments in Punjab. The editor has not cared to identify even Riaz Piracha who became later the Foreign Secretary, Pakistan. In 1946 he was the President of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation. Riaz Piracha is prepared to give up his studies in order to fight for the cause of Pakistan. There are quite a number of individuals flitting across the pages but no attempt is made to identify them.

Jinnah had the habit of making some doodles at times, but he wrote short notes for his own use — these may be called “dispersed meditation”, to use Francis Bacon’s expression. One of these notes reads as follows:

Money lost — nothing lost

Courage lost — much lost

Honour lost — most lost

Soul lost — all lost (Vol. II, p. 257).
To sum up, uncomfortably bulky as these volumes are, a scrappy collection of documents, some of its valuable material can be easily found in the specialised publications. The whole work lacks sense of direction, a clear-cut design. The documents are listed neither chronologically nor thematically. The index is inadequate, and the references are too perfunctory to be of any value. It lacks Mansergh’s almost suffocatingly thorough cross-references. The documentation is ruthlessly selective and aggressively tendentious but it is a pioneering documentary work published in Pakistan on the Partition. One is grateful for Zaidi’s immense labours but they were not usefully directed.

I would like to answer this specific point. I think the whole region paid a heavy price for the ignorance of the Indian Muslims (for me the Indian Muslims were those muslims of the British India who hailed from the central and northern and north-eastern states of the British India, like upians and biharis and bengalis—The muslims of the north-western provinces, Pathans and Balochis specifically, never considered themselves as Indians and even Sindh has always been an independent entity) and is still paying it because the parah-likhas of UP and Bihar could not live together peacefully with their hindu neighbours.

Two nation theory is bogus. If a muslim of UP or Bihar was different from his Hindu neighbour just because he was the follower of a different religion, then one cannot overlook this fact that culturally he was altogether different from a Baloch or a Pathan or even from a sindhi, I mean only his religion was different from his hindu neighbour but culturaly they were same people, and blood is thicker than water, right?. Instead of living peacefully with his Hindu neighbour he decided to create Pakistan, migrated their and now find it difficult to live with his Sindhi and Pathan and Panjabi neighbours. These so-called ‘indian-mulsims’ have been playing their card of minority politics very successfuly for over a century and fooling other people. And if muslims and hindus are realy different then what about those mulsims who are still living in India?

On one hand, we have religion, the “deen”, the “God’s will for the humanity” and the “all encompassing way of life”; all our evils are blamed to not following the shariah, and the intrinsic belief is that all will be fine if we follow the book. The set of laws is proclaimed perfect, coming from a divine, all knowing source, that knows all the needs of humans for the eternity. In this case, we identify ourselves with the religion.

On the other end of the spectrum is the argument of belief in human intellect, that humans as a society can figure out what is right and what is wrong for them; while at any given time the system may not be optimal, we might be able to find holes in it, over longer period of time the system moves forward. Nothing is divine, nothing is holy, nothing is sacred; its all what we, as a human society, decide and enforce as acceptable and not acceptable, and the definitions change over time, as we amend our perceived mistakes. There is room for decent, there is freedom for expression of new and contradicting ideas, that serves as the necessary ingredient for change and improvement; if we can convince a certain large subset, we can have the laws changed. In this case we identify ourselves with the humanity; pretty anonymous and humbling, yet empowering identity in my opinion.

The two-nations theory clearly chose the first identity; not in 1937, but much earlier, in Syed Ahmed Khan days, and in the days of inception of “Muslim” league. Creation of Pakistan was probably the shortest and fastest way to help a certain community at that time, but in my opinion, believing in the human intellect, and working to create an environment of tolerance, respect and coexistence would have been a much better long term solution.

Ironically, creation of Pakistan did not solve our identity problem. We, Pakistanis, find ourselves standing at the same cross-roads. Identify with the religion, or opt for a more human driven secular law. I don’t know what choice will we make this time. The shortcut, or the long term solution. Those of who stand for separation of religion and governance, find it hard to defend the stance given the choice that two-nations theory made; two nations theory was after all a theory of an Islamic nation and a non-Islamic one, not a theory of Pakistan and India. As a result, in the process of defending secularism, some of us find ourselves digging further and criticizing the two-nations theory and the prominent leaders of Pakistan movement, inviting further scorn from both the religious and patriotic right.

I some times feel that if you are among those supporting a secular Pakistan, you have no honest ally; it is hard to argue for a secular Pakistan and not criticize the creation of Pakistan by implication without some amount of self contradiction.

I love my country and I wish that Pakistanis become the bearers of belief in humanity and human intellect.

Pakistan Zindabad, Paidabad.

I think the debate over whether the two nation theory was correct or wrong is probably going to remain forever inclusive. I also, to some extent, think that this is a wrong debate to have. Whether Hindus and Muslims are two nations, or two communities, or merely followers of two religions. That has little to do with whether they can or must live together. The proponents of the two nation theory point out to the treatment of Indian Muslims India after the partition and conclude that the theory was correct and that Muslims and Hindus cannot live together with peace and harmony. The critics of theory point to the several hundred years prior to the partition and conclude that Muslims and Hindus have lived together for so long and that their religion or nationality doesn’t matter.

In reality, though, I believe that that two nation theory is merely a name given to a set of very pragmatic set of political considerations of a particular time. By the way, It wasn’t only Jinnah who used the idea of different nationalities in India, even leaders of Congress was talking about two nations at that time, only that two nations to them were Indians and British.

I believe that the very pragmatic political considerations that ultimately drove Muslims of India to demand a separate homeland are amply evident our history. The Hindu-dominated Congress got several opportunities to accomodate the demands of Muslims–the last of which were the 1937 elections themselves. Instead of showing magnanimity towards other communities (most notably Muslims), they were more getting the independence from British that they desired.

Infact, one of the sole points of contention between Muslim League (and most notably, Jinnah) and Congress in the final years of the Indepedence movement was the latter’s absolute denial to acknowledge Muslim League as the representative of Muslims of India. To Qauid-e-Azam as well, and quite logically so, there was no possibility of negotiations with Congress without the it agreeing to Muslim League being a spokesman for Muslims.

In an ironic way, Congress, in its insistence of being the champion of a secular India, was so driven by the viewpoint of the majority (Hindu) that it failed to even see the other side’s viewpoint. In doing so the Congress acted like a typical super-power that is out of touch with the realities on the ground and unwilling to do a course correction.

I think these very pragmatic political considerations, and not the absolute impossibility of Muslims and Hindus living together at some ideological level, may have been the real determinants of the Pakistan movement.