The Two-Nation
Theory: A Holy Cow or a Holy Script?
Part I
By Mohammad Ashraf
Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“Pakistan is a living reminder
of how our, (India’s), freedom was only
partially won, and a much more difficult phase
lies ahead.” This line taken from “The
2-Nation Theory and Partition, a Historical Overview”,
sums up tersely why India has always found it
hard to accept the creation of Pakistan as a historical
fact.
At best, a dissolution and at minimum an annexation
of Pakistan into India is what would only complete
India’s freedom, and this as any one can
see, has not happened in 58 years.
The 1971 Indian effort to half Pakistan has, in
fact, doubly served Pakistan: instead of failing
as a State, it has emerged as a nuclear power;
and its severed eastern part, instead of becoming
a Sikkim, Bhutan or Nepal, has appeared on the
world map as a new Pakistan under a different
name.
Before 1971, India had to deal with one; now it
is constrained to tackle two. Moral lesson: if
your play with fire, there is every likelihood
that you would get your fingers burnt. One can
divide a territory, but not an ideology. In the
words of Prof. Shariful Mujahid, “Muslims
turned into a separate and distinct nation from
the status of a minority supplicating for safeguards.
They became the proponents of an ideological nationalism
- an Islamic nationalism - against a prevalent
pattern of territorial nationalism.” It
is this ideological bedrock of Pakistan, which
after the tragedy of 9/11, has become the eyesore
of the world. India’s renewed efforts to
blast this bedrock are just a clumsy show of opportunism,
known in the local vernacular as, “apna
luch taloo”, the nearest equivalent of which
in English is, “make hay while the sun shines”.
Mr. Anand K Verma, a former chief of RAW, in his
book “Reassessing Pakistan: the role of
two-nation theory” says, “Many of
the internal and external problems faced by Pakistan
today are, directly or indirectly, the consequences
of the artificial two-nation theory propped by
its leadership through the years of growth of
the Pakistan idea till today”.
And this two-nation theory according to the author
must rank as one of the, “greatest tragedies
of human kind”. The two-nation concept on
which Pakistan was created did not end in 1947,
and that is what India must understand…
the right lesson to be learnt from Indian experiences
of wars of 1965, 1971 and the Lahore Declaration
of 1999 is the unwillingness of Pakistan to get
out of the mindset of the “two nation theory”.
Territorial questions, like the (Kashmir dispute),
come later…if Pakistan’s adherence
to the two-nation theory makes Indo-Pakistan problems
irresolvable, then India must address the theory
directly and squarely to get out of the impasse”.
Suggests the former chief of the RAW.
What a grim warming! What had been left incomplete
in the equation with regard to establishing the
redundancy of the two-nation theory is complemented
by Pakistan’s very own intellectuals and
retired civil servants, like Mr. Karamatullah
Ghori who represented Pakistan as its ambassador,
but remained skeptical all along about the genuineness
of its birth, And this is where lies Pakistan’s
double-jeopardy. Mr. Altaf Hussain also joins
the chorus from time to time. Mr. Gauri buries
the two-nation theory because “Pakistan
itself scuttled this principle, (of all the Indian
Muslims as being one nation without any distinction
of provincial or state affiliation) when, early
in 1949, it imposed restrictions on the immigration
of Muslims from India, thus shutting its doors
on those who were late in making up their mind
about Pakistan”.
What an argument! Everyone knows that each country
has to have some immigration rules. When you choose
to butter the bread on both sides, even in very
precarious circumstances, the likelihood is that
you may lose both. Sindhis can answer this question
better because they as Pakistanis better understand
its impact, as they keep accusing the government
of the early fifties for allowing waves after
waves of Indian Muslims who in the words of Mr.
Ghauri were just a little late in making up their
minds. The argument is worse than the one presented
by the Hindus, who quote the Quaid’s speech
of August 11, as its death-knell. It was in this
speech that the Quaid explained what the government’s
policy towards the minorities, and their rights
would be. What the Hindus construed out of it
was that the Quaid himself had gone back on the
concept of separateness, on which he had based
his demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims.
In the words of my friend, Dr. Agha Saeed, all
Indian efforts are now focused on putting Pakistan
in a box in a doghouse. Where once the mainstream
leaders, like Mr. Bizenjo, Wali khan and G. M.
Sayed feared to tread, now that track appears
to have become a community trail. Shakespeare
was right when he said, “Freeze, Freeze,
thou bitter sky; that does not bite so nigh, as
benefits forgot… as man’s ingratitude”.
Political schisms and bad governance do not nullify
the rationale that supports the existence of a
nation. Had it been so, more than 75% countries
in the entire world, especially in the Sub-Continents
of Africa, Latin America, Russia and South East
Asia, would easily have lost their right to exist
as sovereign states. Ideas form ideologies, and
nations breathe them as they breathe wind. Ideas
matter, ideas influence, and ideas make history.
The best way to destroy a people is, not to drop
lethal bombs on them; but to rob them of the purpose
they stand for. India could not obliterate Pakistan,
or bring it at par with Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim,
Maldives and Sri Lanka. Even the creation of Bangladesh
in 1971, a new Pakistan under a different name,
couldn’t provide it the kind of riddance
it was looking for. The new Faustian approach
to go for the very soul that sustains it; to waft
and whisk away the very spirit that breathes in
it, and to unhinge its very central king-pin around
which its whole body spins; this strategy seemingly
appears to be catching roots. Watch what once
Shakespeare said, “One may smile and smile,
and yet be a villain”.
WHY PAKISTAN IS SO UNPALATABLE
TO INDIA!
The creation of Pakistan, in the words of Mr.
Nirad Chaudhri was “an unmitigated defeat
on both the British Government and the Indian
National Congress”, and it is true because
a period of close to six decades has proved that
India has failed to overcome this trauma. It is
sad that India has taken the Divide to which its
leaders had themselves condescended, ( and according
to Mr. Pyrarelal, had not even bothered to take
Bapu into confidence), to such mean lengths.
What the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea-party,(1770
and 1773), had done for the American independence,
the Nehru Report, 1928, did for the Muslims to
seek a separate homeland without federating with
India. Before that all talks centered on maximum
autonomy in areas where Muslims were in majority,
and the Quaid even maintained his dual membership
of the Muslim League and Congress. Rather than
being mad at Mr. Jinnah, the Indians would do
themselves a favor if they would look objectively
at the role their own founding fathers had played.
They all had feet of clay, believe me. It was
not as much a Muslim desire to get back their
lost glory and to taste power in areas where they
were in majority, as it was the dream of the Congress
leadership to get back the Ashokan India, an Akhant
Bharat, that they had lost to the Muslims.
“Pakistan was forced on him, Jinnah, though
he was reluctant”, says Krishna Gamre. “Indian
history needs to be rewritten… the revised
version which exalts Mr. Gandhi must be scrapped”.
What Mr. Jinnah wanted was guarantees for minorities
and some Human Rights’ safeguards for Muslims,
and which were partially promised to them in the
Lucknow Pact of 1916, and in return what Muslims
got in the form of Nehru Report of 1928, was at
best a slap and at worst a whipping, best summarized
by Maulana Shaukat Ali, in such words as “he
had been an owner of gray hounds, but he had never
seen gray hounds deal with a hare as the Hindus
proposed to deal with the Muslims”. Thanks
to this attitude that if not all, at least half
of the Muslims, then living in India got a home
that they could call their own.
Ms. Ayesha Jalal also holds a similar view when
she says, “Jinnah’s Pakistan had to
remain part of a larger all-India whole in order
to raise some safeguards for Muslims in the minority
areas or those who would invariably be left in
India”; Mr. Jinnah was trying to use this
card as a bargaining chip. Mr. Ajeet Jawed, in
his book titled “Secular and Nationalist:
Jinnah” endorses the same thesis when he
says, “It were the Hindus, the Congress
and Mahatama Gandhi who were responsible for this
Tragedy, the division, than Muslims, the Muslim
League and Jinnah”. Would those who are
thriving on their animus to Pakistan and its creation,
sit back for a minute and in retrospect, cast
a fresh look at the recommendations of the Cabinet
Mission made just one year before the Great Divide.
Maximum autonomy under united India in provinces
where Muslims were in majority for ten years,
and later to exercise the option to part amicably
if it was found that justice had not been done
to the Muslim aspirations. But, then what happened
to this plan?
Under the circumstances this was the best plan,
and the last chance for the two people to live
together. Nehru and the Congress and later the
Muslim League in its Working Committee, accepted
it. What happened makes an interesting study as
reported by one participant, Sardar Shaukat Hayat
in his book “The Nation That Lost Its Soul”.
Pandat Nehru had approached Mumtaz, Iftikhar and
me (Shaukat Hayat) and asked, “Boys, if
the Muslim League Council meeting tomorrow can
approve this plan, I will get the Congress to
approve it”. Pandat Ji at that time was
the President of the Indian National Congress.
After getting it approved when Shaukat rushed
to Pandat Nehru, he turned round and said, “Sorry,
boys, Patel Ji would not agree. He says that if
an arm gets gangrenous, it is best to cut it off
and throw it away rather than keep it with the
body. It would poison the entire body”.
Why all this recurring rancor, malice and this
so-called feeling of having won the freedom partially
against a moth-eaten country, a gangrenous part
willingly thrown away, to strangle and smother
which has remained a fixated priority number one
with India since day one?
It was a paltry amount of 550 million rupees that
was to be transferred to Pakistan at the time
of partition and the instructions had been issued
by the Indian government to the Reserve Bank of
India to comply with. But the transfer was withheld
by Sardar Patel under the pretext that Pakistan
would use this money in fighting a war in Kashmir.
Gandhi who was passing through the noblest phase
of his life, and was devoting all his energy to
restoring communal peace and harmony was constrained
in October, 1948 to undertake fasting to get these
funds released to Pakistan. Sardar Patel of Mahasabha
became sore that Gandhi should use the bludgeon
of the fast to finance Pakistan’s destruction
of Indian soldiers. The result had been the assassination
of Gandhi on January 30, 1948 by a Hindu fanatic,
Godse. The one crime of this best human specimen
was that he had begun quoting the Qur’an,
and had begun favoring Muslims who were being
butchered everywhere. Thus, in the hatred of Pakistan
India killed its best man, but has never shied
away from using his stoical image as a repairing-kit
whenever India stood tarnished and accused in
the world conscience for indulging in sectarian
violence against minorities, especially the Muslims,
be it the destruction of Ayodhia in 1992 or the
Gujrat massacre in 2002 to name a few.
The Hindu leadership had forced the Quaid, Mohammad
Ali Jinnah, to plunge into the shark pond and
snatch away from them a morsel of the shark food
for its own people. Well, if he succeeded in doing
so; then why not appreciate and applaud him for
the miracle that happened, instead of bickering
perennially for his doing so.
(Author’s note: in the second part a detailed
analysis of the much-talked-about assimilation
and commonalities presented by Indian and some
Pakistani intellectuals against the two-nation
theory will be presented in a historical and present-day
perspective.)
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