Pakistan : A Theocratic Mindset?
By Syed Osman Sher
Canada
Syed Arif Hussaini’s review of M.J. Akbar’s book, The Tinderbox - The Past and Future of Pakistan, in Pakistan Link, April 8, 2011, presents different angles of the thought process that has played part in Pakistan’s creation, as well as what it says about its future.
M.J, Akbar’s own observation “The confidence of the Muslim elite dropped (after 1857) from a heightened sense of superiority to a tortured collapse of self-confidence”, and the statement of B.R. Nanda, that “Hindu politicians were incapable of generosity and Muslim politicians were incapable of trust” seem to be complementary in the sense that the Muslim spirit had so weakened that they neither had confidence in themselves to act as an effective partner in a free India, nor they had the trust that the Hindus would accept them as such. The above situation was, indeed, an important element in the struggle for Pakistan.
One would, however, hardly agree to the contention of M.J. Akbar that while M.A. Jinnah was the father of the nation, Abul Alaa Maududi (founder of Jamaat-I-Islami) became the godfather. According to him, “A strain of theocracy runs through the DNA of the idea of Pakistan.”
If one thinks that Pakistan is a “tinderbox” to burst open on the plane of theocracy, it is a wrong premise. The idea of Pakistan was based on the theory of the existence of two nations in India on the basis of religion, of course, but religion, or theocracy, per se, was never on the play from the side of the Muslims. Though not brushing it aside totally, we may consider it only with a grain of salt. To the contrary, Jinnah, representing the spirit of the Muslims, abhorred the moves made by M.K. Gandhi in mixing religion with politics during the struggle for freedom.
Jinnah had resigned from the Congress in 1920, primarily due to his disagreement with Gandhi when the latter started moving in that direction. In the opinion of Gandhi, religion would appeal to Hindu minds, and the politics mixed with religion would draw a greater force. For example, Gandhi often referred to ushering in of Ram Raj, which apparently seemed to establish a Hindu religious government, although some take this as meaning good governance. Little did Gandhi realize that any reference to Hindu religion and its legends in a national movement would fall hard on the sensitivities of the Muslims and sound alarm in their ears, especially when the Indian nation was already standing on a slippery slope, created by the arousal of religious differences by the alien rulers.
Gandhi strove to create communal harmony by supporting the Muslims in the Khilafat Movement, launched to save the caliphate in Turkey, which was threatened with extinction through the Allied peace terms. Gandhi wrote in Young India of October 20, 1921, "I claim that with us both the Khilafat is the central fact, with Maulana Muhammad Ali because it is his religion, with me because, in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure the safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the Mussalman knife.” Jinnah was not happy with this move. He warned Gandhi to desist from arousing fanaticism in the Muslims by supporting Khilafat Movement.
The Governor of Bengal, Richard Casey, noted in his diary dated December 6, 1945, that during one of his interviews, Gandhi himself admitted to Casey that "Jinnah had told him that he (Gandhi) had ruined politics in India by dragging up a lot of unwholesome elements in Indian life and giving them political prominence, that it was a crime to mix up politics and religion the way he had done." (V.P. Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, Vol. VI).
Jinnah was alienated by the utterances and ideas of Gandhi, whom he described as “the one man responsible for turning Congress into an instrument for the revival of Hinduism” and the establishment of “Hindu Raj in the country.” Resigning from Congress Jinnah seemed to have given up his concern for national causes and concentrated his energy in reorganizing the Muslim League and to protect Muslim interests. But still he wished to see some form of cooperation between the two communities so that a united front could be presented before the British. In the meeting of the Muslim League in Lahore in May 1924, Jinnah declared, ‘The advent of foreign rule and its continuation in India is primarily due to the fact that the people of India, particularly the Hindus and Muslims, are not united and do not sufficiently trust each other…I am almost inclined to say that India will get Dominion Responsible Government the day the Hindus and Muslims are united.’
When Pakistan was created, Maududi moved immediately to the new country despite his vehement opposition to its creation. Indeed, his efforts were now directed to introduce theocracy here, but he was totally defeated in his aims. It has been amply proven by the fact that in every democratic election in Pakistan his political party, the Jamaat-e- Islami, has trailed behind almost all others, placing itself only on the margin. Had the strains of theocracy been hidden in the DNA of the citizens of the new country, it would have shown its face in the elections, but it never did.
M.J. Akbar is, of course, carried away by the recent sightings of the so-called Islamic renaissance, though in form only and not in spirit, in the behavior of the people, today’s spate of suicide bombings, including those in mosques and shrines, and the killings and threats to honor the blasphemy law. But they seem simply to be the out-cropping of the late General Zia ul Haq’s policies to create a make-belief for the people of his own Islamic piety, as also the result of such phenomena as ‘ Taliban’ and ‘ Islamic terrorism’, injected into the country’s veins by outsiders. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis do not possess a theocratic mindset.
