The Great Speech

In this blog post, I am not going to say much, but present to you the text from Mr. Jinnah's speech of 11th August 1947, which in my view is one of the greatest speeches ever in the history of Pakistan's existence and probably of the world. Before reading it just keep in mind that by the time Mr. Jinnah stood up to deliver the speech, almost 1 million people had died on both sides of the border. Many Pakistanis died because they believed in an idea, an idea that was Pakistan, a tolerant, safe and just Pakistan. And as Mr. Jinnah delivered his speech, imagine how much it would have meant to him and all those in the assembly that had devoted their lives to a great cause. This is a landmark speech that espoused the principles of democracy, tolerance and long forgotten Islamic values. This speech presented the idea of a Pakistan that Mr. Jinnah and all those who had died in the struggle had imagined. It is therefore very important to us to read and re read this speech and  try to re construct a Pakistan based on the guidelines that Mr. Jinnah presented to us. Here's the speech:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I cordially thank you, with the utmost sincerity, for the honour you have conferred upon me – the greatest honour that is possible to confer – by electing me as your first President. I also thank those leaders who have spoken in appreciation of my services and their personal references to me. I sincerely hope that with your support and your co-operation we shall make this Constituent Assembly an example to the world. The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing the future constitution of Pakistan and the second of functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. We have to do the best we can in adopting a provisional constitution for the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. You know really that not only we ourselves are wondering but, I think, the whole world is wondering at this unprecedented cyclonic revolution which has brought about the clan of creating and establishing two independent sovereign Dominions in this sub-continent. As it is, it has been unprecedented; there is no parallel in the history of the world. This mighty sub-continent with all kinds of inhabitants has been brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is very important with regards to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.

Dealing with our first function in this Assembly, I cannot make any well-considered pronouncement at this moment, but I shall say a few things as they occur to me. The first and the foremost thing that I would like to emphasize is this: remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body and you have got all the powers. It, therefore, places on you the gravest responsibility as to how you should take your decisions. The first observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.

The second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering – I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think our condition is much worse – is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this Assembly to do so.

Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that blackmarketeers are frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster, which today is a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than the biggest and most grievous of crimes. These blackmarketeers are really knowing, intelligent and ordinarily responsible people, and when they indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished, because the entire system of control and regulation of foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and want and even death.

The next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Along with many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any any influence directly of indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.

I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of everyone of us to loyally abide by it and honourably act according to the agreement which is now final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has been done, A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it, but in my judgement there was no other solution and I am sure future history will record is verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that was the only solution of India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have worked and in my judgement it would have led us to terrific disaster. Maybe that view is correct; maybe it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same, in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being in one Dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make.

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.

Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.

Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality, and I am sure that with your support and co-operation, I can look forward to Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world.

I have received a message from the United States of America addressed to me. It reads:I have the honour to communicate to you, in Your Excellency’s capacity as President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the following message which I have just received from the Secretary of State of the United States:On the occasion of of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for Pakistan, I extend to you and to the members of the Assembly, the best wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the successful conclusion of the great work you are about to undertake.

Can Anybody please tell me WHO AM I?

Nations rise and fall. To every high, there is a low. That is a universal fact. However, this universal fact does not apply to Pakistan, simply because it never went high. We can say that it is because we are at a pretty low point in history and will certainly climb to the top. “God” will help us. Have faith in “God”. That is what my Mullah Party tells me and so does the Ghairat Brigade. So are you trying to tell me that the matters have now spiraled so much out of control that the fate of “Pakistan” is no longer in human hands? Is this what you are trying to tell me?

But, the fact of the matter is that we are neither high neither low. Pakistan of today is a sort of a Sufi song, full of dualism but with grim undertones. It’s a nuclear power but doesn’t have adequate anti aircraft defense systems. Its students frequently “create” world records in the international academic world, but the literacy rate still hovers around 50%. It has abundant agricultural resources but the price of flour and rice keep on attaining new heights. It was founded on principles of democracy and social equality, but the gap between rich and poor keeps on increasing and to top it, there have been three martial laws in country. It was founded to provide safety and identity to the Indian Muslims, but ------------ (fill in the gap yourself). It has been 64 years, but we still haven’t figured out who we really are.

Who are we? Where do we come from? Are we aliens from outer space? Are we a result of some sort of weird and massive social experiment?

Who Are We?

History books teach us that Pakistan was formed on the basis of the Two Nation theory. On one side there were Hindus and on the other side there were Muslims. But this theory failed on 16 December 1971 when the feet of Indian Army and Mukti Bahni marched on the streets of Dhaka.

Pakistan had the lost the very basis on which it was formed, that it was a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. Then what? Were the Quaid, Allama Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan and a long line of Independence leaders wrong? Were we - which the hostile “anti-Pakistan” media never ceases to tell- formed on the basis of clash of egos and conflicts over power sharing? If I accept that, then all the things that I have been taught in the school books, have been wrong. But I love this country, I cheer for the cricket team when it wins a match, my passport says that I am a Pakistani, i have my own set of favorite Pakistani singers, i want Urdu to be written on the billboards not Hindi, which i do not understand a bit. But where ever I go across the world , people recognize me as an Indian and its only after explaining to them that I belong to a neighbouring country called Pakistan and I am a Muslim ( and by default a terror suspect- I KILL U), then do they understand that i am a Pakistani, who just happens to look like an Indian. But here’s an interesting thing, I did this experiment with some people and answered in yes whenever they asked me that whether I was an Indian or not. “ So do you worship Ganesha?” some of them asked making weird flapping hand gestures so as to describe the Hindu idols. I would say no and they would look at me with the slightest of confusion in their eyes. When I would say that I was kidding and was a Pakistani their confusion would clear up. So it seems that a Brown Indian looking Muslim is a Pakistani in their dictionary. But as you might have read in the preceding lines, the two nation theory had failed, hadn't it? So that again left me in confusion about myself. It was getting way to complicated for me to ponder on.

I doubted my nationality. This was something that was very easy to ignore but very hard to really shake off.

But then i came across Aitzaz’s Ahsan’s book called The Indus Saga in which he explained that the reason Pakistan was formed was because of the fact the people of the Indus Valley were always different from the people across the Jumna. Their customs, traditions, influences, everything was different, and I know for a fact that it is. The struggle for Pakistan might have been an attempt to create a separate homeland for the Muslims but in-fact the deep underlying psyche was that the Indus people were reclaiming their Independence which the invading armies of Ghauri, Ghaznavi, Babar, Chandragupta and Bin Qasim could not entirely subjugate.

Yes i am calling those “”Muslim Heroes” as invaders, who did nothing but pillage and torture and occupy land. To me their religion has nothing to do with the fact that they were invaders. Its just like the Iraqi people of the future calling the American Invaders as heroes and you know that something about this is just plain disgusting. That’s exactly where the confusion over our ‘Pakistaniat’ has been created. And for that we must thank Zia Ul Haq ( “” Rehmatuallah Alleh””) and the Mullah Party.

There was a brief time in the Muslim history when the religious teacher was considered to be the the Man of God and not of the Mosque. He would debate with his Dominican, Fransician and atheist counterparts, a person who would be wise and charming who would explain and make, boring and tedious religious dogma, as easy as Twinkle Little Star. A Gladiator Maximus like person who just could not be corrupted by power. But today that “Religious Teacher” has been replaced by the Pan eating, Gulab Jaman munching, fat and greedy mullah. He has even made his own political party. He is the Eddie Guerrero of the society, because he Lies and Cheats and Steals. The horrifying fact is that he even influences our national policies. So much so that he majorly influenced our 1973 constitution and re wrote our text books, so that the invaders of the past now became our heroes, Hindus and Jews were the arch enemies ( imagine how would a Pakistani Hindu feel when reading those texts in our coursebooks, and we blame other countries for racism and discrimination). On one hand we find the Quaid’s statement that you are free to go to your temples and mosques and on the other hand we are told that the hindus and christians and jews scheme against the muslims and Pakistani was made for the muslims and muslims alone. Isn't that a humongous contradiction to the Quaid’s sayings. If we accept their arguments about Hindus and Jews being our enemies, then the Great Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, all the Mughal and Ottoman emperors would be first rate heretics because they kept as advisers those same people which the Mullas of today ‘advise’ us to be wary of. In my humble opinion, the people we be wary of should include governments like the Saudis who always manipulate and scheme and shelter the hostile Americans and yet Pakistanis make those wretched Saudi kings as demi-gods and hero worship them.

The mind of the Pakistani of today is just a confused conglomeration of nationalism, religious trans-nationalism and the so called hatred of everything “”Western””, so called because on one hand we Pakistanis condemn western thought and culture, yet would positively drool over a Green Card. That’s the state of confusion that has been wrought upon the Pakistani mind by the so-called religious establishment in collaboration with the business minded politicians.

The point is, that the uniting factor in Pakistan is not religion, but the land itself and the principles of democracy. If religion was a uniting factor then Bangladesh would still have been East Pakistan today. So it is high time that we feel proud of who we are. Stop hero worshipping the Arabs and take pride in our own cultural heritage. And as I browse through the various Facebook pages and online communities, i have a reason to be hopeful, and so should you, the reader.