Number of words: 717

Mohammed Ali Jinnah was, to my mind, fundamentally in error proposing ‘Muslims as a separate nation’, which is why he was so profoundly wrong when he simultaneously spoke of ‘lasting peace, amity and accord with India after the emergence of Pakistan’; that simply could not be. Perhaps, late General Zia-ul- Haq was nearer reality, when asked, as to why ‘Pakistan cultivated and maintained this policy of so much induced hostility towards India?’, he replied (some say apocryphalically, but tellingly) that, ‘Turkey or Egypt, if they stop being aggressively Muslim, they will remain exactly what they are – Turkey and Egypt. But if Pakistan does not become and remain aggressively Islamic it will become India again. Amity with India will mean getting swamped by this all enveloping embrace of India.’ This worry has haunted the psyche of all the leaders of Pakistan since 1947.

I share here some thoughts about how Pakistan has fared post-1947. Since birth it has been accompanied by high drama, often troubled by dark and imaginary shadows of history, also myths; some grandiose dreams and plans, therefore often intense emotionalism, and a sad absence of cold, phlegmatic logic. Inevitably therefore, the ‘idea of Pakistan’ has often got usurped, which is why Pakistan’s friends have so often become its masters, and which is also why the ‘state’ of Pakistan continues to remain fragile, so unsure, so tense. However, there were other factors, too. Pakistan, founded on the notion of separateness, a ‘nation’ distinctly apart from India, could do no more than to continuously affirm its Islamic identity. It therefore, adopted the identity of being an Islamic Republic. This seemingly direct and logical evolution from ‘Muslims as a separate nation’, to Pakistan as an ‘Islamic State’ was neither direct, nor evolutionary as might at first sight appear. In reality this has impeded Pakistan’s coming into its own, evolving into a modern, functioning state. Sadly, a reasoning and credible national identity eludes it still. From becoming an Islamic state, Pakistan ultimately, again perhaps inevitably, had to become a ‘jihadi state’, and when set on this path – it also then became, again perhaps inevitably, the epicentre of global terrorism; the chosen house of all the names associated with this global scourge: Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and Taliban and so on.

However, this partition had made Pakistan start ‘life’ with great administrative disadvantages too. Upon attaining Independence, India, freed of British rule, had a continuing identity, a functioning administrative structure, and in that immense spread of its land sufficient mass, enough resilience and cushion to absorb multiple shocks, repeatedly, as it had done so often through history. Not so in Pakistan; the challenges that it faced upon independence were formidable. After all, Pakistan had been no more than a ‘negotiating idea’, a tactical ploy to obtain greater political role for the Muslims of India so that they could become arbiters of their own political and social destiny, instead of leaving it in the ‘unreliable political hands of a Hindu Congress’.

Besides, no one, not even Jinnah knew, or had ever defined, Pakistan; the cry was always in the name of Islam. That is why when this dream of Pakistan finally became a reality, no one was prepared for it. There existed no prior assessment of problems or priorities, for no one had known what the final shape of Pakistan was going to be. Yet, 14 August could not wait, and Jinnah dared not ask for a deferment.

In less than two months provinces had to be divided, civil and armed services bifurcated and assets apportioned. ‘This telescoped time table created gigantic problems for Pakistan, which unlike India had not inherited a capital, a government, the financial resources to establish and equip its administrative, economic and military institutions. The migration of millions of refugees imposed its own burdens on this fledgling state with an awesome burden of rehabilitation’. This comment, from a former Pakistani diplomat would be one amongst many, of the multiple challenges that then faced Pakistan. For a fledgling Pakistan a quick release from these problems lay in a psychological diversion, a ‘confront India’ approach; that was so obvious an escape, but sadly it led nowhere then, and cannot, pragmatically assessed, lead anywhere even now.

Excerpted from Page 498-500 of ‘Jinnah: India-Partition Independence’ by Jaswant Singh