LAHORE, PAKISTAN, August 10, 2020 (by Yaqoob Khan Bangash, a historian at Information Technology University Lahore): It has now become fashionable to quote Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech every year on its anniversary to feel good that Pakistan was created on broad-based liberal principles, and also to give a sop to the minorities that there is hope – still.
One way to look at Jinnah’s speech is to note that he was positing a new theory of citizenship for Pakistan based on the concept of “one nation.” While Jinnah argued that India was composed of two nations [Hindus and Muslims] which were so different that they could not live together and so Pakistan was a necessity, he also realised that one cannot lead a country which is divided into several nations.
In the seventy-three years since August 11 speech of Jinnah, time and again all non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan have expressed their desire to be part of the “one nation” of Pakistan – only to be scoffed at.
When the Hindus wanted joint electorates to foster national unity in the 1950s, despite the reality that their numbers might decrease, they were opposed by the majority Muslims. When Christians wanted to play a part in the education of the country, they were rewarded by the nationalization of their schools and colleges in 1972. When the Kalash [an indigenous non-Muslim people in northwest Pakistan along the Afghan border] wanted to live in peace and foster a multicultural view of Pakistan, mass conversion drives targeted them.
When Hindus just wanted to survive in Pakistan, their girls were abducted and forcibly converted. And when non-Muslims were still reeling from being denied equality with Muslims in law under the Qanun-e-Shahadat Ordinance, they were gifted the blasphemy law to ensure further subjugation and threats.
Unless we return to this fundamental principle of ‘One Nation,’ [i.e., one that encompasses its minorities] Pakistan can never develop, nor prosper or be at peace with itself.