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Pakistan Meant To Be A Secular State, Quaid-e-Azam Did Not Want An Islamic Republic, says Haji Adeel of ANP

December 25th, 2009 | 104 Comments

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

The big news making the headlines today is that Haji Adeel of ANP has spoken out against the Islamic character of the Pakistani state. Coming out of an official Christmas celebration, Haji Adeel said:

1. Pakistan was meant to be a secular state for all people of Pakistan.

2. Quaid-e-Azam Mahomed Ali Jinnah did not name Pakistan an Islamic Republic. Pakistan should become the Republic of Pakistan.

3. Quaid-e-Azam and Bacha Khan both believed in secularism.

4. Denying Non-Muslims of Pakistan the right to become president or prime minister is discriminatory, wrong and against the basic principle of Pakistan.

Haji Adeel was right ofcourse and this is a point that has been driven home by us on PTH many times. What is interesting is how other politicians reacted.

The first to react was Liaqat Baloch of the Jamaat-e-Islami who said: “Haji Adeel’s Party opposed Quaid-e-Azam in referendum”. I have written in some detail on the issue of referendum and criticized Bacha Khan and his party for it, but I wonder who gave Jamaat-e-Islami – which opposed Jinnah tooth and nail- to bring up this point? Just shows how Jamaat-e-Fitna-e-Maududiat is a party of crooks and hypocrites.

PML-Q’s reaction was middle of the road. S M Zafar said that Jinnah wanted equality of citizenship and freedom of religion and if that is amounted to secularism, Jinnah was secular. He however said that under a parliamentary democracy there is nothing wrong with limiting the office of president to Muslims. However there was no justification for any other office being closed to non-Muslims (incidentally the constitution does not say the PM has to be a Muslim but is subject to a Muslim only oath).

Then in came Munawar Hassan of Jamaat-e-Fitna-e-Maududiat. He too declared that Haji Adeel was playing with fire. He then went onto say that “secular lobby” is only basing it’s case on one speech and that too is being misinterpretted- how does one interpret “religion is a personal faith of an individual” and there would be no bars against anyone is beyond me. Furthermore Jinnah’s entire life as a whole shows and proves quite convincingly that Jinnah stood for equality of citizenship, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and a democratic polity based on rule of law- this is secularism.

But perhaps the most disgusting reaction came from ANP’s Zahid Khan who completely disowned Haji Adeel and said that Haji Adeel had nothing to do with party policy. He said further that Khan Abdul Wali Khan was a signatory to the Constitution of 1973 and therefore ANP saw Pakistan as an Islamic Republic.

How is history distorted in Pakistan and given a spin to suit the Islamists is perhaps indicated by Aaj TV’s “Blackbox documentary” on Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan. Jinnah had said: ‘The tolerance and goodwill that the Emperor Akbar showed to all the non-Muslims is not of recent origin. It dates back to thirteen centuries ago when our Prophet not only by words but by deeds treated the Jews and Christians after he had conquered them with the utmost tolerance and regard and respect for their faith and beliefs’

Aaj TV translated this as “Shahinshah Akbar nay jo rawadari ghair muslimo ko dikhai wo hamaray liye namoona nahi”

Shame on Aaj TV! Shame on Aaj TV’s crooked owners and shameless editors.

Picture- Courtesy Mobilink

Written by admin

Filed under: Jinnah, Pakistan · Tags: Aaj TV, ANP, Bacha Khan, Emperor Akbar, Haji Adeel, Jinnah, Jinnah's Pakistan, Pakistan, secular, secularism

104 Responses to "Pakistan Meant To Be A Secular State, Quaid-e-Azam Did Not Want An Islamic Republic, says Haji Adeel of ANP"

Milind Kher says:

January 3, 2010 at 7:46 pm

@AZW,

When talking about people like the ones you mentioned, there is one painful fact to be understood. The voice of one militant person is equivalent to that of 10 peaceful ones.

That is the reason why moderate voices are drowned, and people consider the militant voices to be truly representative of a community or a country, as the case may be.
Mustafa Shaban says:

January 4, 2010 at 1:50 am

@AZW: I do not try to bend the world to my opinion. I am also very open to the other side as you have seen. Thnx for your compliments.
rex minor says:

January 7, 2010 at 7:50 am

I suspect that many of you were not even born when the refrendum was conducted to partition the country. It does not matter what Mr Jinnah genuinely wanted, the important thing is what the little men,that you guys always seem to ignore, voted for,when they took part in the refrendum.
I do not see any serious differences between various opinions expressed on this subject. As a lawyer, and I note there are quite a few among you, mr YLH would be ready to convince even Mr Jinnah what he wanted, if he was to suddenly reappear in person. The facts are that neither Mr Jinnah nor any other leader from the muslim league imagined the aftermath of the partition. No one ever contemplated the departure of non-muslims! Therefore,it goes without saying that the intended republic( Islamic or muslim) was to guarantee equal rights and privileges to all its citizens regardless of their ethnic and religion background.
what has become of this super vision is a different story. The country also inherited great many leaders from India. The only army Pakistan had to defend its borders was the Pashtoons, yes sir, the Pashtoons. The armies of Frontier Force, khyber Rifles andthose from Swat(yousafzais, mohmands9 and waziristan(wazirs, massouds) etc. were the only one with nothing more than light weaponry. The readers should recall this period of history when they observe Pakistan modern armies current campaign in the Pashtoon territories.
The political leaders of Pakistan have time and again proven themselves as the most incompetant and out of touch with the society. Every now and then they requested the military for intervention, thereby compelling the military takeover. I am sorry I am only an observer, today the country is worst than in previous years, no obvious oncept or vision. How long the army will keep on playing the role of a policeman to protect Zardari and co? As long as the Americans pay the dollero, this is what they have been all the time. Saudi money poured in with conditions to make the country strictly Islamic. This was not the intention of Mr Jinnah or anyone. He did not have the slightest idea of running a country. The Hindus in today’s Pakistan were the business magnets and money experts and when they left? Well they had to wait for the migration of the muslim business people from india. mr jinnah offered not to take any salary. He probably imagined that no Govt. leader would demand a salary, and that the military would bring their own weaponry and horses to make infantry and cavalry units. Perhaps he thought that the Colonialists would pay the state enough finances to pay for the police and the civil servants. Well, this did not happen. The Saudis did, and slowly the country shaped the society as one finds it today. No one should have the illusuion that the country is likely to exist with deja vu policy. Reforms are needed in militry and other avenues of the Govt. to make it a Modern State. But first and foremost the anarchy and the killing of the citizens must stop!
Ali Raza says:

March 3, 2010 at 9:07 pm

What the hell you Pakistan fellow students are thinking. For God sake it is not the time to waste time in such useless debates and the words written above are not authentic at all haj i and all other members are working for their personal interests come on Muslims work hard and make this nation an Islamic nation remember your forefathers who scarified everything just for us to give us a platform and we got Pakistan as a platform work hard on this platform and just rule the world come on stop messing release what the threats we are facing unite as a nation and work together come on we have good experience of ruling we ruled over sub-continent for centuries that inshallah we will do it again.