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| J&K: Jinnah is not dead, he is very much alive | | Communal Approach -- I | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 8: The father and founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, gave a concrete shape to his communal views on March 23, 1940, when he presided over the Lahore session of the Muslim League. Delivering the presidential address, he said: “The Hindus and Muslims belong to two religious philosophies, social customs and literatures. They neither inter-marry nor inter-dine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are mainly based on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their concepts of life and on life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Musalmans derive their inspiration from different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is the foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to a growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the governance of their common motherland”.
The result of his no-holds-barred vicious propaganda, coupled with the evil designs of the British and the Congress’ muddled thinking and lust for political power, culminated in the establishment of Muslim Pakistan on August 14, 1947, displacement of millions of people and physical liquidation of thousands and thousands of people, as also in a situation under which women were maltreated, disgraced and sexually abused.
People say that the votary of the pernicious two-nation theory, Jinnah, died immediately after the formation of theocratic Pakistan. They are wrong. He is very much alive and he is in India. No, not one, there are many Jinnahs in India who are openly propagating views similar to the ones Jinnah started preaching, particularly since 1928, with a view to ensuring the country’s partition on communal lines. “Noted jurist” and well-known India-basher AG Noorani and former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah are just two of them. Leave aside the Deoband Ulemas, who not-so-long-ago issued a fatwa directing Muslims not to sing the national song, Bande Mataram, because it is “anti-Islam.”
No one can dispute that Noorani and Habibullah are carrying forward the legacy of Jinnah. The reason: Noorani, who has been preaching secession of Kashmir from India and opposing the extension of Central laws and institutions to Jammu & Kashmir, particular since 1954, has asked the People’s Democratic Party, the National Conference and the so-called moderate Hurriyat Conference of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq to “build consensus” on “self-rule”. Besides, he has urged “practical steps” aimed at “redrafting Article 370 in the light of self-rule” so that the redrafted “document (is) made irreversible within the parameters of Indian Constitution”. (Ignore “within the parameters of Indian Constitution” because Noorani has scant regard for the Indian statue book).
Jinnah in Noorani does not stop here. He goes on to say: “Why I believe fervently that ‘self-rule’ is very good proposal is that it is the most practicable formula and will be acceptable to people in India, Pakistan and to people of Kashmir”. Further, he asked “all the mainstream parties to…have a united stand on it” (self-rule). Noorani had said all this while addressing the People’s Democratic Party-sponsored seminar on self-rule at Srinagar on November 1, 2009.
It would not be out of place to mention here that Noorani is an ardent believer in the concept of talks with those firing on our soldiers. He has written in The Statesman and Frontline a number of times that “if you wish to forge a lasting peace, negotiate with those firing on your soldiers; never negotiate with those with no blood on their hands because they are irrelevant”. The context was Kashmir.
That said, Noorani, who so far has been advocating greater autonomy for Kashmir and had on more than one occasion described the People’s Democratic Party’s self-rule doctrine as a replica of the autonomy concept being advocated by the National Conference, has, it is obvious, taken a complete u-turn. The reasons are not far too seek. The most important reason is that self-rule doctrine is similar to the former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s four-point Kashmir solution – self-governance, demilitarization, joint-management and porous borders.
It needs to be underlined that Noorani had met Musharraf in Islamabad just before the latter’s downfall, discussed with him his Kashmir solution and thereafter wrote a very long essay in Frontline. His essay was nothing but an endorsement of the Musharraf line. He also extended unflinching support to the Musharraf solution because it was consistent with his patently sectarian approach to the so-called Kashmir problem. Significantly, like former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, he has good relations with persons in the right places. Habibullah has been holding similar views and consistently suggesting division of the Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir into five regions on purely communal lines. (To be continued)
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