By Yasser Latif Hamdani

I am writing this article as a rebuttal to Khuldune Shahid’s article “Jinnah’s Pakistan a mirror of his contradictions.” It is necessary because if you do not counter a falsehood in public domain over time it is taken to be the truth. It is sad that there are many OpEd writers who when writing on this topic do not check their facts or at least try and understand what the point of view is that they are challenging. Khuldune’s article is no exception. It draws on several strawman fallacies which have nothing to do the argument that Jinnah’s vision for Pakistan was a secular one.

Jinnah’s Secularism

Khuldune’s argument that Jinnah did not use the word secular when defining his vision is neither here nor there. The requirements for a secular state are the absence of a state religion and not the use of the word secular. The US Constitution does not use the word “secular”. Indian constitution did not use the word “secular” till 1976. The word “secular” was inserted along with “socialist” through the 42^nd Amendment. Contrary to what Khuldune Shahid wrote, those who claim that Jinnah spoke of a secular state don’t rely on two lines of one speech but the entire record of the man. Looking at Jinnah’s record as a whole would lead to two conclusions:

a.         Jinnah was and remained all throughout his political life a staunch Indian nationalist who nonetheless was not ready to turn his back to his community which not only gave him representative status but which as a minority had to secure some level of equality with the Hindu majority before a consensual inclusive Indian nationality could be evolved.

b.         Jinnah was a politician who understood that politics is the art of possible.

Keeping this in mind we can divide Jinnah’s career into four distinct phases:

1.         1906-1910: Indian and Indian alone

This was the period when Jinnah, in his early 30s, believed – as he would realise later- that Indian nationalism should remain unconcerned with the various religious, ethnic and other parochial divisions and should impose a territorial unity from the top. In this period Jinnah strongly condemned the formation of the Muslim League and the Rajas and Nawabs who under the leadership of Aga Khan petitioned the British rulers for separate electorates. In 1910, despite his opposition to separate electorates, he was named as a Congress candidate and defeated a Muslim League candidate on a Muslim seat. He remained however an Indian to whom his religious belief was a personal matter and not a political issue.

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