What was extremely disturbing was the revelation by Mr Taqi that Mr Burki has chosen to criticise Jinnah’s famous August 11 speech in one of his books. Here, I must add that the August 11 speech was not a solitary speech but was a consistent and unalterable position Jinnah took in his 41-year-long political career that saw him transform from a staunch Indian nationalist to an apostle of Muslim nationalism. A cursory study of Mr Jinnah’s speeches in the Indian legislature would reveal a few dozen such pronouncements about religion being a personal matter and communal disagreement being a political issue of minorities and their interaction with the then to be established post-colonial state. In any event, Pakistan was the result of a breakdown of negotiations between the votaries of centralising Indian nationalism and Muslim nationalists. Much debate has occurred on the issue about whether Muslim nationalism was a plan-B nationalism or whether it was always intended to create a separate state, and more historians studying the event of partition impartially have come to believe that it was the former.
Categories: Accepting Islam, Answers to Anti-Islam, Asia, Economy, Pakistan