SPY EYES

Or Intellectual Accountability of the Nation

"When I think Pakistan has come into being, it's a great satisfaction for my soul, it was a very difficult task, I could not have achieved it by myself. In doing so, the blessings of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) were with me. Now its imperative upon this nation to follow the path of Khulfai Rashideen so that Allah fulfills His promise and grants us the rule over earth." M. A. Jinnah, Ziarat, Sept 1948

By Jawad Raza Khan

Most of the time in our drawing room discussions, we discuss both the elements and when, the participants reach to a conclusion which tantamount to lowering or negating the importance of ideology even against individual economy, I stand dumb founded ………………….

More than 2/3^rd of the century has gone – when an ideology, on which existence of a nation rests, was revealed to the world. It was an official birthday of the famous Two Nation Theory, which had the power of truth to change the world map, and as in the case of every truth this ideology has also been attacked, brutalized, high jacked and also cut to half but still Pakistan survives. One must remember that young Pakistani minds have been pounded and bombarded by a school of thought totally in confrontation with this indispensable foundation of the country. Every now and then the concept of Mr. Jinnah in relation to minorities was distorted by the pseudo intellectuals of our country and at the same time it has also been horrifyingly abused by the Rightist. Resultantly, young generation is in a bona fide frightening dilemma, where they are more than suspicious about the struggle of one of the greatest leadership ever produced by Muslim World on this globe.

If we as a nation are mindful of the said confusion, some sort of an intellectual accountability has to be done, more than ever today and for that a very small but vital part of the Pakistan Movement is needed to be read again……………………………………

Election results of British – India (1937) sent a strong statement by All India Congress after defeating Muslim League in nearly all its strong holds – Muslim League was not even able to gather majority to form government in any province of India – The Indian National Congress was in majority in Madras, U. P., C. P., Bihar and Orrisa and were able to form a coalition government in Bombay and N. W. F. P (Now KPK) - To some extent they also proficiently secure political importance in Sindh and Assam, and formed the ruling coalition there as well.

In those elections Congress was successful to muster power in nine out of eleven provinces. On the other hand, Muslim League failed to form government in any province. Quaid-i-Azam offered Congress to form a coalition government with the League but the Congress rejected his offer. The canvas was dejected, hopeless and frightening for the Muslim community.

All the apprehensions came true, as after taking charge in July 1937; Congress declared Hindi as the national language and Deva Nagri as the official script; The Congress flag was given the status of national flag, slaughtering of cows was prohibited; it was made compulsory for the children to worship the picture of Gandhi at school; Band-i-Mataram, an anti-Muslim song taken from Bankim Chandra Chatterji's novel Ananda Math, was made the national anthem of the country; Religious intolerance was the order of the day; Muslims were not allowed to construct new mosques; Hindus would play drums in front of mosques when Muslims were praying.

The situation was so worse that even the biased Westerner political thinkers had an in-different opinion about the Congress era (1937-1940).

Sir William Barton writing in the "National Review" in June 1939 also termed the Congress rule as "The rising tide of political Hinduism".

Differences between British and Congress lead to the resignation of the Government, which came as a sigh of relief for the Muslims of sub continent. Quaid-i-Azam asked the Muslims to celebrate December 22, 1939 as a day of deliverance and thanksgiving in token of relief from the tyranny and oppression of the Congress rule.

Point here to contemplate is this: what made a disunited community of Muslims in sub continent to pass Pakistan resolution, just after three years of big election defeat and merely three months after the end of cruel Congress rule?

The speech made by Quaid-i-Azam at Minto Park, Lahore on March 22, 1940. In this speech, he stated that“Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, with different social customs and literature. They neither intermarry, nor eat together, and indeed belong to two different civilizations whose very foundations are based on conflicting ideas and concepts. Their outlook on life and of life is different”. He emphasized that “in spite of the passage of about 1,000 years the relations between the Hindus and Muslims could not attain the level of cordiality”.

The only difference between the writings of Al-Biruni and the speech of Quaid-i-Azam was that Al-Biruni made calculated predictions, while Quaid-i-Azam had history behind him to support his argument. Prediction which was made by this renowned philosopher of his time around 900 years before creation of Pakistan and narrated by Mr. Jinnah cannot be taken as an incident and especially when it made history of his time.

Vertical observation of the world map of that era can pick up great similarities with regards to what all similar was happening at that time in other parts of the planet. Colonialism was being replaced by neo-colonialism.

• 1947Great Britain decided to leave Palestine as in the case of India-called on the United Nations (UN) to make recommendations. UN convened its first special session and on November 29, 1947, it adopted a plan calling for partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as an international zone under UN jurisdiction.
• 1947Arab protests against partition erupted in violence, with attacks on Jewish settlements in retaliation to the attacks of Jews terrorist groups to Arab Towns and villages and massacres in hundred against unarmed Palestinian in their homes.
• 15 May 1948British decided to leave on this day, the same day, the armies of Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq joined Palestinian and other Arab guerrillas in a full-scale war (first Arab-Israeli War). The Arabs failed to prevent establishment of a Jewish state, and the war ended with four UN-arranged armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
• The small Gaza Strip was left under Egyptian control, and the West Bank was controlled by Jordan with the recognized Jewish state in between the two small chunks of Palestinian lands.
• Of the more than 800,000 Arabs who lived in Israeli-held territory before 1948, only about 170,000 remained. The rest became refugees in the surrounding Arab countries, ending the Arab majority in the Jewish state.

Else creation of Pakistan rests resembles what happened in the ME. Just to crystallize.

• 2200 miles of Indian Territory in between East and West Pakistan.
• Unresolved agenda of Kashmir.

It was certainly through resolute leadership of Pakistan Movement which could snatch Pakistan out of the jaws of British and Indian Congress leadership, but then why we left behind rather so behind of another ideological state.

Now let’s evaluate after 63 years that where the Jewish state is standing and where the Muslim state is………………….

Israel’s 1953 Law of State Education specified aims for the education system.

• To base education on the values of Jewish culture.
• On love of the Homeland and loyalty to the State and the Jewish People. (Mar’I, 1978, P 50)

Over 50 years have passed since the enactment of this law, but the aims it specified remain central to current Israeli public educational policy. Though the law was amended in 2000, it maintains educational objectives for public schools that emphasize Jewish values, history and culture, while ignoring Palestinian values, history and culture (Adalah, 2003) (The legal center for Arab minorities in Israel).

In June 2001, Minister of Education, Limor Livnat, stated that she would like to see that “there is not a single child in Israel who doesn’t learn basics of Jewish and Zionist knowledge and values” (Fisher-Ilan, 2001, p.4B). The Ministry of Education operationalized these goals though programs such as the “100 Basic Concepts” curriculum unit that was introduced to the middle schools in the 2004/05 school year.

On the other hand in the same era we were busy in making up a new face of Pakistan more acceptable to US in particular and westerners in general, in the aftermath of eleven psychopaths hitting US on their own soil (needed citation). Interestingly none of them belonged to Pakistan but we were the first one to start re-establishing ourselves away from our own ideology. Just to quote an example, knowingly, that the correct concept of Jihad in Islam is contradictory to what westerners are propagating and the terrorists are executing, we started amending our text books-new syllabi was introduced fiddling with the basic structure of our ideology. Very strangely this all was done on the name of creating interfaith harmony to curb terrorism, which is fortunately one of the basic tenets of Islam. So much so a sizeable portion of Pakistan Movement was also found unsuitable for the consumption of young generation on the directions of USAID educational programs (heavily funded by US). What a pity!

Today, as we stand as a nation, on the cross road of destruction and humiliation, we need to go back to square one, where one Jinnah clogged the British Empire and opportunist Hindu mentality to create another Palestine in the lap another Israel ( India) and made us Pakistanis.

Long time back, when I was a student of 9^th standard, one of our teachers Mr Nadvi (former enthusiastic worker of Muslim League) use to give us lessons on Pakistan Studies. Whenever he used to come to the class, we as good students use to immediately open our text books but we were told to close it down. Mr Nadvi in his typical authoritarian tone use to say “Don’t open your books, till I am alive you don’t need them, I am Pakistan, listen me, you will come to know what a great nation we are”.

We require hundreds of Nadvis now, to keep those books closed, as now, they have been disgustingly tampered as well.

He gave us a classic example of a compass for defining the importance of ideology for the prosperity and glory. With some changes I am feeling honoured to present the ideological philosophy of our great teacher.

• The pivot of the compass is the ideology, required to be firm, unshakable as it is the gift of nature.
• As long as we believe and execute Unity, Faith and Discipline the radius will increase and so as our sphere of influence as a nation.
• The most important factor leadership when trained and tamed through the radius will draw a successful path for the Nation.

One must remember the divine power of nature which selects you for this phenomenal task.

Louis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. He, even as a western philosopher, grades ideology as indispensable.

“Ideology… is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence”. Althusser

And definitelyeconomies are built for the people who exist on ground.