Critics of the idea of Pakistan, and in particular the Two-Nation Theory, say that the All India Muslim League postulated that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. Unfortunately, this faux narrative has also become part of the official ideology of Pakistan. It is therefore important to revisit the primary source documents to see whether the Muslim League or its standard bearers actually said that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist.
The sum total of the Muslim League’s demand in 1940 was expressed by Jinnah in his article in Time and Tide of March 9, 1940 in the following words:
“To conclude, a constitution must be evolved that recognises that there are in India, two nations who both must share the governance of their common motherland. In evolving such a constitution, the Muslims are ready to cooperate with the British Government, the Congress, or any party so that the present enmities may cease and India may take its place amongst the great countries of the world.”
Sharing in the governance of a common motherland is the language of coexistence. At no point did the Muslim League ever claim that Hindus and Muslims couldn’t live together. The question was of what terms must be set between them for such coexistence. We get an answer to this in the Lahore Resolution:
“That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specially provided in the constitution for minorities in these units and in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them and in other parts of India where the Mussalmans are in a minority adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.”
By claiming that Muslims were a nation and not a minority, the Muslim League was aiming at parity through a contractual arrangement between nations for share in governance of their common motherland. This is what modern political science calls consociationalism, which is ultimately a safeguard against cultural majoritarianism
The clearest implication here is that there would be Hindu minorities in Muslim-majority areas and Muslim minorities in Hindu-majority areas, for which there are safeguards prescribed above. How does this square with the claim that the Muslim League said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together?
By claiming that Muslims were a nation and not a minority, the Muslim League was aiming at parity through a contractual arrangement between nations for share in governance of their common motherland. This is what modern political science calls consociationalism, which is ultimately a safeguard against cultural majoritarianism. In an ideal world, these distinctions would not exist but majoritarianism around the world shows why such arrangements might ultimately be necessary in all countries. Whether one agrees with the consociational model or not, it is clear that the Muslim League never postulated that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. It must be remembered that Pakistan’s master signifier, Jinnah was the only political leader to be called the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity. At any rate, by getting a Hindu to write Pakistan’s first national anthem, nominating a Hindu (Jogindranath Mandal) to a Muslim League seat in the Interim government of India, and then making him Pakistan’s first law minister, Jinnah put paid the theory that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist.
So when did we come to believe this fiction as a nation? Textbooks from the 1950s and 1960s contain nothing to this end. On the contrary, the official history book for children, published by Kakul Press of all places, from 1958 incorporates notable Hindu figures from Rama to Gandhi as national heroes for Pakistan alongside Muslim ones like the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and Jinnah (First Steps in Our History; 1958). Much is rightly laid at the door of General Ziaul Haq, but I suspect that this reengineering of the national narrative started under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Bhutto had a maniacal hatred for Hindus, which was surprising given his mother was one, or may be there was something psychological about it. In a letter addressed to the Quaid-e-Azam in 1943, 15-year-old Zulfikar Ali Bhutto wrote: “Musalmans should realise that Hindus can never, will never unite with us. They are the deadliest enemies of our Koran and our Prophet.” Perhaps an ironic thing to write to a leader the majority of whose life was spent trying to bring Hindus and Muslims together. At any rate, Jinnah did not respond. As he aged, Bhutto became even more stridently anti-Hindu. In his speeches to the UN and as PPP’s founding chairman, Bhutto famously called for a 1,000-year war against India and Hindus. PPP’s foundational documents contain a section of Jehad aimed at India. So it was probably in the 1970s under Bhutto, after the loss of East Pakistan, that the national narrative began to take a decidedly anti-Hindu tone.
Ultimately this anti-Hindu narrative does not do credit to Pakistan. We must jettison it to become a normal state. Some of Pakistan’s finest citizens are Hindus and Pakistan is home to the fourth largest Hindu population in the world. The time has come to extract the religious poison that Bhutto and Zia injected into Pakistan’s body politic and become a normal country again.