One of the core reasons behind Pakistan’s slide towards extremism is the state narrative about history. It teaches people to be good Muslims instead of good Pakistanis. The issue becomes more complicated when no one can agree on what "Muslim" means. So, currently, people hating each other for not being a "good Muslim" and calling for the beheading of a state official for ruling in favour of an excommunicated sect is the next stage and natural evolution of this narrative.
In a normal state, people would have been more concerned about Pakistan’s national interests and the lives of fellow Pakistanis instead of thinking about butchering them over a religious opinion. This is simply because they would have identified as Pakistani primarily instead of being Muslim first; hence, the life of every fellow Pakistani regardless of religion, sect, ethnicity and sex would have been treated with care. This has not happened in a long time and the distorted history provides justification to keep pushing this narrative.
Joseph Goebbels once stated, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Some in Pakistan have taken his advice to their hearts, as the number of times one comes across the same nonsense every other day is appalling. Whether it’s an ultra-right-wing group or bigoted politicians, all use the slogan "Pakistan ka Matlab Kya, La Ilaha Ill’Allah" (Pakistan means there is no God but One) to push religious zealotry and the "Muslim first" identity. Every kind of madness and savagery is defended by telling the people that they”re just defending the ideology of a country created in the name of Kalima.
From Quaid i Azam, Fatima Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Ra”ana Liaquat, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Begum Shahnawaz, Sir Zafarullah Khan to Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, none of Pakistan’s founders ever raised this slogan even once. Unfortunately, misfortune chased us even before our beloved homeland was created. This had a lot to do with the illiterate and ultra-conservative society that our founders had to deal with.
In 1943, a school teacher and poet Asghar Sodai coined the slogan “Pakistan ka Matlab Kya, La Ilaha Ill’Allah” which was picked up by street kids and illiterate individuals during the elections of 1945. However, it was never adopted by the Muslim League as its official slogan nor it was used in propaganda, especially by the party’s top brass. Even the election manifesto of 1945 focused primarily on improving the economic condition of minorities and protecting their way of life from majoritarianism, and not establishing the glory of Islam in Pakistan.
Maulana Jamal, the last surviving person of the December 1947 meeting, refused to disown Jinnah’s statement about the aforementioned slogan - confirming that this was indeed Jinnah’s official position on the matter
In December 1947, during the final session of the Muslim League, Jinnah was preaching modern democracy to now independent Pakistanis when a man in the crowd stood up and said that they preached “Pakistan ka Matlab Kya, La Ilaha Ill’Allah” to the people in the streets; so, what to do about it. Jinnah replied, "Neither the Muslim League Working Committee nor I ever passed a resolution called “Pakistan ka Matlab Kya.” You may have used it to catch a few votes." This interaction with the common person was not mentioned in the official record of the Muslim League but it was mentioned in the book Daghon ki Bahar by Malik Ghulam Nabi.
However, the official record reveals some other interesting facts that are linked to this story. The record shows that Maulana Jamal Mian was also present in the meeting, and he was a bit more "conservative" compared to the rest. He was unsatisfied with the behaviour of Muslim leaders and asked the League to drop the term "Muslim State" for Pakistan because there was nothing Islamic about its leaders. However, Maulana’s interpretation of Islam was quite moderate. He stated that Pakistan wasn’t Islamic because there was a class system and poor people suffered while the rich only cared about their luxuries.
In return, Jinnah made it clear that Pakistan was indeed a "Muslim State" based on social justice and equality as also taught by Islamic principles; so, there was no need to disown this term but Pakistan was definitely not a religious or a priestly state, meaning that there were no plans for having a role of clergy or religious institutions in Pakistan as far as the state policy was concerned. When Pakistan’s former ambassador Saad Khairi was writing his book Jinnah: Reinterpreted in 1995, to hear the other side of the argument, he contacted Maulana Jamal, who according to the official records was part of that meeting, to ask him about Jinnah’s interaction with the person on “Pakistan ka Matlab Kya.”
Maulana Jamal, then the last surviving person of that meeting, refused to disown Jinnah’s statement about the aforementioned slogan; hence, confirming that this was indeed Jinnah’s official position on the matter. Then there was Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, Jinnah’s main lieutenant in Punjab, a province with the most reactionary Muslim politics. In his book The Nation That Lost its Soul (also published in 1995) Shaukat states, "Pakistan was opposed by the fundamentalists amongst the Muslims... Today they have the cheek to call it the Home of Islam and that it was created for it."
While talking about the politics of Barelvi Pirs in Punjab, he claimed that "only a few among the hundreds in the Punjab" aided the Pakistan Movement and ‘they can be counted on fingertips." While talking about “Pakistan ka Matlab Kya” he said, “Today they (Ulema) are seeking support in the slogan which little boys chanted during our movement: Pakistan ka Matlab Kya, La Ilaha Ill’Allah (Pakistan means there is no God but One). First of all, this was never used as a slogan by any one of us. There is no God but One, there is no quarrel on that point but He is the same for Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jews, therefore, we could not claim Him as the sole property of the Muslim people."
Shaukat concluded, "Had it been the desire of my Quaid to make it a religious state, being a straightforward and a truthful person, he would have said so. […] Ours was a non-sectarian movement [and] we wanted to achieve economic well-being."
The evidence presented here proves that the Muslim League didn’t create Pakistan in the name of Kalima. These are rebuttals from the founders of the country themselves. Then there are a number of Muslim League manifestos, party positions, documents and official policies. None of them ever mentioned anything about establishing the country in the name of religion or Kalima. The time has come to put this rumour to rest and start the process of turning our religiously radicalised abnormal state into a normal one where religion is the matter between the people and God, and not between the people and the State.