Indian National Congress (INC), formed in 1885, had a vision of representing the entire Indian population. On the other hand, the All India Muslim League (AIML), formed in 1906, was an ethnic platform. Its purpose, to safeguard the interests of the Muslims of India. It never had the vision to represent all the people of India. It never thought that it was possible for the Muslims or members of other minor religious groups, to move out of their limited mental and physical circles and represent all the people of India. This was the limitation of thought of the Muslim leadership of India.
The fear of the Muslims of India that one person, one vote, would keep them under perpetual Hindu subjugation, stems from lack of belief in themselves. Lack of belief that they can fairly further the interests of the people of other faiths. Lack of belief, that they have the ability to take along with them the people of all faiths. The Muslims of the Indo-Pak sub-continent, by their actions since partition, have lived up to this ‘lack of belief in themselves’.
Still, more than seventy years after the partition of India, there has never been a thought or talk, on the possibility of ever a Muslim dominated organisation representing the interests of all of the peoples of the Indo-Pak sub-continent. This has been the limitation of thought, which was, is and appears that it will remain, until there is a Muslim leadership strong enough to overcome it.
The Muslims of the sub-continent of India have proven, time and time again, that they have never entertained the thought of representing the interests of anyone but the Muslims. Even this function has not been performed well. East Pakistan has become Bangladesh.
Occupied Kashmir has become more occupied. Baluchistan is calling for independence. While each of the seventy two factions and sub factions of Muslims in Pakistan, call the other, a ‘kafir’.
The string of non-inclusive approaches of the leadership of Pakistan to deal with their own people, shows the inability of the Muslims of Indo Pak sub-continent to take along with them all the people, no matter what religion they belong to. These very Muslims, who sit in the legislature, and others, who are the beneficiaries of most of the meager resources of a poor country, on immigration to a new country, expect a treatment and status equal to the one, enjoyed by the citizens of the host country. However they are not willing to give the same status to their own non-Muslims.
Today, more than seventy years after partition, Pakistan is an ideological wasteland. It is adrift in rough waters for grabs by the highest bidder, to use and abuse, as the buyer may wish.
What the Modi government of India is doing since coming to power, Pakistan did it six months after the death of Jinnah, in March 1949, with the passage of the objectives resolution. This was the first coup on the ideology of Pakistan. The steps taken by the Modi government with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 2019, is a coup by the BJP government on the ideological basis of India, as envisioned by Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. The forces that carried out this coup, on the ideology of India, are the ones whose hands are stained with the blood of ‘the father of India’, Mahatma Gandhi. Nathuram Godse, a member of the radical Hindutva movement carried out the assassination by firing three bullets, into his chest on 30th January, 1948.
Today, more than seventy years after partition, Pakistan is an ideological wasteland. It is adrift in rough waters for grabs by the highest bidder, to use and abuse, as the buyer may wish. If India continues on the journey, which Modi embarked with the Hindu led and Muslim targeted Gujrat riots of 2002, the revocation of the special status of Kashmir in August 2019, the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act of December 2019 and the Anti-Muslim riots in Delhi of February 2020, then in the years to come, India would be more directionless, than Pakistan is today.
What the Muslims of Pakistan have done with their minority, is exactly what they themselves feared would be done to them by the Hindu majority of India. They reduced the non-Muslims of Pakistan, to a constitutional minority, ‘half a citizen’.