The manner in which Pakistan and its history have been conceived, written about, taught, and understood out of context will continue to complicate any effort to define what this country means and how its people understand and perceive themselves. For instance, how conveniently we omit the Second World War from this context—the scientific invention of the nuclear bomb, which proved to be a decisive weapon in ending the War, the disintegration of the British Empire as a consequence of the conflict, and the subsequent independence of its territories, including India, and hence the creation of Pakistan.
Together, these events render the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in securing freedom for their respective nations a tale of fiction, purely imaginative.
I recall one such story from over a decade ago.
It occurred at a dinner hosted by a Pakistani colleague in Saudi Arabia. The host was a stalwart of a religious political party that wielded significant influence in Pakistani universities and had its admirers in Saudi educational institutions as well. On this occasion, it became clear that the gathering was intended to be political.
Prior to dinner, a gentleman began a lengthy lecture on the history of Sufism, somehow linking it to the political history of Pakistan. This discourse was tedious and lacked coherence. After about an hour, I posed a question — prompted by my desire to alleviate the tedium of remaining silent during the lecture — regarding the role of the Second World War in the creation of Pakistan, particularly as the war dismantled the British Empire. This question was met with rebuke and derision, while another colleague in that gathering posed a rather pointed question to the man who had lectured us. It turned out to be so uncomfortable that we felt obliged to leave before dinner was served.
The British government found it compelling to grant India independence and acquiesced to the demand for a separate Muslim state made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah—India gained freedom and Pakistan came into being two years after the war ended.
Even after more than a decade, that incident continues to haunt me. Primarily because those present were mostly university professors, yet their grasp of history was so shallow—one must consider the kind of pupils they would have produced in their classrooms. I am not a historian myself, but following that incident, I endeavoured to understand the events related to the creation of Pakistan more deeply, and the timeline reveals a story quite different from what has been taught and accepted by both academics and the general populace in this country.
Let us examine the timeline of events leading to the creation of Pakistan.
The Allahabad Address of Allama Iqbal, widely associated with the idea of Pakistan, was delivered in 1930; Iqbal later passed away in 1938. The Second World War commenced on 3 September 1939, and on the same day, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany, with Britain officially entering the war.
The Pakistan Movement began following the Lahore Resolution in March 1940—a year after the war had started. The war concluded in 1945, leaving Britain weakened and burdened with significant debt to the USA.
The British government found it compelling to grant India independence and acquiesced to the demand for a separate Muslim state made by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah—India gained freedom and Pakistan came into being two years after the war ended.
This timeline clearly indicates that had there been no Second World War, there would have been no independence for India, let alone the creation of Pakistan. None of the Indian leaders—Jinnah, Gandhi, Nehru, or Iqbal—were even contemplating a fully independent India prior to 1939. The discourse surrounding a free India from British rule began only after the war, with both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League taking their respective stances.
Jinnah, sensing that the British government in London was embroiled in circumstances unlikely to resolve favourably for them, realised that they would concede to the demand for a separate country for Indian Muslims, in exchange for Muslim support for the British government in terms of manpower during the war.
According to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), “By 1945, the undivided Indian Army was the largest volunteer army in history, made up of 2.5 million men and women who served on land, sea, and in the air”—a large number of these were Indian Muslims.
Every political movement requires a powerful narrative to build momentum and garner mass support—hence emerged the Two-Nation Theory, which invoked the Allahabad Address of Allama Iqbal, who had departed from this world two years before the Pakistan Movement commenced. The connections between Iqbal and Pakistan in terms of the timeline of events are tenuous at best. His poetry, however, was selectively invoked on various occasions to construct a narrative. The potency of his poetry contributed to the strength of the narrative built around it. His persona was imbued with religious significance, similar to what happened with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah after his demise.
I am uncertain how both of these men would have responded to this if it had occurred during their lifetimes. The historical narratives constructed around their personalities are referred to as hagiographies in the realm of historiography—biographies that accord their subjects excessive reverence.
The same goes for Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi in Indian historiography.
Understandably, newly established states required their indigenous narratives and heroes to construct their national histories and narratives. However, both nations did not find themselves entirely free to forge their national narratives; there were shadows from the past that haunted their stories, and the demons of a war that had not yet fully concluded, but had turned Cold, continued to cast a pall over their respective histories and self-images.
It was the World War that paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, thereby complicating the entire Middle East and the politics surrounding it, including in the USA.
The Cold War necessitated the establishment of global spy agencies, such as the CIA and the KGB, which contributed to the formation of deep states within the United States, the USSR, and other nations around the world. In the same vein, ISI was created in Pakistan and RAW was created in India.
It was the World War that paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, thereby complicating the entire Middle East and the politics surrounding it, including in the USA. Moreover, the British exit from India in those peculiar circumstances left Kashmir in a precarious position between India and Pakistan. Whether this was by design or by mistake remains a topic of ongoing debate to this day. The post-war world was full of suspicions and fears. The rivalry between the USA and the USSR until 1991, and subsequently with China after the turn of the 21st century, has compelled countries around the globe, particularly India and Pakistan, to shape their foreign and national policies accordingly.
Whatever has happened since the creation of Pakistan, we can see the shadows of that Great War in the backdrop.
It is therefore compelling to examine Pakistan’s national and foreign policies within this context. What has shaped Pakistan’s nation, culture, and policies is deeply intertwined with the unfolding of world events since its inception—particularly the Cold War. It is within this framework that I shall endeavour to analyse and understand Pakistani politics and policies in the ensuing article.