What was the State Jinnah dreamed of

What was the State Jinnah dreamed of, what has it become. Writer Patrick French measures that with Shoma Chaudhury Can you outline the idea of the nation state that Jinnah wanted to create?

Well, he wanted to create a homeland for Indian Muslims.

He came to that position as a lawyer, a good lawyer, after exhausting other possibilities. But his idea of religious nationalism was completely different from how that term would be understood today, or how the concept of an Islamic State would now be seen.

Patrick French

Can you elaborate? What was his idea of religious nationalism?

He wanted a homeland for Muslims rather than an Islamic State. He felt – justifiably – that Indian Muslims were not represented by the Congress and so they needed a homeland. It is very important to contrast the vision of Pakistan that he had with the reinvention of Pakistan in the late 1970s by General Zia, and the subsequent formulation of a religious State and Islamisation of Pakistani society.

Having acquired that separate homeland, would you say his vision paralleled Nehru’s?

I don’t think one can say that. The problem is that to use those terms now means such different things. Secularism, for instance, is a word that has become increasingly meaningless as the decades have gone by. In the case of Nehru, he came from the majority community and could nurture an idea of a state where everybody would be equal. It was undoubtedly an idealistic and positive way of looking. But Jinnah and other leaders in the Muslim League were right in feeling their voice was not really being heard inside Congress. There were hardly any leading Muslim figures in the Congress in the 30s and 40s, they were all nominal figures, and you could say the same problem has gone on. The lack of Muslim leadership in India, in one sense, is an even greater problem 60 years later.

Is contemporary Pakistan anywhere close to what Jinnah would have wanted?

Jinnah would find present-day Pakistan unrecognisable. It is close to being a failed State. A part of that is to do with the conflict between the military and political class (or what remains of it) and people who

harbour strong views about how an Islamic State should be run. For instance, take Al Qaeda's recent statement that the Caliphate should now extend from Spain to Indonesia. You are looking at a huge millenarian fantasy.

Why do you think Pakistan has failed itself as a democracy? India inherited the same drawbacks – feudalism, poverty... Why did the two countries take such different routes?

Jinnah was left with a truncated Pakistan. The institutions of the State were far less developed than in India. They had to be created. The breakaway of Bangladesh, which was bound to happen, also crippled the country. But the roots of the situation now go back to what General Zia did in the late 70s. There was a ban on anything that remotely smacked of Hindu practices, kite-flying and so on, the Hudood ordinances – the whole metamorphosis into a would-be Islamic State. An interesting book about this period has recently been published, a novel called <The End of Innocence> by Moni Mohsin.

Do you feel there is justice in the hostile way the two states view each other? In the view India has of Pakistan as a State abetting if not directly sponsoring terrorism?

On both sides, the view is skewed, though particularly on the Pakistan side. It is based on a lack of information on how things actually work in India. The fact that India is a land of opportunity for the middle classes, a vibrant democracy – most Pakistanis would have no idea what India is like. For the rest, it is justified to say that in the past cross-border terrorism has been sponsored by Pakistan, even though I get the impression that Musharraf has retreated on that. But clearly, there are still organisations operating in Pakistan and possibly in Bangladesh that are creating terror in India, as we have seen with the recent bombings in Bombay. Part of the problem is that, in terms of public relations, the Indian State has been bad at proving to an international audience how direct those links actually are. India’s accusations have tended to be rhetorical rather than backed on hard evidence that journalists might run with.

What would you pick as the key milestones in the life of the country?

The loss of Bangladesh, the Islamisation of the 1970s which pulled the rug from under the pluralistic, secular idea of Pakistan, particularly among the more prosperous. Don’t forget in the early 70s,

people were wearing mini-skirts in Karachi and Kabul. A version of modernity existed in Pakistan and Afghanistan that no longer exists.

One interesting consequence of the way things have gone in the last few years is that the rich and prosperous and educated of Pakistan have got out like never before. It is the greatest problem that can hit a semi-developed country. You can see it happening in an extreme way in Iraq. So London and New York are full of the Pakistani elite – people who could have steered the country towards a more productive future. The other milestone I would pick is September 11, 2001. I think it enabled Pakistan to have a future of a sort, since it forced the USA to continue backing Pakistan as a strategic or regional partner in South Asia. Without American financial support, Pakistan would be worse off. The strategic importance as an American base has left it ostensibly more secure, but there is this odd situation now – you have increased religious militancy inside Pakistan, extreme rural poverty, US practical and financial intervention, and yet the educated and the rich want to live abroad.

It’s not a very happy situation.