Stark
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All India Radio gives Pakistan Jinnah speech tapes
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wasim-fan
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http://dawn.com/news/1040709/beyond-jinnahs-secularism
Beyond Jinnah’s secularism
"THAT Mohammad Ali Jinnah was secular is old hat. Two of his recently unearthed radio broadcasts that lay hidden in the archives of All India Radio testify yet again to the sometimes confusing but secular idealism which he shared with his two great rivals in the Congress party, Gandhi and Nehru.
True secularism, however, should be inclined to go beyond the Hindu-Muslim paradigm, that overwrought and smug expression of South Asian liberalism. All three architects of freedom laid stress on their respective interpretation of what they considered to be secular, though not without ultimately tragic consequences for their constituents.
It is no gainsaying that pitchers of water placed on railway platforms in pre-partition India were labelled Hindu paani and Muslim paani. There were Hindu Gymkhanas and Muslim Gymkhanas and so forth.
In fact, wayside restaurants in India still describe themselves as ‘Hindu Vaishnav Bhojanalaya’ or ‘Halal Kebabs’. You could even find a ‘Muslim Hotel’ in a small town, since Indians often label restaurants as hotels.
The question is: would the communities excluded from the Hindu-Muslim paradigm, the Dalits, for example, have been allowed to access either of the two pitchers assigned to the religious groups that would one day part ways, considering the subcontinental leaders’ notions of secularism and given their relative silence on other hidebound social segmentations?
The question is worth probing further though the answer is only too well known. This is because both Muslim and Hindu elites practised varying degrees of untouchability, which many still do. If the Dalits in India or Pakistan are in a hapless state even 66 years after independence, what is the verbal promise of secularism given by the great leaders worth anyway?
“The tolerance and goodwill that the great emperor Akbar showed to all non-Muslims is not of recent origin,” Jinnah claimed in his All India Radio broadcast of Aug 14, 1947.
He believed the virtues represented by Akbar went back 13 centuries “when our Prophet (PBUH) not only by words but by deeds treated the Jews and Christians handsomely after he conquered them. He showed to them outmost tolerance and regard and respect for their faith and beliefs. The whole history of Muslims where they ruled is replete with those humane and great principles and which should be followed and practised by us.”
Did this idea of equality for religions, in Jinnah’s case primarily between Hindus and Muslims, overlook another issue — the hidebound social inequality both the Muslim League and the Congress strove to play down if not completely ignore?
The notion of Hindus and Muslims being equal in law he helped propound in Pakistan is reminiscent of the less than perfect ideals that were circulated as pamphlets by Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh when she launched a guerrilla war against British rule in 1857 from the forests she was driven to.
Crucial source material is available to show that in many cases, quite possibly in most instances, the Dalit castes were so fed up with their Indian rulers that they were relieved when the British emerged as the victors from the bloodbath that 1857 was.
Did Jinnah discuss this with Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the towering Dalit leader who had a serious dispute with Gandhi’s attitude towards his community’s proposed rights in independent India?
Though Hazrat Mahal of Awadh played a heroic role in the battle against British rule, the content of the proclamation by her son, Birjis Qadar, promotes a different view. There is an intense bias against the lower class of Indians, even as the dethroned queen of Awadh appeals to Hindu-Muslim amity as her main asset.
The Indian Council of Historical Research has found a collection of proclamations issued by the rebel leaders. Documented by Dr Iqbal Hussain of Aligarh Muslim University, it is a must read for students of social history on both sides of the border.
Birjis Qadar (wali of Awadh) urges his subjects in the proclamation dated June 25, 1858 that his government respected the right of religion, honour, life and property, in that order, something the British ostensibly didn’t. Then he explains his claim.
“Everyone follows his own religion (in my domain). And enjoys respect according to their worth and status. Men of high extraction, be they Syed, Sheikh, Mughal or Pathan, among the Mohammedans, or Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaish or Kayasth, among the Hindoos, all these retain the respectability according to their respective ranks. And all persons of a lower order such as a Sweeper, Chamar, Dhanook, or Pasi cannot claim equality with them.”
Prince Birjis Qadar twists the knife further in his lament: “The honour and respectability of every person of high extraction are considered by (the British) equal to the honour and respectability of the lower orders.
Nay, compared with the latter, they treat the former with contempt and disrespect. Wherever they go they hang the respectable persons to death, and at the instance of the Chamar, force the attendance of a Nawab or a Rajah, and subject him to indignity.”
This reality of the partition discourse is overlooked in our textbooks as well as in higher academia. The two spools of Jinnah’s speech made public by Outlook magazine last week, and which Pakistan wants to be handed over, failed to raise the bar on the discussion of the standard Hindu-Muslim blame game though they could.
The first of the two recordings was perhaps Jinnah’s last address on the radio within the borders of what is now India. It was made on June 3, 1947, in Delhi, two months before he left for the country that had become his life’s mission.
The second, shorter but more well-known recording was his address to the constituent assembly of Pakistan on the day that nation came into existence: Aug 14, 1947."
Beyond Jinnah’s secularism
"THAT Mohammad Ali Jinnah was secular is old hat. Two of his recently unearthed radio broadcasts that lay hidden in the archives of All India Radio testify yet again to the sometimes confusing but secular idealism which he shared with his two great rivals in the Congress party, Gandhi and Nehru.
True secularism, however, should be inclined to go beyond the Hindu-Muslim paradigm, that overwrought and smug expression of South Asian liberalism. All three architects of freedom laid stress on their respective interpretation of what they considered to be secular, though not without ultimately tragic consequences for their constituents.
It is no gainsaying that pitchers of water placed on railway platforms in pre-partition India were labelled Hindu paani and Muslim paani. There were Hindu Gymkhanas and Muslim Gymkhanas and so forth.
In fact, wayside restaurants in India still describe themselves as ‘Hindu Vaishnav Bhojanalaya’ or ‘Halal Kebabs’. You could even find a ‘Muslim Hotel’ in a small town, since Indians often label restaurants as hotels.
The question is: would the communities excluded from the Hindu-Muslim paradigm, the Dalits, for example, have been allowed to access either of the two pitchers assigned to the religious groups that would one day part ways, considering the subcontinental leaders’ notions of secularism and given their relative silence on other hidebound social segmentations?
The question is worth probing further though the answer is only too well known. This is because both Muslim and Hindu elites practised varying degrees of untouchability, which many still do. If the Dalits in India or Pakistan are in a hapless state even 66 years after independence, what is the verbal promise of secularism given by the great leaders worth anyway?
“The tolerance and goodwill that the great emperor Akbar showed to all non-Muslims is not of recent origin,” Jinnah claimed in his All India Radio broadcast of Aug 14, 1947.
He believed the virtues represented by Akbar went back 13 centuries “when our Prophet (PBUH) not only by words but by deeds treated the Jews and Christians handsomely after he conquered them. He showed to them outmost tolerance and regard and respect for their faith and beliefs. The whole history of Muslims where they ruled is replete with those humane and great principles and which should be followed and practised by us.”
Did this idea of equality for religions, in Jinnah’s case primarily between Hindus and Muslims, overlook another issue — the hidebound social inequality both the Muslim League and the Congress strove to play down if not completely ignore?
The notion of Hindus and Muslims being equal in law he helped propound in Pakistan is reminiscent of the less than perfect ideals that were circulated as pamphlets by Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh when she launched a guerrilla war against British rule in 1857 from the forests she was driven to.
Crucial source material is available to show that in many cases, quite possibly in most instances, the Dalit castes were so fed up with their Indian rulers that they were relieved when the British emerged as the victors from the bloodbath that 1857 was.
Did Jinnah discuss this with Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the towering Dalit leader who had a serious dispute with Gandhi’s attitude towards his community’s proposed rights in independent India?
Though Hazrat Mahal of Awadh played a heroic role in the battle against British rule, the content of the proclamation by her son, Birjis Qadar, promotes a different view. There is an intense bias against the lower class of Indians, even as the dethroned queen of Awadh appeals to Hindu-Muslim amity as her main asset.
The Indian Council of Historical Research has found a collection of proclamations issued by the rebel leaders. Documented by Dr Iqbal Hussain of Aligarh Muslim University, it is a must read for students of social history on both sides of the border.
Birjis Qadar (wali of Awadh) urges his subjects in the proclamation dated June 25, 1858 that his government respected the right of religion, honour, life and property, in that order, something the British ostensibly didn’t. Then he explains his claim.
“Everyone follows his own religion (in my domain). And enjoys respect according to their worth and status. Men of high extraction, be they Syed, Sheikh, Mughal or Pathan, among the Mohammedans, or Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaish or Kayasth, among the Hindoos, all these retain the respectability according to their respective ranks. And all persons of a lower order such as a Sweeper, Chamar, Dhanook, or Pasi cannot claim equality with them.”
Prince Birjis Qadar twists the knife further in his lament: “The honour and respectability of every person of high extraction are considered by (the British) equal to the honour and respectability of the lower orders.
Nay, compared with the latter, they treat the former with contempt and disrespect. Wherever they go they hang the respectable persons to death, and at the instance of the Chamar, force the attendance of a Nawab or a Rajah, and subject him to indignity.”
This reality of the partition discourse is overlooked in our textbooks as well as in higher academia. The two spools of Jinnah’s speech made public by Outlook magazine last week, and which Pakistan wants to be handed over, failed to raise the bar on the discussion of the standard Hindu-Muslim blame game though they could.
The first of the two recordings was perhaps Jinnah’s last address on the radio within the borders of what is now India. It was made on June 3, 1947, in Delhi, two months before he left for the country that had become his life’s mission.
The second, shorter but more well-known recording was his address to the constituent assembly of Pakistan on the day that nation came into existence: Aug 14, 1947."
Gabbar Singh
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An interesting piece in the Dawn about Jinnah's Aug 11 speech.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1332701/smokers-corner-the-lost-recordings-of-jinnah
https://www.dawn.com/news/1332701/smokers-corner-the-lost-recordings-of-jinnah
DW44
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A picture speaks a thousand words but this one speaks a million. In this one picture, the cartoonist has summed up how the Pakistani state has presented Jinnah to the people of Pakistan over the decades and how those people now perceive him. Imagine a man who, on at least two different occasions, questioned the sanity of people asking for Islamic law in Pakistan being presented as the architect of the Saudi Arabia-im-the-making we call home today.
big_gamer007
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Interesting read, good of AIR to handover the speeches..
TalentSpotterPk
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Well I am biased so I will stand with his speeches like that of 11th August but
Many people say He was confused.
Both sides present pictures which suit them.
Do you read pieces of Yasser Latif Hamdani ?
[MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION]
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Hamdani is hands down the best Jinnah historian in the country. I'm on my phone at the moment but when I get home I'll post an article he recently wrote (which was promptly censored by Express Tribune under immense public pressure) detailing how Pakistan started drifting from his vision for it even when he was still alive and how he came to regret the decision to create it.
As far as him being confused is concerned, he wasn't so much confused as he was a consummate politician. He pandered to both sides of the liberal-Islamist divide to gather support for Pakistan but his actions made it very clear that he personally wasn't a fan of Islamic law.
TalentSpotterPk
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Would be happy to see a new thread on that article if allowed.
See we have something common
Great read. Confirms that the so called "The British made the caste system worse in the Subcontinent " theory, propagated by most right wing organizations, is plain BS ! They have always been trying to divert attention away from what has been he "Fundamental flaw" of India's social system !
CricketCartoons
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Should not derail the discussion, but your ignorant post needs to be corrected. Please provide evidence to show any reform done by the british to address the evils of caste system. Looks like Tharoor and Ramchandra Guha are also right wingers.
Certainly caste pre-dated British colonialism, but there is a strong argument that under the rule of the British, caste identities hardened. In order to govern Britain needed to understand its subjects. But in the construction of colonial knowledge, distinctions and particularisms were emphasised. This was partly because the British relied on textual authority and Brahmin pandits as sources of their knowledge over actual practice 'on the ground'. It was also a result of the application of science to government. There was an emphasis on gathering of ‘facts’ and preoccupation with taxonomy. Fluid and fuzzy identities were increasingly forced into clearer cut classifications.
Of course, the emphasis on difference was also the basis of colonial justifications for their continued rule, especially in the post rebellion period. They projected Indian society as one mired in divisions and conflict, and hence an alien foreign power was essential in maintaining order, standing above endemic discord, ruling impartially and fairly.
The institution of the census most clearly revealed how Britain understood Indian society. On the one hand the census certainly pointed to an image of India as ‘all of something’, as an entity which could be studied as a single unit. Yet, the census also emphasized particularisms and differences; documenting the religious, sectarian and caste affiliations of its subjects. Indians were ordered by colour, and physiognomy. In British eyes, India was united in a geographic and administrative sense but had no cohesive culture, it was fundamentally fragmented in their view.
The importance of numbers in political representation, and British sensitivity to claims grounded in the language of the tribe or caste acutely influenced Indians and heightened (not created) caste and religious consciousness.
It was a similar tale with biraderi. Biraderi affiliations in the Punjab were given sustenance by British policies during the colonial period. The British perceived personal relations in the Punjab as being structured around ‘tribally’ based rules and principles. For British administrators in late nineteenth century, like C L Tupper, the “native institution” central to rural Punjabi organization was the “tribe.”
This centrality of the ‘tribal’ idiom in British perceptions of Punjabi society was reflected in administrative framework constructed by Britain in the Punjab. Zails – administrative subdivisions which were unique to Punjab - were carved out to reflect the “tribal” distribution of the population. The Zaildar was to be, where possible, the ‘clan’ leader.
The Unionist party, the dominant party in the Punjab until 1945, based its claim to govern on interests and welfare of these ‘agricultural tribes’. It also justified the maintenance of a rural, mediatory structure of political leadership. With administration shaped around biraderi affiliations, ‘tribal’ identities became central to local politics and the power of the rural leader was often legitimized by the ‘tribal’ idiom. The Unionists power rested therefore not on direct appeals to individuals, or indeed on a claim to Punjabi identity, but rather on the local influence of biraderi leaders or rural notables. This in fact meant that there was a negligible party structure and organisation. Its ideology centered on a defense of a system of local influence and therefore the party had no following, independent of the rural intermediaries.
The symbolic focus of the party on ‘local community’ is revealed in a striking quote in 1936 by one critic.
The Punjab Alienation of Land Act in 1900 forbade non-agriculturalists from acquiring land in the countryside, thereby protecting ‘agricultural tribes’. Indeed “Unionists seem to believe” the critic declared “that the Land Alienation Act is to them what the Vedas and the Holy Quran are to the Hindus and Musalmans.”
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