Ishtiaq Ahmed Pakistan, Democracy, Islam And

Home , Islam and secularism, Khawaja Nazimuddin

ISHTIAQ AHMED

(DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY)

PAKISTAN, DEMOCRACY, ISLAM AND SECULARISM: A PHANTASMAGORIA OF CONFLICTING MUSLIM ASPIRATIONS

Introduction akistan's travails as an independent state have been marked by perennial con• P troversies about its ideological foundations. Was it envisaged as an Islamic state or a secular democracy or something else? This question has loomed large in discussions on Pakistan but no conclusive answer has yet been given. In a dra• matic period of seven years, especially from the end of 1945 until Pakistan be• came an independent state on 14 August 1947, the All-India Muslim League (ML) had mobilized Muslims of all sectarian, cultural orientation and ideological pref• erences behind its campaign for a separate state for Muslims. Modernists, die• hard clerics, Communists and others jumped on to the Pakistan bandwagon, each group believing that its aspirations will be realized in that state. However, once the state had been attained the conflicts and contradictions in the percep• tions of the various groups became apparent. This paper argues that the roots of these controversies can be traced to the deliberate ambiguity with which the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jin• nah, acclaimed as the Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) by his follower, surrounded his campaign for Pakistan. Pakistan emerged as a separate state on 14 August 1947 without the leaders having any clue about the principles on which its na• tional identity, constitution or law would be based. As late as February 1947 at least the top leaders of the Muslim League (ML) did not have any clear idea about what sort of state Pakistan would be. A few months later on 14 August it had come into being as an independent and sovereign state in the Indian sub• continent. This fact comes out patently in what the Governor of Punjab Sir Evan Jenkins wrote in his confidential fortnightly report to the Viceroy Field Marshall Sir Archibald Percival Wavell about his meeting with the Muslim League leader Khawaja Nazim-ud-Din on 18-19 February 1947: 'In our first meeting (18 February, author's note) Khawaja Nazim• ud-Din admitted candidly that he did not know what Pakistan means, and that nobody in the ML knew, so it was difficult for the League to carry on long term negotiations with the minorities' .1

I -Fortnightly Confidential Report (FCR), written by Governor of Punjab Sir Evan Jenkins to

It is wonh noting that Khawaja Nazimuddin served both as governor-general and prime minister of Pakistan soon after it became independent. What needs to be noted is that the Muslim League described the Muslims of India as a separate and distinct nation. Once independence had been achieved, the differences of sect and conceptions of Islam and politics quickly surfaced, revealing that the Muslim community was by no means a monolithic entity. Moreover, non-Muslim minorities were to be found in what became Pakistan even when the bulk of its population was Muslim. The leadership of the Muslim League was predominantly Westernized and modernized while Muslims in gen• eral were traditional in their orientation. In political terms, there was no tra• dition of democracy or constitutionalism in Islam, much less of secularism.2 The founder of Pakistan was no sympathizer of Islamic fundamentalism and actually preferred a secular state, but it will be shown presently that his public campaign for Pakistan was heavily dependent upon the invocation of Islam and Muslim c ulama (clerics). There was a long and continuous tradition of an Islamic state based upon the enforcement of dogmatic Islamic law, known as the sharic a, and before British colonialism displaced the Mughal rulers of India it was the official law of the state. The sharic a is supposed to be of divine origin whose principles had been elaborated by various schools of Islamic jurisprudence called fiqh more than a thousand years earlier.3 In the Muslim mind, the Islamic state has been an instrument of justice and good government. Thus many began to believe that the establishment of Pakistan would result in the revival of the ideal Islamic state. What that would entail concretely in modern times was not at all clear to them. Consequently when Pakistan came into being confusion about its identity and purpose was rampant at all levels. Many ideas were put forth, but for purposes of simplicity one can classify them into three main clusters of opinion or models: • Pakistan should be a modern Islamic democracy. • Pakistan should be an Islamic state based on dogmatic Islam law, the shari'a. • Pakistan should be a secular democracy. It will be demonstrated below that the first and second approaches have had a closer affinity with the logic and campaign for Pakistan and have even been tried in practice though not with much success because even when a general agree• ment existed among those who took part in the constitution-making process and wielded political power and authority that Islam should influence national iden• tity, constitution and law it has not led to a consensus on how much of Islam

Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, March 1947: LIP & J/5/250, p. 3-79. 2-1. Ahmed, The Concept ofan Islamic State: An Analysis ofthe Ideological Controversy in Paki• stan, London, Frances Pinter, 1987, p. 45-62. 3-Abdur Rahman I. Doi, Shariah: The Islamic Law, London, Taha Publishers, 1984; Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991; Anwar Ahmad Qadri, Islamic Jurisprudence in the Modem World, Lahore, Sh. Mu• hammad Ashraf, 1973.