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‘Islam a democratic religion’, Quaid told US journalist

WASHINGTON: Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah told an American journalist a month after the establishment of Pakistan that “of course” Pakistan’s “will be a democratic constitution; Islam is a democratic religion”.

The journalist was the famous Life magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White who interviewed the Quaid in Karachi in September 1947 and wrote about it in a book published two years later. The book – Halfway to Freedom - now out of print might be reissued if the publishers, Simon and Schuster, feel it will have a readership 55 years after it first appeared.

When Ms Bourke-Smith whose portrait of the Quaid, wearing an immaculate suit and sitting in a sofa with his dispatch case lying at his feet is one of the most famous and characteristic, asked the Quaid to elaborate as democracy was “often loosely used these days,” he replied, “Democracy is not just a new thing we are learning. It is in our blood. We have always had our system of zakat - our obligation to the poor.” She asked him to be more specific and was told, “Our Islamic ideas have been based on democracy and social justice since the thirteenth century (meaning in the last 1,300 years).” When she wanted more details, the Quaid told her that the constitution would be democratic because “the soil is perfectly fertile for democracy.” When Ms Bourke-Smith congratulated the Quaid on his remarkable achievement of having brought into being the largest Islamic nation in the world, he proudly told her, “Oh, it’s not just the largest Islamic nation. Pakistan is the fifth-largest nation in the world!” She recalled Miss Fatima Jinnah telling her, “We never expected to get it so soon. We never expected to get it in our lifetimes.” She added, “If Fatima’s reaction was a glow of family pride, her brother’s was a fever of ecstasy. Jinnah’s deep-sunk eyes were pinpoints of excitement. His whole manner indicated that an almost overwhelming exaltation was racing through his veins.

The American journalist asked the Quaid if he had plans for the industrial development of the country and if he hoped to enlist technical or financial assistance from America? The Quaid replied, “America needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs America. Pakistan is the pivot of the world, as we are placed.” At this point, he “revolved his long forefinger in bony circles” and added, “The frontier on which the future position of the world revolves.” Then he leaned towards her, “dropping his voice to a confidential note. “Russia is not so very far away.” The Quaid told her “with a satisfied smile,” “America is now awakened.” Since the United States was now bolstering up Greece and Turkey, he argued, it should be much more interested in pouring money and arms into Pakistan. “If Russia walks in here,” he concluded, “the whole world is menaced.”

Ms Bourke-White wrote, “In the weeks to come I was to hear the Quaid-i-Azam’s thesis echoed by government officials throughout Pakistan. ‘Surely America will build up our army,’ they would say to me. ‘Surely America will give us loans to keep Russia from walking in.’ But when I asked whether there were any signs of Russian infiltration, they would reply … ‘No, Russia has shown no signs of being interested in Pakistan.’ This hope of tapping the US Treasury was voiced so persistently that one wondered whether the purpose was to bolster the world against Bolshevism or to bolster Pakistan’s own uncertain position as a new political entity.”

The celebrated American photographer recalling the Quaid’s past in Mrs Sarohini Naidu’s words as “the embodied symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity,” wondered what had led him to give up on Indian nationalism. She wrote “No one knows exactly. The immediate occasion for the break, in the mid-thirties, was his opposition to Gandhi’s civil disobedience programme. Nehru says that Jinnah ‘disliked the crowds of ill-dressed people who filled the Congress’ and was not at home with the new spirit rising among the common people under Gandhi’s magnetic leadership. Others say it was against his legal conscience to accept Gandhi’s programme. One thing is certain: the break with Gandhi, Nehru, and the other Congress leaders was not caused by any Hindu-Muslim issue.”

She wrote that “with his burning devotion to his separate Islamic nation, Jinnah had taken all these formidable obstacles in his stride. But the blow that finally broke his spirit struck at the very name of Pakistan.” It was the missing K or Kashmir, she explained. This, she wrote, had an effect on the Quaid’s frail health. She recalled, “Later, reflecting on what I had seen, I decided that this desperation was due to causes far deeper than anxiety over Pakistan’s territorial and economic difficulties. I think that the tortured appearance of Mr. Jinnah was an indication that, in these final months of his life, he was adding up his own balance sheet. Analytical, brilliant, and no bigot, he knew what he had done. Like Doctor Faustus, he had made a bargain from which he could never be free. During the heat of the struggle he had been willing to call on all the devilish forces of superstition, and now that his new nation had been achieved the bigots were in the position of authority. The leaders of orthodoxy and a few “old families” had the final word and, to perpetuate their power, were seeing to it that the people were held in the deadening grip of religious superstition.” khalid hasan

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