by HARRIS KHALIQUE
For more than seven decades, Pakistan and Pakistanis have harboured a unique ability to discriminate against people on every possible metric.
On August 11, 1947, the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, gave his most important official speech — not to a political gathering, but as the president of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
Almost at the beginning he said: “The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing our future constitution of Pakistan, and the second of functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan.”
Towards the end of his speech he stated: “…you will find that, in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense, as citizens of the state.”
He reaffirmed his vision for the federal character of the state, where all federating units would have identical stakes, as was first mentioned in the 1940 Lahore Resolution, besides his desire for an equal citizenship for all, irrespective of their personal faith.
Regrettably, since the very early years, the powers that be in Pakistan decided to choose a political course that was opposite to what Jinnah had stated — from the passing of the Objectives Resolution in 1949, which was further tweaked by Gen Ziaul Haq in 1984. On the one hand, Pakistan’s journey since then has been marred by ethnic strife, emanating out of regional disparities and provincial inequities. On the other hand, religious extremism was also encouraged to grow and become uglier with time.
After 77 years of existence as a country, we see ethnic, provincial, religious and sectarian prejudices being consolidated again. On a regular basis, there are incidents of hate speech and ensuing violence reported from different parts of the country. Political differences have also morphed into bitter animosity, leading to complete intolerance for any political views that may conflict with one’s.
These solidifying prejudices will eventually lead to more extremism and violence in various shapes and forms. Consequently, religious and ethnic minorities in the country are becoming more and more vulnerable with each passing day.
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