Interview with Saleena Karim, author of “Secular Jinnah and Pakistan, What the Nation Doesn’t Know”

Secular Jinnah and Pakistan, What the Nation Doesn’t Know


Interview by Talha Mujaddidi (Bridgehead Institute)

TM: What inspired you to write a book setting the record straight with respect to Justice Munir?

SK: My original research began with an accidental discovery that a certain speech of Jinnah (the Munir quote – http://www.secularjinnah.co.uk ) could not be traced to any of Mr. Jinnah’s speeches but could only be found in Munir’s From Jinnah to Zia (1979) – or so I thought at the time. I had simply intended to write an article explaining the issue with the quote. In fact I almost didn’t even write the article as I had not grasped the significance of what I had found. My research took me in unexpected directions and I began to see there was much more to the story of the quote than I had first realised, but I kept the book relatively short. Sometime after SJ1’s (Secular Jinnah, 2005) release I discovered that the Munir quote actually had its origins in the ‘Munir Report’ of 1954 – i.e. same author, but different publication. Interestingly, the Munir quote was first used to deadly effect in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly debates of 1954, shortly before Ghulam Muhammad dissolved the Assembly. I have reviewed this in detail in SJ2, but otherwise my book is not centred on Justice Munir’s quote.

TM: What are the differences between the two editions – the original SJ1 and the new SJ2?

SK: SJ1 was a shorter book and it emphasised the Munir quote. SJ2 has a similar title, but as such it is completely different in terms of both style and content, even though it contains everything from SJ1 with updates. In addition, SJ2 covers pre-partition history in detail, including the Round Table Conferences of the 1930s, Mr. Jinnah’s differences with Mr. Gandhi, the provincial elections of 1936-7, and the Pakistan movement. I have also looked in detail at the constitutional background to the Lahore Resolution; I have reviewed the Cabinet Mission Plan in more depth than in SJ1; I have reviewed the debate over the Objectives Resolution; and I have looked at Jinnah’s attempts to retain national unity in Pakistan in the eighteen months before his death.

Pakistan : As Envisaged by Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah

A strange phenomenon indeed that even after a lapse of 62 years of Pakistan having come into existence, a controversy is still raging as to which type of system was intended to be implemented here Secular, Theocratic or any other. A group of so- called intellectuals opine that the architect of Pakistan, Quaid-i- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, wanted it to emerge as a Secular State. They base their arguments exclusively on Quaid’s address to the Constituent Assembly on August 11,1947 .On the other hand, there is the religious orthodoxy, that had initially opposed the very creation of Pakistan under the pretext that since they had been promised by the Indian National Congress, that the Muslims would be free to discharge their religious obligations freely in India after independence, there was no need to create a separate state for the Indian Muslims. However, no sooner did Pakistan come into existence, these so- called “ Ulema” flocked to the new born state and had the temerity to claim that since Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, they only were the competent authority to determine the Islamic system to be implemented here .Now, who does not know, that their’s is essentially a retrogressive and purely ritualistic brand of “ Islam”, which they intend to impose, here forcibly.

Best way to resolve this riddle is to learn the truth from the proverbial “horse’s mouth” Who can be the better judge to resole the dilemma than the founders of Pakistan, namely, Allama Iqbal, who conceived the idea of a separate state for the Indian Muslims and Quaid-i-Azam M.A. Jinnah , who realized Iqbal’s dream by securing a country for them— the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, . Given here under, are excerpts from the speeches and addresses of these giants, to make the issue crystal clear.

Iqbal, the spiritual father of Pakistan, who conceived the idea of a separate state for the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent, said during his presidential address at the annual session of the All India Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930, that” India was the biggest Islamic country and in it Islam could be sustained as a living cultural entity only if it was centralized in a specific territory.( for that, he demanded ) formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interest of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabic Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its customs, its culture, and to bring them in close contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times”.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah's legacy 1000s of Years into the future

Click on the image to enlarge

There was a man who had a dream to create a land with diverse beauty and wonderful people to call their own. That land called Pakistan, a dream of unity, diversity and equality made a reality by one great man but that dream did not end with one man. Because of him that dream spread to millions of people and later hundreds of millions people and eventually billions of peoples who live on distant worlds who wanted to explore, achieve unimaginably great, ambitous and positive contributions to humanity stretched across the stars. Mohammed Al Jinnah inspired other great leaders such as Admiral Mehmood Shahjahan and Lieutenant Kamilah, courageous heros of the future to come who would lead Pakistan into a golden age of space exploration with the formation of Pakistani Starfleet. Mohammed Al Jinnah, would be grateful to know so far into the future what started out as a nation to achieve the dreams most thought was impossible became an ambassador to a world to reach out and and make contact with other diverse civilizations on distant worlds with the blending of techinology and cultral tradtion. Pakistan and the Pakistani Starfleet...............like no other............equality is achieved by diversity.

This is a painting by Kenny Irwin :aka: Perfectlymadebirds showing three leaders that stretch across over 1200 years from the formation of Pakistan with Mohammed Al Jinnah and later on, eventually leaders Mehmood Shahjahan and Lieutenant Kamilah of the Pakistani Starfleet. All three legendary figures sit dreaming of the future below the stars and Earth's terraformed moon in the 34th century as many of Pakistan's vast and diverse cities glimmer behind them in complete prosperity and peace along with the greater world of many unique nations and galaxy of untold numbers of diverse civilizations.


Courtesy: Kenny [Hassan] Irwin

Famous quote of the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

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!قومیں ایک دن میں نہیں بنا کرتیں
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