Some argue that the Two Nation Theory died with the 1971 partition of Pakistan that led to the separation of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. Others say that the TNT (Two Nation Theory) was dead the day Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah passed away on Sept 11, 1948.



As Pakistanis observe the 65th anniversary of the Quaid-e-Azam's passing, let's examine the state of the Two Nation Theory which gave birth to the Pakistan movement on March 23, 1940.

The key question that needs to be answered regarding the events of 1971 is as follows: Did the Awami League in East Pakistan fight to create their own country later named Bangladesh? Or did they shed their blood to re-unify the eastern wing of Pakistan with India?

These questions are answered by French historian Christophe Jaffrelot in his book "A History of Pakistan and its origins".

Jaffrelot  cites British-Pakistani history Prof Samuel Martin Burke rejecting the notion that the Two-Nation Theory died in 1971 with Pakistan's split into Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Burke says that the two-nation theory was even more strongly asserted in that the Awami League rebels had struggled for their own country, Bangladesh, and not to join India. In so doing, they had put into practice the theory behind the original resolution to form Pakistan, which envisaged two Muslim states at the two extremities of the subcontinent.

Here's an excerpt from the Pakistan Resolution passed in Lahore in March 1940:

"Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All-India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designated on the following basic principle, viz. that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India should be grouped to constitute "Independent States" in which the Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign"


Clearly, the Pakistan Resolution called for "Independent States" of Muslim majority areas in the "North Western and Eastern Zones of India" in which the "Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign".

What happened in 1971 with the creation of Bangladesh essentially put into practice the theory behind the original resolution to form Pakistan, which envisaged two Muslim states at the two extremities of the subcontinent.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah

Are Muslims Better Off in Jinnah's Pakistan?

Comparing Pakistan and Bangladesh

Is This a 1971 moment in Pakistan's History?

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?


Global Firepower

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

India Wins Freedom by Maulana Azad

Ayesha Jalal Taking On Pakistan's Hero


The Poor Neighbor by William Dalrymple

Iqbal and Jinnah

Views: 1100

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 15, 2013 at 10:17am

#IndianMuslims suffer widespread discrimination in education, employment and housing in #India

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15zk8c_muslims-in-india_news#.Ul1... … via @DailymotionUSA

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 30, 2014 at 9:19pm

People often compare Balochistan with East Pakistan. Balochistan has nothing in common with East Pakistan.

1. Only a third of the population of Balochistan is Balochi speaking. The Baloch Nationalists are too few number, highly disorganized and deeply divided among themselves. They are no more than a nuisance that Pak military can effectively handle. Besides, almost as many ethnic Baloch people live outside of Balochistan province (in Sindh and Southern Punjab) as in Balochistan, according to Anatol Lieven(Pakistan-A Hard Country)....and they are quite well integrated with the rest of the population in Pakistan. Asif Zardari, the current president of Pakistan, is an ethnic Baloch, as was former President Farooq Laghari and recent interim Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso. Pakistan's COAS Gen Musa was a Hazara from Balochistan.

2. In East Pakistan, there was an election won by Sheikh Mujib with heavy mandate. Nothing like that has happened nor likely happen with a bunch of fractious Baloch tribesmen who represent only a few districts in Balochistan.

3. East Pakistan was split by an outright foreign invasion which is highly unlikely to happen to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

4. Retired US Army Col Ralph Peters is a CIA guy who knows a lot of Balochistan. Here's an excerpt of a Huffington Post Op Ed on Baloch insurgents:

According to Peters, one of the most serious issues with the Baloch independence movement is "deeply troubling" infighting. In fact, he is emphatic in his condemnation of such bickering; going so far as to assert: "they are quickly becoming their own worse enemies."

In his view, individual Baloch simply don't understand that their personal feuding undermines the larger movement: "Certain Baloch fail to understand that their only hope in gaining independence is if they put their own egos and vanity aside and work together. This is the cold hard fact. They are already outgunned and outmanned. Pakistan will continue to to exploit their differences until they realize this."

So long as the Baloch continue to engage in "petty infighting," including "savaging each other in emails," (Ralph) Peters is pessimistic they can garner widespread support in the West. In fact, he warns that such infighting could eventually put off even their staunchest supporters.

As a result, he recommends that the Baloch leadership and activists set the example and halt their public bickering: "The Baloch leaders need to stop their severe personal attacks on each other and others. In the military, we say that you don't let an entire attack get bogged down by a single sniper. But, there are individuals out there who are causing divisions and attacking people. They tend to look at the debate as if you don't agree with me completely then you're my enemy. This undermines their cause."

Until these leaders and activists "support the big picture," Peters offers little hope that the broader Baloch nation will be able to "work together, put aside their deep divide, and unify." This troubles Peters as he confides: "At this point, do I believe they have a good chance of achieving independence? No. But, it would be much higher in the future if they just start working together. It's frustrating that the leaders can't unite."

Peters is also bothered by the Baloch tendancy to blame such infighting on covert operations by Pakistan's military and security services: "The region as a whole tends to blame conspiracy theories. But, I have come to believe that you never accept conspiracies when something can be explained by incompetence..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-walsh/baloch-pakistan_b_1326421...

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 20, 2014 at 10:48pm

Feb 1962 @dawn_com news report: East Pakistan (#Bangladesh) (21.5%) beats West #Pakistan (16.3%) in #literacy rate
http://www.dawn.com/news/753508/east-wing-beats-west-wing-in-litera...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 8, 2014 at 10:15pm

India's national security advisor Ajit Doval tells a story about his days as a spy for his country in Pakistan ..

" When in Pakistan , I happened to go to a Dargah since i was supposed to be a Muslim man. There, in front of the Dargah i saw a man with a long white beard who called me and asked me whether i was a Hindu? I said it was not true . He asked me to follow him and took me through some lanes to a nearby house . He closed the room and told me i was a Hindu since he had seen a hole in my ear ( In some Hindu traditions , both boys and girls have their ears pierced at birth) . I told him I used to be a Hindu but i had converted but he insisted I was still a Hindu . Further, he said that he could observe all this because he himself was a Hindu and showed me Durga and Shiva idols in his almirah. His family has been killed off and he had since been living in disguise. He said he felt happy when ever he could meet another Hindu . This incident was very unique for me." 

http://youtu.be/diQu_wPeIeI

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 26, 2015 at 12:42pm

Knut Oberhagemann, a water expert in Dhaka, Bangladesh, says that the flow of the mighty Ganges where it enters Bangladesh is at times a pitiful few hundred cubic metres a second, so low that “you can walk across the river”. When the same river, at this point called the Padma, reaches the coast, it is often so feeble that the sea intrudes, poisoning the land with salt.

http://www.economist.com/node/21538687

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 26, 2015 at 10:34pm

Bangladesh in crisis by Raza Rumi

The recent political turbulence sweeping Bangladesh has cost more than 100 lives since January and job strikes have brought near standstill to Dhaka, the country’s capital and economic nerve center. Stretching back to independence, the country’s divorce with Pakistan has left a trail of political instability resulting from frequent military interventions, high-profile political assassinations and a dysfunctional democratic order that revolves around two political parties. Atop these bipolar camps are two women known as the ‘Begums’ — the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League (AL) and the opposition leader Khaleda Zia. The former is the daughter of the country’s founder and national hero Sheikh Mujib ur Rehman, and the latter the widow of the first military ruler Gen Zia ur Rehman, who was popular with the conservative sections of society.

---
On January 5, the date coinciding with the first anniversary of 2014 elections, the opposition called for countrywide demonstrations under the slogan ‘Murder of Democracy Day’. The government responded with an iron hand by arresting members of the opposition parties and banning the demonstrations. In reaction, the opposition called for an indefinite blockade of road and railways leading to Dhaka. The demonstrations by the opposition and counter-demonstrations by the ruling AL party have since continued and many have turned violent. The government confined Zia for more than two weeks and accelerated the prosecution of corruption charges against the opposition leader. Members of the JeI have also been pressurized through pending court cases for the party’s support to Pakistan during the 1971 War of Liberation. Since January, 7000 opposition activists and supporters have been detained by the police. More than 100 people have lost their lives during street battles, arson attacks, and bombing of the buses while 20 opposition supporters allegedly died through extra-judicial methods.

Civil society in Bangladesh is deeply worried. The last time such a political deadlock happened was in 2007 when the military intervened. Nurul Amin, a political analyst at North South University in Dhaka, says the hardliners in both camps “think no compromise is possible.” Similarly, Citizens for Good Governance say the two leaders are acting as “partisan authoritarians,” who are dividing the country “into two warring camps.” Human Rights Watch has also expressed concern, saying “violent crimes being committed by some members of the opposition cannot justify killings, injuries, and wrongful arrests by the government.”

Economic and Government Woes

In the midst of this political turbulence, Bangladesh’s economy has been rocked with a communications blockade, urban violence, and a prevailing sense of uncertainty in the country. The hardest hit is the $24 billion a year ready-made garments industry. The supply chain of the industry has been disrupted. The Federation of Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) maintains that the garments industry has already incurred a loss of over $3.9 billion while the retail sector may have suffered losses to the tune of $2.1 billion. The agriculture sector of the country has also been affected to the tune of $533 million in recent weeks as farmers are not able to move their products to the cities due to the blockades. Moody’s downgraded the country’s credit rating because of the ongoing political violence. 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/26/bangladesh-on-the-brink/

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 21, 2015 at 12:59pm

"Sorry, we don't hire Muslims". Top #India company rejects qualified #Muslim candidate with MBA - The Hindu 

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/article7228666.ece …

If they wanted to reject my application they could have given another excuse, says Zeshan Ali Khan

In a case of religious discrimination, a leading diamond export company here has rejected the job application of a young man just because he is a Muslim.

“Thanks for your application. We regret to inform you that we hire only non-Muslim candidates,” was the reply MBA graduate Zeshan Ali Khan received.

Having completed his MBA in international business, Mr. Khan was searching for a job in a leading export house. He emailed his resume to Hare Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd. on Tuesday. The diamond conglomerate is headquartered in Mumbai and has a global presence

“Along with a bunch of friends, I forwarded my resume to the company. Almost half of them were immediately placed. I got a reply within 20 minutes of my application. I was shocked when I read it,” Mr. Khan told The Hindu.

“Initially, I thought it was a joke. Had they wanted to reject my application they could have given other excuses…,” he said.

Mr. Khan then put up a post on his experience on his Facebook page and generated sharp reactions. After the outrage gained traction, Mr. Khan on Wednesday received a “regret” e-mail by a senior executive of the company. “We would like to clarify that the company does not discriminate against candidates based on gender, caste, religion, etc. Any hurt caused in the matter is deeply regretted,” said Mahendra S. Deshmukh, Associate VP & Head-HR of the company.

Mr. Deshmukh’s email, a snapshot of which was shared with The Hindu by Mr. Khan, further said: “This erroneous email was sent by my colleague Mrs. Dipika Tike who has joined recently and is still on training.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 26, 2015 at 4:40pm

#Modi's "Secular" #India: No flat for Misbah Quadri in #Mumbai because she is #Muslim http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-flat-for-her-in-mumbai-bec...
Growing up in Gujarat post-2002 riots exposed her to religious prejudice and forced ghettoisation. So when Misbah Quadri moved to Mumbai, she hoped the city, known for its cosmopolitan culture, would treat her better.

However, the 25-year-old communications professional is today knocking on the doors of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) after she was denied a flat in the city just because she is a Muslim. After a hard search, Ms. Quadri found a tidy 3-BHK apartment at Sanghvi Heights in Wadala. Her new flatmates — two working women, in their early twenties and Hindu — found her on Facebook.

However, a day before Ms. Quadri was to shift, the apartment’s broker warned that the housing society did not accept Muslim tenants. Even if something worked out, the broker told her, she would have to sign a “no-objection certificate” declaring that if she faced any harassment from her neighbours because of her religion, the builder, the owner and the broker “would not be legally responsible.” She was also asked to submit her resume. Though she disagreed with the terms, she moved in because the notice period at her previous flat expired and her flatmates supported her and she hoped for a compromise later.

But within a week, the agent contacted her again. “He threatened to call the cops and throw me out of the flat. It got very ugly.” When she approached the representative of the builder, she was told that it was “a policy” of the company not to have Muslim tenants. She was then served an ultimatum to vacate the house. Ultimately, she was forced to leave the flat. Incidentally, the other women had to pay a price for sheltering a Muslim; they have vacated the house unwillingly.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 9, 2015 at 1:58pm

Here are a few excepts of Nisid Hajari's NPR Fresh Air interview promoting his book "Midnight's Furies":


"This rivalry between India and Pakistan has been going on now for nearly 70 years and it seems like a feature of the landscape ... as if it has always existed, and once you created two countries out of one that it was inevitable," Hajari says. "I don't think it was inevitable and a closer look at what happened in 1947 teaches you how the seeds of this rivalry were planted. It was obviously worsened over the years by various actors, but this is where it all started."

They (Hindus) controlled the schools, they controlled the educational curriculum, they oversaw the police and they gave out jobs and patronage to their own followers. And Muslims could see, particularly professional Muslims, Muslims who would otherwise have perhaps won these jobs, could see that they would have very little power in a democratic system, a parliamentary system after independence.

On that (Direct Action) day (1946), the speeches that were given were fairly inflammatory, and some of the Muslim listeners of these speeches went out and started burning and looting in Hindu areas. At the same time, Hindus in different parts of the city were also throwing bricks and stones at Muslim marchers. It's very hard to say exactly how it started or who started it [but] both sides behaved violently.

The Sikhs really were the accelerant to the riots in August 1947, which is, when people talk about partition, this is what they're talking about. These are the massive riots that broke out around the time that the British withdrew from India, and anywhere from 200,000 to 1 million people were killed.

As independence was approaching, all sides were forming militias, which they claimed were for self-defense. The Sikhs, because so many of them had served in the army, were the best trained and the best armed and the best organized of these militias, and therefore the rampages that they engaged in were more effective and bloodier and more damaging.

The Pakistani support for the Taliban had to do with their desire to have an influence in Kabul and to block Indian influence in Afghanistan. Pakistani strategists have this idea of strategic depth that if they were engaged in a major conflict with India that they would be able to use Afghanistan as a sort of rear-guard area to fall back to. They have a fear of being encircled by Indians and there have always been rumors that the Indians were trying to gain influence with various Afghan governments and that they had spies in Afghanistan and so on. Afghanistan has never fully agreed to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, so that creates more tensions.

But this fear of Indian encirclement, that's what goes back to partition in 1947. The seeds of that rivalry were planted in these weeks and months of violence and bloodshed back when both countries were still being born and they were exacerbated over the years by further conflicts and by various military dictators and politicians and so forth, but the basic pattern was set very quickly. As a smaller, weaker country, this asymmetric strategy of using surrogates to do your fighting for you seems appealing, but it has very destructive repercussions.

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/09/413121135/indias-1947-partition-and-t...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 26, 2015 at 2:13pm

Excerpt of "Transcending divisions: the consolidation of Pakistan" by Benazir Bhutto published in 1996 in Harvard International Review:

DURING BRITISH COLONIAL RULE, a superb feat of political engineering kept together several nationalities clearly differentiated by religion, ethnicity, language, and cultural tradition. As a result, the withdrawal of the colonial power in 1947 brought to the surface national tensions similar to those which had already led to the creation of scores of nation-states in Europe, each based on the principle of national self-determination. The inevitable creation of Pakistan as an independent sovereign state in 1947 illustrates the historic existence of multiple nationalities in South Asia. It is further substantiated by the fact that when the eastern wing of Pakistan broke away in 1971, it did not return to India, which had militarily intervened to bring about the secession, but asserted its independence from India as strongly as Pakistan has always done.

In contemporary South Asia, states like India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka continue to be multiethnic and multi-national states. For each of these states, internal consolidation and cohesion has depended on the successful resolution of great sub-regional rivalry and competition. Occasionally, internal conflict has loomed so large as to create a genuine crisis of governability.

The case of Pakistan seems unique in many respects. It is the only country in which the internal contradictions that existed between the two wings of the country, separated by more than a thousand miles of hostile India, exploded into a major bloody conflict leading to the emergence of a third state in the subcontinent, Bangladesh. Paradoxically, the trauma of this separation led to deep soul-searching in Pakistan which, in the due course of time, profoundly affected its political culture. The loss of East Pakistan in 1971 did not exacerbate the tensions within West Pakistan, even though these tensions had been largely neglected during the pre-war attempts at mediation of the East-West conflict. Rather, the new Pakistan rediscovered a set of principles and allegiances which have played an important role in the country's consolidation.

----------------------

Occasionally, the question is raised if national integration has succeeded equally in the province of Sindh. In the past, Sindh often resisted the national government, but this resistance stemmed largely from Sindhis' opposition to military rule from Islamabad. Most recently, Sindh has shown two opposite trends: on the one hand, the PPP swept rural Sindh and brought it into the national mainstream, defusing past sentiment for Sindhi independence. On the other hand, the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) swept urban Sindh in those elections and continues to agitate against the established government. The MQM claims to represent the Muhajirs, those Muslims who immigrated to Pakistan from India since the time of partition in 1947. Arguing that the Muhajirs form a distinct ethnic group in Pakistan that had been denied its share of national economic opportunities, the MQM tragically opted out of the democratic process and resorted to extraconstitutional and violent means to achieve its objectives. It has shattered the peace of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and one that absorbed much of the immigrant population in the past fifty years, through its compulsively violent tactics and the external assistance provided to it by a foreign power.

The MQM, using a warped version of the ideology of Pakistan, recruited a significant number of malcontents into its clandestine army. The bulk of the Muhajir community, fortunately, kept itself away from this Nazi-style organization and showed a clear preference for democratic dialogue rather than terrorism. This factor has been instrumental in limiting terrorism only to some parts of Karachi. The Pakistan government has taken a two-fold approach to the MQM: it will combat MQM terrorism, and it will at the same time engage in a political dialogue with the MQM and implement vigorous social and economic measures for the uplift of Karachi. The city has grown much too fast for its civic and commercial institutions to keep pace with its expansion, and the government has therefore developed a master plan to redress this situation at every level, from improving mass transit to expanding adequate job opportunities.

The threat posed by MQM terrorism would actually pose only a marginal problem were it not for the unfortunate fact that in South Asia, violent movements fall easy prey to external manipulation. At a time when most countries of the world are engaging in the formation of trading blocs within the parameters of a globalizing economy, South Asia continues to pay a heavy price for the old-fashioned hegemonic ambitions of the largest South Asian state. India's vaulting aspirations to project power in the region and beyond has affected South Asia at several levels. Precious resources needed for social action have been diverted to military expenditure. The region faces the most serious nuclear threat in the world today, aggravated by great advances made by India in missile technology. Above all, not a single state in South Asia has escaped gross interference in its internal affairs. Even the smallest of states, which pose no conceivable threat to their great neighbor, have seen this interference plunge them into long periods of internal turmoil. It is unfortunate that India did not resist the temptation to contribute support to MQM terrorism; at a number of locations in India, scores of MQM activists continue to be transformed into terrorists. South Asia will have a bleak future if such cross-border interference, masterminded by overgrown intelligence services, continues. The political process will resolve the MQM problem in Karachi, and Indian interference will result only in injecting avoidable tension into interstate relations.
--------------

Pakistan now stands at a crucial juncture in its history, where most of the instability it faces comes not from domestic separatism but from external interference and threats. It earnestly hopes that economic policies in South Asia in the direction of free enterprise and participation in the global economy will counteract and neutralize aggressive tendencies. Pakistan would like to open an entirely new chapter of cooperative relations with India, and invites the leaders of India to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Kashmir problem as well as a reciprocally-binding non-proliferation regime for nuclear weapons and delivery systems. We invite India's leaders to take parallel measures to limit and reduce military spending in the interest of the billion people living in South Asia. In addition, as the two largest states of the subcontinent, India and Pakistan owe it to South Asia to transform its only regional organization, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, into a more meaningful and effective vehicle of regional economic and social development. History will not forgive us if we forego the great opportunities present today for shared prosperity and peace.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Harvard-International-Revi...

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