File photo. Asif Hassan—AFP
A national daily has again ignited the debate on the “idea of Pakistan,” reiterating the “historical” evidence of how Muslim leaders had repeatedly demanded a separate state for the Muslims of India. A separate publication has invoked Chaudhry Rahmat Ali, the fiery Cambridge student who published a pamphlet in 1933 spelling out the surest plan for Partition, and coining a name for the new state: “Pakistan” or “Land of the Pure,” derived from Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan. The same publication maintained Allama Muhammad Iqbal had not demand a separate Muslim state “outside” the Indian federation, an assertion that continues to be strenuously rebutted by some historians.
There is no shortage of discourse on the idea of Pakistan, with general consensus that the name was known in India, but not formally adopted at meetings of the Muslim League. Yet it is also fact that Iqbal had presented his view of the future of India’s Muslims while president of the Muslim League at its 1930 session in Allahabad. The key question: did he image a separate state for the Muslims of India or did he propose a separate Muslim state within an Indian federation? A majority view holds Iqbal did not demand a separate Muslim state “outside” the Indian federation. Unfortunately, the subject has suffered some neglect after the secession of East Pakistan, largely due to difficulties of interpretation.
A key resource was Javid Iqbal, the late son of Allama Iqbal and a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. A clear-headed intellectual unbound by the state’s myth-making and a straight-talker, he advocated a “modern” Islamic state envisioned by his father and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. His views stood between the two poles of argument, a secular opinion that rejected the idea of a religious state, and a clerical-orthodox opinion that leans in favor of a theocratic state. Over the years, Javid’s views have gradually become more authoritative due to his extensive research of his father’s views on an Islamic state and law, as well as his penning of the most reliable account of Allama Iqbal’s life. The former judge also critically observed the enforcement of hudood laws, but never shied from his moderate views, even when it was difficult—for practical reasons—to oppose the extremist opinion of Pakistan as a religious state.