Golden Jubilee of Pakistan (1947-1997) (1997-8)

Pakistan Movement is synonymous with the very spirit of Islam. The War of Independence in 1857 was an open manifestation of the Muslim spirit of revolt against the domination of the British Government and its stooges in India. Frustration and lack of direction, however, pervaded the rank of Muslims after the unfortunate failure in the war.
At this critical juncture emerged Sir Syed Ahmad Khan who served as a beacon light for the Muslim Nation in distress and disarray. He equated education with power and declared that the muslims could improve their political, social and economic condition only through the medium of modern and scientific education.
He cultivated the concept of a separate Muslim Nation on the basis of religion, culture and history. He inspired the muslims of the sub-continent to demand a separate homeland where they could arrange their lives and affairs of the State according to the dictates of Holy Quran and Sunnah.
After the establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885, the Muslim leaders saw through the game of \"National\" movement and warned their people of the hovering dangers. In 1906, the Muslim League was founded as a challenge to the Indian National Congress. Maulana Hasrat Mohani presented a plan to the Government for the country envisaging two separate states for the Hindus and Muslims.
Chaudhary Rehmat Ali further developed this concept. He displayed great wisdom and foresight by putting forth not only a name but in large measure the scheme that culminated in the creation of Pakistan. Maulana Mohammed Au, Maulana Shaukat Au and Maulana Zafar Ali Khan spread the message of Pakistan through their lucid lectures and articles in newspapers.
The most outstanding contribution, however, came from Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal, the great philosopher and poet and the symbol of muslim nationalism. Pakistan ideology found ever clearer expression in his religio-philosophical, didactic and poetic works. At its base was the idea that spiritual unit founded on Islam was the most vital and integral element of national society. Islam emerges in this ideology as a form of National unity and absorbs all political thoughts. While presiding over the Session of the All India Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930, Dr. Iqbal’s Address represented the first clarion call for the establishment of an independent Islamic State in the Subcontinent.
From 1937 onwards, Mr. Mohammad Au Jinnah became identified in the muslim mind with the concept of the charismatic community, the concept which answered their psychic need for endowing and sanctifying their sense of community with a sense of power. Increasingly did he become, with the passage of time, the embodiment of Muslim national consensus, and this explains why and how muslims acknowledged him as their \'Quaid-e-Azam\" even before the launching of the Pakistan demand in March, 1940. From now on event moved fast.
Due to the persistent intransigence of the Indian National Congress, the Muslims were left with no alternative but to demand the partition of the sub-continent through the famous Resolution of 23rd March, 1940. It declared that no constitutional plan would be workable in the country or acceptable to the muslims unless it was designed on the basic principle that geographically contiguous units were demarcated into regions in a manner that the areas in which the muslims were numerically in a majority were grouped together to constitute an independent state.
After a hard and heroic struggle by the Muslims of the Sub-continent, the British Parliament was forced to approve the Indian Independence Act, 1947 leading to the birth of Pakistan on 14th August, 1947.
On this historic day the Quaid-e-Azam, while addressing the first session of Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in Karachi eulogized the services and sacrifices of the Muslims of the Sub-continent to achieve Pakistan, in the following words:-\"My thoughts are with the valiant fighters in our cause who readily sacrificed all they had, including their lives, to make Pakistan Possible.\'
Thus the response of the millions, sacrificing their lives and homes, to the call of \"UNITY, FAITH and DISCIPLINE\' from their Quaid-e-Azam firmly placed Pakistan on the world map.
Quaid-e-Azam was a great man and a great muslim. He vehemently advocated morality in politics.
He declared that morality in politics was even more important than in private life \"because if you do something wrong in public you hurt and harm more people\".
Let us endeavour to achieve the objective laid down by the Quaid in his broadcast to the Nation on 30th October, 1947.
\"Now is the time, chance and opportunity for every Mussalman to make his or her fullest and best contribution and make the greatest sacrifice and work ceaselessly in the service of our Nation and world.\"
Pakistan Post Office is celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan by issuing a Set of Four Stamps on the following personalities, Allama Dr. Sir Mohammad lqbal, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, and Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan of Rs. 3/- (each) denomination on August 14,1997.
ALLAMA DR. SIR MOHAMMAD IQBAL
Allama Dr. Sir Mohammad lqbal is one of most outstanding poets, writers, intellectuals and thinkers of modern times.
lqbal was born at Sialkot on November 9,1887. He held a brilliant academic record. He did his Masters in Philosophy from Government College, Lahore and joined there as a lecturer. He left for Europe in 1905 and studied Philosophy and Law at the Trinity College, Cambridge, Lincoln’s Inn, London and the Munich University. He was awarded a \'Ph.D.\' by the Munich University.
He returned home in 1908 and rejoined service in the Government College, Lahore. He resigned after sometime and started practicing Law. He was elected Member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 1926 for three years. In 1930 Iqbal was elected President of the Muslim League session held at Allahabad.
In 1931 he attended the Round Table Conference which met in London to frame a constitution for India and took active part in its various committees.
He was the first to give a concrete shape to the Muslim aspirations in India for \'a separate homeland\'. In his presidential Address at the Annual Session of the All India Muslim League at Allahabad (1930) he boldly asserted the Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India, and said \"I would like to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State\".
It was Iqbal’s fervent appeal which persuaded the Quaid-a-Azam in 1934 to return from England and lead the Muslims of the lndo-Pakistan sub-continent in their struggle for constitutional rights and its was in his letters to the Quaid-e-Azam that he elaborated his scheme in its political as well as cultural context.
He succeeded in convincing the Quaid-e-Azam that Pakistan was the only solution to the Political problems of the Muslims of India, and it was on the foundations laid by lqbal that the Muslim Leagues historic Pakistan Resolution of 1940 was based.
He believed, on the one hand, in the emancipation and freedom of the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent and on the other, he argued for the unity of Muslim nations all-over the world. Iqbals political philosophy is not atomistic but organic in that it implied the formation of an association of the Muslim countries to better their own lot and be the upholder of peace and justice throughout the World.
His verses in Urdu and Persian and his monumental treatises have been translated into almost all the important languages of the world and found wide recognition in Iran, Turkey, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Italy, USSR, etc.
He died on April 21, 1938 at Lahore an was laid to rest near Badshahi Mosque. An academy named after him has been established by the Government of Pakistan to promote and disseminate the messages and teachings of Allama Iqbal.
QUAID-E-AZAM MOHAMMAD ALl JINNAH
On December 25,1876 a child was born in a prominent mercantile family of Karachi who was destined to change the course of history in South Asia and to carve out a homeland for the Muslims of India where they could pursue their destiny according to their faith and ideology.
From his very childhood, young Jinnah developed the habit of stern independence and self-reliance. In 1892, he was called to the Bar at the very early age of 16. He stayed for four year in England and on his return, started his practice in Bombay. The early period was spent in hard and constant labour.
However, he soon came to be looked upon not only as a brilliant lawyer, but also as a man of great integrity and character. He was soon elected to the Imperial Legislative Council where he moved the famous Muslim Waqf Bill-the first instance of a Bill passing into legislation on the motion of a private Member.
A lover of freedom and a great patriot, Mr. Jinnah began by accommodating the Congress point of view, and was called the \"Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity\" when he brought about a rapprochement between the Congress and the Muslim League in 1916. He soon felt, however, that the Congress was merely a camouflage for consolidating Hindu India at the expense of Muslim, and it was at the London Meetings of the Round Table Conference during 1930-32 that he received the shock of his life. \"In the face of danger\" he said, \"the Hindu sentiment, the Hindu mind, the Hindu attitude led me to the conclusion that there was no hope of unity\".
Mr. Jinnah returned from England in 1934, and set out to galvanize the Muslim League into a most dynamic organization. \"We are a Nation\" he asserted, with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral code, custom and calendar, history and tradition, aptitude and ambitions; in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a Nation.\"
In subsequent years, Mr. Jinnah, popularly known by the title \'Quaid-e-Azam (the great Leader), came to symbolise the Muslim aspirations for a separate independent homeland, and in 1940 the Muslim League, under his inspiring leadership, demanded that India should be partitioned and the Muslim majority areas should constitute the sovereign, independent State of Pakistan.
It was his ardent advocacy and indenting character, his unshakable determination and his power of persuasion that brought about the successful fruition of the Muslim struggle in the shape of Pakistan.
The Quaid was seventy-one when Pakistan was born. He was spared by Almighty only for one year to set the ship of the new State on its keel. Even during the brief period of his Governor Generalship he strove hard to lay down correct precedents for the growth of a democratic tradition in Pakistan.
He died on September 11, 1948 deeply mourned by a grateful Nation but as one of the great immortals of history.
MOHTARMA FATIMA JINNAH
The youngest sister of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Au Jinnah, a daringly called by the Nation \"Madar-e-Milat, is said to have been born on July 31,1893 at Karachi and was educated in a convent school of Bombay. Later she studied dentistry at Calcutta and practiced there for a year.
She earned a place of great eminence as a freedom fighter of tenacious determination when her illustrious brother, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was in the midst of spearheading the struggle for Pakistan. Throughout those critical years of stresses and strains she looked after her physically ailing brother as a \'great national trust\'.
After the death of her great brother in 1948 she devoted the rest of her life to the educational and social uplift of the Muslim women. Her real political worth, sagacity, forthrighteousness and unstinted support for democracy came to the fore when she stood firmly behind the opposition parties in the Country trying to stem the tide of un-democratic practices and dictatorship. She inspired hope and gave new lease of life to the people of Pakistan by contesting the Presidential Election against the then President Ayub Khan in 1964.
Although she was Declared unsuccessful in the elections but she kindled the torch of democracy in Pakistan.
On July 9,1967 she died at Karachi and was buried in the courtyard of the Quaid-e-Azam’s Mausoleum, mourned deeply by the Nation.
NAWABZADA LIAQUAT ALI KHAN
Nawabzada Liaquat All Khan was born at Karnal, Haryana is 1895. He was the son of Rukunuddualah Shamsher Jung Nawab Rustam Au Khan, the Nawab of Karnal. He did his graduation in 1918 from MAO College, Aligarh and went to Exeter College. Oxford in 1922 and then Inner Temple for his Bar-at-Law in 1922. On his return to India in 1923, he joined the All India Muslim League.
Mr. Liaquat All Khan was a Member of the United Provinces Legislative Council from 1926-1940.
He was elected Deputy President of the United Provinces Legislative Council and held that office for six years. He was also leader of the Democratic Party of the Council.
In 1937, he went to London as a Member of the Indo-British Trade Delegation. When Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah reorganised the All India Muslim League in 1936 , Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan was elected its honorary Secretary. In 1940 he was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly and became the Deputy Leader of the Muslim League. He entered into an agreement with Bhulabai Desai on the question of representation in the Interim Government known as \"LIQAUAT-DESAI PACT, 1945.
In 1946 he was pointed as a Member of the Governor General\'s Executive Council and the Leader of the Muslim League Party in the Indian Interim Government. He held the portfolio of Finance, being the first Indian Finance Minister. The Budget for 1947-48 which he presented was acclaimed throughout the Country as a \'Poor Man\'s Budget\'.
Liaquat All Khan attended the Simla conference on behalf of the Muslim League in 1945 and 1946. He was one of the most prominent of the All India Muslim League Leaders and one of the most trusted Lieutenants of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Au Jinnah.
He was Muslim League Delegate of All Parties Convention at Calcutta in December 1928. He was elected Secretary, All India Muslim League in 1936 and re-elected in 1938,1940, 1941,14942 and 1943. He was Member of the League Central Parliamentary Board in 1936.
He moved a resolution regarding certain amendments in League Constitution in its historic 27th Session at Lahore in March 1940. He was Convener, Action Committee of the League and Member Parliamentary Board in 1943; he was also a member subjects Committee League\'s Legislator\'s Convention held at Delhi in April 1945.
On August 14,1947, he became the first Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence of the new Dominion of Pakistan. He wielded effective power and provided dynamic leadership to Pakistan during the most crucial phase of its history. He signed the \"LIAQUAT-NEHRU PACT\' in 1950 in New Delhi on the problem of minorities.
He was the Vice-Chairman, Basic Principles\' Committee of the Constituent Assembly in March 1949, which submitted its report in 1950.
He died at the hands of an assassin on October 16, 1951 while addressing a public meeting at Rawalpindi and was buried in the courtyard of the Quaid-e-Azam\'s mausoleum.