“Some are misled by propaganda…”
“I could not understand a section of people who deliberately wanted to create mischief and propaganda that the Constitution of Pakistan would not be made on the basis of Shariat…”
“No doubt, there are many people who do not quite appreciate when we talk of Islam…”
— Excerpts of Quaid-e-Azam’s address at the Karachi Bar Association (25th January, 1948)
“On Hindustan & Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may not like it, but in my judgment, there was no other solution and I am sure future history will record its verdict in favour of it. And what is more it will be proved by actual experience as we go on that that was the only solution of India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a United India could never have worked and in my judgment, it would have led us to terrific disaster….”
— Excerpts of Quaid-e-Azam’s Address to the 1st Constituent Assembly (11th August, 1947)
There is a systematic and coordinated campaign underway today aimed at degrading the creation of Pakistan, questioning the intentions of its founding fathers, casting doubt on its foundational process, and dismissing the Two-Nation Theory out of hand. Whenever I read or hear such baseless and grave allegations, which lack depth, prior evidence, intellectual backing, or historical references, my heart aches. It feels like a coordinated propaganda effort designed to undermine the very ideology of Pakistan.
I do not wish to repeat the specific claims made by those intellectual culprits. The excerpts placed at the opening of this piece were included precisely to set the record straight. As for the issues I perceive, these critics might simply be motivated by the real challenges and issues present in the state of Pakistan today. I choose to give them the benefit of doubt, assuming they are not acting out of malice or a foreign agenda. We, too, critique the government, question state structures, highlight institutional flaws, suggest policies, demand reforms, and even protest or launch public campaigns within our capacities. You should do all of that, it is your fundamental right and duty as a citizen.
However, the current shortcomings of our country do not mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater by denying the creation of the nation itself, nor should you find the air of Europe so satisfying that you disregard your own homeland as if there was never a need for it. Some now carelessly claim that “Iqbal was just a poet who knew nothing about politics,” or that “Jinnah was an agent of the British who created Pakistan at their behest,” or even that “The Lahore Resolution was drafted under sthe eyes of Viceroy Linlithgow.”
Such aggressive and baseless notions have corrupted the minds of our youth, alienating them from the ideology of Pakistan and driving a wedge between their present and their historic identity.
Here lies the true perspective: what is happening in the country today, and what has occurred since independence, is not the fault of Iqbal or Jinnah. The onus lies completely on our rulers, who have proven to be incompetent, corrupt, and dishonest. This distinction must be clearly understood by our youth and self-proclaimed intellectuals. I will not waste time splitting hairs with such misinformed critics of history. Instead, I would like to briefly explain why Pakistan was necessary by revisiting the Two-Nation Theory and then evaluate and audit Pakistan’s current state in the light of Quaid-i-Azam’s historical 11th August 1947 address to the First Constituent Assembly in Karachi.
Why Pakistan was necessary?
Muslims ruled India for nearly a thousand years. Although Hindus were the demographic majority, Muslims held political power. When the British arrived and seized authority, the situation for Hindus was largely a shift in administrative masters. But for Muslims, it turned into a nightmare. Many Hindu groups aligned with the British and became willing administrative partners, while Muslims were systematically sidelined, disenfranchised, and targeted in British India.
Barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah, during his days with the All India National Congress, was known far and wide as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. However, his views underwent a profound transformation after the Nehru Report of 1928, which rejected key safeguards for Muslim representation. Disillusioned, he temporarily left India to settle in London. His statements from that era reflect his growing realisation of the political environment.
In a candid conversation with Sheikh Ikram in Oxford in 1932, Jinnah observed:
“The Hindus are… incorrigible. The Muslim camp is full of those spineless people who, if they hear me say anything, go and repeat it to the Deputy Commissioner. Where is, between these two groups, any place for a man like me?”
(See Muhammad Ali Jinnah – The Great Enigma (An Indian View), Page 25 & 151)
Later, speaking at Aligarh Muslim University in 1934, Jinnah reflected on his decision to step back:
“In the face of danger, the Hindu sentiment, the Hindu mind, the Hindu attitude led me to the conclusion that there was no hope of unity. I felt very pessimistic about my country.”
He further added:
“The position was most unfortunate. The Musalmans were like No Man’s Land; they were led by either the flunkeys of the British Government or the camp-followers of the Congress. I felt that I could neither help India, nor change the Hindu mentality, nor could I make the Musalmans realise their position. I felt so disappointed and so depressed that I decided to settle down in London. Not that I did not love India, but I felt that I could do no good.”
It was Sir Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal who continuously reached out to, guided, and persuaded Muhammad Ali Jinnah to return and lead the Muslims of India, a leadership that ultimately earned him the title of “Quaid-i-Azam”. Iqbal demonstrated politically, culturally, and demographically that a unified, post-British democratic India governed strictly by majority rule would permanently relegate Muslims to a marginalised, perpetual minority. Thus, the creation of a separate sovereign state based on the Two-Nation Theory became inevitable.
Upon Iqbal’s passing in 1938, Quaid-i-Azam paid him a moving tribute, noting that Iqbal was his personal friend, philosopher, guide, spiritual support, and primal source of inspiration.
It is worth remembering that in 1930 — the same period when Jinnah left India — Dr. Iqbal delivered his historic Allahabad Address, proposing a consolidated Muslim state in the Muslim-majority areas of northwestern India. Furthermore, after the elections of 1937 and the harsh treatment of Muslims under Congress rule, it became abundantly clear what political subjugation would look like after the exit of the British.
In his 1944 address at Aligarh, Quaid-i-Azam laid bare the fundamental blueprint of the Two-Nation Theory:
“Pakistan had always been there, only they were not conscious of it. Hindus and Muslims, though living in the same towns and villages, had never been blended into one nation: they were always two separate entities. Pakistan started the moment the first non-Muslim was converted to Islam in India long before the Muslims established their rule. As soon as a Hindu embraced Islam, he was outcast not only religiously but also socially, culturally and economically. As for the Muslim, it was a duty imposed on him by Islam not to merge his identity and individuality in any alien society. Throughout the ages Hindus had remained Hindus and Muslims had remained Muslims, and they had not merged their entities.”
This distinct cultural, social, and spiritual identity was the true foundation of Pakistan.
Diagnosing our governance evils
Seventy-nine years ago, in his address to the First Constituent Assembly, Quaid-i-Azam explicitly outlined the primary duties of a state and warned against the very evils we struggle with today. If we analyse Pakistan’s contemporary situation alongside his words, the gap between his vision and our reality becomes glaringly obvious.
The protection of life, property and faith
Quaid-i-Azam declared that the first and foremost duty of a government is to maintain law and order, ensuring that the life, property, and religious beliefs of every citizen are fully protected by the state.
We continue to experience severe failures in this primary responsibility. Contemporary security analyses highlight a sharp surge in violent incidents, terror attacks, rape cases, thefts, killings and lawlessness. In 2025, Pakistan witnessed over 3400 violence-linked fatalities, heavily concentrated in regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Street crime in urban centres like Karachi, alongside recurring threats to religious minorities and vulnerable communities, demonstrates how far we have fallen short of Jinnah’s demand for universal state protection.
Corruption and bribery
Jinnah termed corruption and bribery as a poison and one of the greatest curses facing the subcontinent, stressing that it must be nipped in the bud and put down with an iron hand.
Corruption remains deeply entrenched at almost every level of public life, spanning political parties (whether Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz or Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), administrative bureaucracies, and local governance. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Pakistan consistently ranks among the lower tier globally — holding 136th position out of 182 nations — reflecting persistent public sector corruption and weak institutional accountability.
Allama Iqbal warned against the collusive nature of political power and commercial exploitation in his works that rulers have turned governance into a marketplace.
تختہ دکان شریک تخت و تاج
از تجارت نفع و از شاہی خراج
آن جہانبانے کہ ہم سوداگر است
بر زبانش خیر و اندر دل شراست
“Today, the merchant’s counter has become a partner to the royal throne and crown; they reap profits through commerce while extracting taxes through state authority. Woe to the ruler who is also a merchant. On his tongue is good, and inside his heart is evil”
(Read پس چہ باید کرد اے اقوام شرق )
Black-marketing
Quaid-i-Azam singled out black-marketing as a severe crime against society, noting that those who hoard essential commodities and exploit the public’s food supply deserve the sternest punishment.
Artificial shortages, cartelisation, and price manipulation continue to drain the public. We routinely witness sugar mafias manipulating domestic prices despite global market drops, alongside recurring crises in fuel distribution, wheat supply, and essential medicine availability. These cartels exploit basic human needs for private profit, unchecked by regulatory bodies.
Nepotism & jobbery
Quaid-i-Azam emphasised that he would never tolerate nepotism, favouritism, or jobbery (using public office for personal or political gain), promising that merit alone would dictate state appointments.
Nepotism and political patronage dominate recruitment across both public and private sectors. As a result, millions of qualified young people face hopelessness and severe unemployment. This lack of meritocracy has fuelled a massive brain drain. Data from the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment shows that over 727,000 workers and professionals registered to leave Pakistan in 2024 and 762,500 in 2025 to seek livelihood abroad. Disillusioned by systemic unfairness, many of these young migrants, impressed by life abroad, begin to question the ideology of their homeland. They fail to realise that the fault lies not with the founding fathers or the country’s origin, but with incompetent rulers and authoritarian setups that disregard the Constitution.
Equal citizenship vs social discrimination
Jinnah envisioned a nation where every individual, regardless of their background, would be an equal citizen of the state.
Today, society is heavily stratified by wealth, social status, professional connections, racial background, and class privileges. Equal treatment before the law remains a luxury reserved for the elite, while the average citizen struggles for basic administrative dignity.
This breakdown of our social and legal fabric stems from a fundamental failure in character building. We have stopped paying attention to the core lessons of our founding fathers and the principles of Islamic justice upon which Pakistan was built. The onus falls on every individual and institution that failed to nurture youth into thinkers, philosophers, and women and men of independent thought. Somewhere along the way, we lost our moral compass and became hesitant about our own identity.
If we systematically address and eliminate these exact evils that the Quaid highlighted, Pakistan can recover its stability and prosperity. In that same 11th August speech, Quaid-i-Azam gave us the roadmap:
“Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the wellbeing of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations there will be no end to the progress you will make.”
This is the task before us. Modern hyper-individualism, capitalism and rampant materialism encourage us to seek only personal gain. Had our founding fathers operated with such self-serving motives, Pakistan would never have come into existence. There is a far greater purpose to our lives. We must redirect our collective focus and the education of our children towards rebuilding our moral character, upholding equal justice, and strengthening the true roots and ideology of Pakistan in our hearts and minds. Only then can Pakistan become the country Iqbal and Jinnah wanted it to be. Only then we can turn the tide and make the dream of Quaid-i-Azam, which he expressed on 11th August 1947.
“We shall make this constituent Assembly (now, we can say this country) an example to the world”
Pakistan Zindabad!
Happy Independence Day!
