THE fall of the Taliban has brought in its wake the death of a great romance. I am not concerned here with the political repercussions of this event. I am trying to allude to the fall-out of this tragedy in the world of thoughts and ideas.
I have lately perceived a sudden shift in the thinking of the intellectuals around me. It is a shift from romanticism to realism. I was more sure of it when, the other day, I heard Kamal Azfar, who was speaking at a function observed as the Dr C.A. Qadir Memorial Lecture 2001.
Held annually, it was the eleventh lecture delivered by Mr Azfar, who chose to speak on the concept of Pakistan. And he dared deny that Pakistan was an ideological state. “I venture to say that the concept of Pakistan is not that of an ideological utopia. Indeed, a nation state as such has no ideology.”
But let us first try to understand the nature of this romance, which saw its end in the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Its origin may be traced back to the times of Jamaluddin Afghani, whose pan-Islamism had deeply influenced the thinking and political behaviour of Indian Muslims. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s programme was just opposed to it. He cared merely for Indian Muslims than for the rest of the Muslim world. And he saw their salvation in modern education. With this purpose in view and taking lesson from the defeat in the 1857 uprising, he disowned the policy of ‘Jihad’ pursued by Wahabi Ulema and adopted the policy of reconciliation with the British government.
But the sons of Aligarh, soon after Sir Syed’s death, ignored his line of thinking and were under the spell of Afghani’s pan-Islamism. They were foremost in launching the Khilafat Movement, which may be deemed as a great romantic movement in the Indian Muslims’ political history. It soon touched the highest emotional pitch. How popular was the song:
Bolin amman Mohammad Ali ki
Jaan baite Khilafat pe day do.
But alas, the young Turks were in a different mood. Their bitter experience in relation to the Khilafat and Khalifa led them to abdicate their claim to lead the Islamic world in the name of Khilafat. They decided to have concern with their land alone and so abolished the institution of Khilafat.
News of the abrupt end of Khilafat came as an emotional shock for the romantic souls of the Khilafat movement. Maulana Shaukat Ali confided to a friend, “But for God’s grace. I do not know where my state of mind will lead me and what I may do in such a situation.”
However, the Khilafat leaders soon found a new avenue for their emotional investment. After their disillusionment with Turkey, they turned to Hijaz and pinned their hopes on Ibn-i-Saud, the Amir of Nejd, who was engaged in fighting against the Sharif of Makkah for gaining supremacy over Hijaz. He sought their support in this respect and in response to their idealistic demands, promised to set up after his success a republican type of government with due respect to the laws of the Sharia and to the satisfaction of the Islamic world. So they lent their support to him. But once again they found their dreams shattered as Ibn-i-Saud, after driving out the Sharif of Makkah, forgot all he had promised to the Khilafat leaders and installed himself as a king.
The nurturing of this kind of dream can be defined as utopianism, which Pakistan has inherited from the Muslims of undivided India. Kamal Azfar chose the right moment to attack this utopianism. “If we,” he said, “preserve the paths of federalism, democracy, tolerance and social equality; if we practise what Data Sahib and Shah Abdul Latif were preaching, we can yet be the role model as the first Muslim state to come to terms with modernity yet conserve our cultural identity. However, if we take the road to Kandahar, let us not forget the fate that befell Sir Thomas Moore, the author of Utopia.”
According to him, there are two concepts of Pakistan, the first empirical and the second utopian. He drew a line of distinction between the two by defining one as head on solid foundations of history and geography, and the other as based upon shifting sands. “Utopia” he said “is not an oasis, but a mirage.”
According to Kamal Azfar, the concept known as the ideology of Pakistan is the product of the utopian concept of Pakistan. And that it made its ‘first appearance in times of president Yahya Khan. An ideological approach, in other words, a utopian approach leads, according to him, to totalitarianism. This was said more emphatically by M.P. Bhandara, who was presiding over the function.
Mr Azfar appeared to believe in the kind of society envisioned by the mystics and the poets, as opposed to that conceived by the Maulvis and Mullahs. He went on enumerating names of distinguished mystics and poets who form part of the cultural and spiritual heritage of this land. He was gracious enough to add one name from among fiction writers, that of Manto to this august company of sufis, saints and poets who sang of love and peace and preached tolerance. He seemed to be saying that for the kind of society we want to build in this country, inspiration should come from these enlightened people and not from their opposite, who stood for obscurantism and preached hatred, intolerance and sectarianism.
THE fall of the Taliban has brought in its wake the death of a great romance. I am not concerned here with the political repercussions of this event. I am trying to allude to the fall-out of this tragedy in the world of thoughts and ideas.
