KARACHI, Dec 24: Professor Stanley Wolpert, who as biographer of Quaid-i- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah described him as a “lofty minaret” and “as enigmatic a figure as Mahatma Gandhi, more powerful than Pandit Nehru, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah was one of recent history’s most charismatic leader,” will give a talk on the founder’s vision of Pakistan in Agha Khan University on Wednesday.

The talk will be part of the 125th birth anniversary of the Quaid. It has assumed added importance amid the ongoing debate at home on what kind of political and social framework the founding father had visualized for the Muslims of the subcontinent, the conflicting interpretation given to the importance of the Objectives Resolution in the polity of Pakistan and the ongoing controversy on fundamentalism and liberalism.

Prof Wolpert, who is associated with the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, paid tribute to the Quaid in the following words:

“For individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three. Hailed as “Great Leader (Quaid-i-Azam) of Pakistan and its first governor-general, Jinnah virtually conjured that country into statehood by the force of his indomitable will. His place of primacy in Pakistan’s history looms like a minaret over the achievements of all his contemporaries in the Muslim League.”

In the current situation it will be interesting to hear him on whether the concepts and the premiss which compelled the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, until after the World War I, to demand a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent.

In the present context, it will also be relevant to expect from Prof Wolpert to elaborate on the Quaid’s vision of the nature of democratic dispensation in Pakistan.

The professor has been advocating that both India and Pakistan should continue to talk. If they continue to do so, there could eventually be resolution of the Kashmir issue: a pull back of troops and demilitarization of the area.

He believes that everyone has to play a role in this process of peacemaking. Discussing the Kashmir issue in 1997, Prof Wolpert believed that the “sense of Kashmiri identity is very strong. It has only gained rather than diminished as a result of the last fifty years of conflict. Were the Kashmiris given the opportunity to vote in a plebiscite, they would probably vote for independence rather than opt for the status quo or opt for Pakistan. At the same time, there is the problem of Laddakh and Jammu. What to do with these regions?”

It appeared that he was more favourably disposed towards the third option in which the territory is divided on ethnic lines. It would be interesting to note if he has anything to say about the future of the territory now, in view of the tremendous sacrifices given by the people of Jammu and Kashmir while struggling against the Indian yoke, especially in the context of the Quaid’s vision.