KARACHI: The Karachi Literature Festival this year had several sessions replete with charting the historical trajectory of Pakistan before Partition, with historians sitting together and trying to imagine the Pakistan of the future. The session titled ‘The birth of two nations’ was one in which a delightful exchange of intellectual debate upgraded the usual talk about Pakistan’s past, present and future.

Historians Ayesha Jalal and Roger Long and journalist and author Sayeed Hasan Khan were part of the panel. Questions were raised regarding the status of Pakistan being a state or a nation. Moderator Harris Khalique kicked off the conversation by throwing to the panellists this very inquiry whether the Partition gave birth to two nations or two states.

For Ms Jalal, there is a difference between a nation and a state and errors are made by anybody who “articulates nationalist perspectives believing there is a direct linear trajectory from nation to statehood”.

“In this instance, the idea of Muslim nationalism was raised on behalf of all Indian Muslims but Pakistan does not include all Muslims of India. In that sense, the two-nation theory, for the Hindus and Muslims, was distorted in the prism of the Partition and ended up with two nation states, which split the Indian Muslims. As a result, the two nations we talk about today are India and Pakistan and not Hindus and Muslims. Yet much of discourse today ends up being about Muslims and Hindus.”

Professor Jalal also passionately rejected populist claims that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. “It is important to realise that Pakistan was created as a homeland for Muslims. Clearly the battle between the Muslim League and the Congress was not on definitions of God, but it was actually a political problem.”

She said that the leaders at the time were not discussing the interpretations of faith but were talking about the share of political power of the Muslims of India in an independent India.

Mr Khalique asked Professor Long had the Congress agreed to the Cabinet Mission Plan, would there have been two nations or states as a result. According to Mr Long, the answer to that question depends on how one wants to interpret the events of 1946.

“With regard to both the Cabinet Mission Plan and the interim government, the Muslim League maintained all along that whatever arrangements they were making had the seeds of Pakistan. What we do know from all of the speeches of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan and others is that they wanted equal power with the Congress”.

“Jinnah made one mistake which was not entering into the interim government in September 1946,” he said. And for one long month Nehru was effectively the prime minister, the Muslim League was not involved in the government and the members of the Congress were happy that they had the power of India without the Muslim League being involved, which was what they wanted.

Published in Dawn February 13th, 2017