I LIVED long enough to witness the creation of Pakistan, its dismemberment in 1971 and all that has happened since.

I was part of the freedom movement and still can recall rallies of those times. Both the Congress and the Muslim League used to hold rallies in Rawalpindi on a daily basis. Often, the workers of Congress led by Bhim Sen Sachar clashed with workers of the Muslim League.

In 1906, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah joined the Congress and was welcomed by its leadership calling him the ambassador of Muslim-Hindu unity. Mr Jinnah was a great leader who possessed talent and foresight.

He sensed that the Congress wanted freedom without sorting the communal issue and the Muslim League, on the other hand, insisted on solving communal issues. When the Congress seemed oblivious to the concerns of the minorities, mostly Muslims, Jinnah left and joined the Muslim League.

He was very quickly labelled a traitor and Nehru predicted that Jinnah would fail miserably because he did not enjoy inherent power for a strong political party. On this, the Quaid replied that he would show how well-organised and strong the Muslim League was, which he did.

Nehru also maintained that a separate state for the Muslim minority without a well-organised political party would lead to failure. While Jinnah proved his opponents wrong in everything by not only transforming the Muslim League into a strong political party, but also by creating a separate viable state for the Muslim minority.

However, it seems that since inception, we as a nation have been trying to prove Jinnah’s opponents right by taking the country to gloom and doom through constant infighting, corruption, and bigotry.

I wish we learnt from our great leader and work for the betterment of the country collectively.

Raja Shafaatullah

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2020