Pakistan Day, which falls on March 23rd, is around the corner. There will be a thrilling display by the armed forces, wreaths will be placed on the Quaid’s tomb and civil awards will be announced. It commemorates a turning point in the quest for Pakistan. The national narrative then skips forward seven years to 1947 and the raising of the Pakistan flag on August 14.

But March 23rd was so much more than a proclamation for a separate homeland. Its enormity can only be understood in the context of that time and the weaving together of many stories. The events before and after that date establish its true significance.

Although the colonisation of India began earnestly in the 18th century, it took another 100 years before it officially became part of the British Empire in 1857. It took another 60 years for the Indians to transform from a subjugated people to rebels, determined to overthrow the British yoke. It was not a single rebellion as that which happened in 1857, but a series of negotiations, interspersed with actions of non-cooperation, resignations, protests, public meetings, outspoken journalism, imprisonments and back to negotiations. It may sound like the present political climate, but when one considers the full force of British power, with its psychological manipulations, its carefully implemented authoritarian grandeur, its endless laws enacted to create what was called a steel frame, its divide-and-rule policy, the courage of a people to stand up for freedom becomes quite remarkable.

A side story of March 23rd was the gathering on the next day, of 3,000 women from the women’s wing of the Muslim league from across India, at the Habibia Hall of Islamia College Lahore. The president was Begum Muhammad Ali Jauhar, the only woman in the working committee that finalised the Lahore Resolution, and the first person to use the term Pakistan Resolution. Women played an important role in the freedom movement.

Jinnah had appealed to the women to spread the message of the League in every home. A young student, Zari Sarfaraz, helped set up the Frontier Women’s Muslim League in Mardan and organised the Women’s Muslim League National Guards. Many others, such as Salma Tassaduq Hussain, Jahan Ara Shahnawaz, Lady Abdullah Haroon, Shaista Ikramullah, Fatima Begum and many more, worked tirelessly for freedom. Women burnt imported cloth and chose to wear khaddi. In 1946, a 14-year-old Fatima Sughra, climbed up the Civil Secretariat in Lahore to pull down the Union Jack and replace it with the green flag of the Muslim League.

Another important context for March 23rd 1940, was Britain’s declaration of war with Germany just six months earlier. Children in Britain were being sent to safer locations, 400,000 pets were euthanised and food rationing had begun. In another six months London would be intensely bombed in what came to be known as the Blitz. It was a difficult time at home and there was dismay at losing India, the source of much-needed finances and Indian troops. Congress would only consider fighting alongside British forces if freedom was guaranteed after the war.

Within the British administration there was considerable conflict. The diaries of Major-General Shahid Hamid, personal secretary to the Commander-in-Chief of India, Sir Claude Auchinleck, from 1946-47, gives a fascinating behind-the-scenes insight. A letter written in 1925 by a British civil servant to his counterpart in Britain, found its way to the comrade offices. It is full of scathing disdain for the viceroys and politicians. Of Morley he writes, “Little did he dream that it was not his vision but ours, and that he was seeing only that which we wanted him to see.” Civil servants are “a continuous government, soulless as a machine that has discovered the secret of perpetual motion.” It did not matter who is King. Civil servants are the “Men on the Spot”. “Segregation of the communities was our policy.” He boasts of neutralising Gandhi and Tilak, but the government was flummoxed by the Ali Brothers and their Khilafat movement, “These ruffians, turned the law-court into a playhouse where a farce is staged, and yet drew tears as easily as they raised a laugh.” Despite imprisonment, “these jacks in the boxes are up again the moment the lid is lifted.” They are “like their own Hussain at Kerbala who died with his 70-odd followers pitted against thousands, but sword in hand”.

The story of the partition itself has become a single story imprinted on our minds through the photographs of Margaret Bourke White for Life Magazine. They were taken in Punjab, where 80 percent of migrations took place. Photographer, Faustin Elmer Chaudhry, documented events from the Lahore Resolution onwards to the Zia-ul-Haq era, giving a much more coherent story of the making of Pakistan, but remains to be properly acknowledged.

As the film producer Robert Evans says “There are three sides to every story: Your side, my side and the truth. And no one is lying.”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.

She may be reached at durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 20th, 2022