LAHORE: Historian Ali Usman Qasmi says there were various shades of the Muslim nationhood in the initial years of Pakistan’s history as it had both its supporters as well as opponents. He said by writing his new book, he wanted to explore why a Muslim nationhood collapsed or faced a crisis as soon as it turned into state while other nationalisms like Sindhi, Baloch or Pashtun thrived.

He was speaking at the launch of his book, Qaum, Mulk, Saltanat: Citizenship and National Belonging in Pakistan, at the Afkar-i-Taza ThinkFest. The session was moderated by Raza Rumi.

“My focus has been the decade of the 1950s when the debate was strong and the people were involved in debates in the newspapers as well as in the assembly. Though there was dominance of the Muslim League, there was a sizeable opposition, especially from Bengal”.

Qasmi said the concept of Islamic state was different to different people just like the idea of Islamic nationhood. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman raised the issue of contours of an Islamic state in the constituent assembly and that it meant taking away the majority status of Bengal. There was a debate on the necessity of declaring Pakistan as an Islamic state, he said and added that Mujib had warned that if Pakistan was declared as an Islamic state, the RSS would also make a similar demand in India in the future.

Qasmi said the bureaucrats were discussing the shade of the green colour of the national flag and they found out that the colour of the flag raised by Quaid-i-Azam had faded.

To the question of the national anthem, he said Z.A. Bokhari thought there should not be a national anthem as it was un-Islamic and if it was a must, then it should be Surah Fateha.

“When Hafiz Jullundhri was approached by Liaqat Ali Khan first, he wrote a different anthem and he was against the composition, considering it the music of mourning on deaths.” He said the original national anthem was more pro-people.

OSAMA SIDDIQUE: Novelist Osama Siddique was joined by Amna Mufti and Faisal Bari on the launch of his debut Urdu novel, Gharoob-i-Shehr Ka Waqt.

He said he wanted to write something that he thought could be better communicated in fiction so he wrote his first Urdu novel. He said he started writing his novel in English language initially but did not enjoy it and thought about writing the story of the city in the language that’s spoken by its citizens.

While introducing his book, Dr Osama revealed, “I began writing it in English, but a foreign language couldn’t do justice to the story. Perhaps the English medium is not good enough to express Lahore and Lahoris”.

Osama took on the issue of language of fiction, saying while writing English he knew that he could not write in the language of Dickens and Hardy and added that even in English writing, the Indian writers writing in the language had their own idiom. He criticised the conservative establishment of Urdu literature who thought that a particular Lakhnavi expression was required for writing. He said he used to recite poetry of Majeed Amjad aloud daily to get inspiration for writing his novel or to have the same impact of the language in his own writing.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2024