Illustration by Abro
On October 19, 1941, the central leader of the All-India Muslim League and future founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in his Eid message asked the Muslims of India to demonstrate unity (ittehad), faith (yaqeen) and order (nazm). Celebrated journalist and author, the late Zamir Niazi, in his 1994 book The Web of Censorship wrote that Jinnah repeated these words in December 1947, three months after the creation of Pakistan, when he said: “I have no doubt that with unity, faith and discipline we will compare with any nation of the world.”
The three words were adopted as the country’s national motto in 1948. They were then inscribed on the country’s state emblem. But since Jinnah had explained the last word ‘nazm’ as ‘discipline’ in his 1947 speech, it was translated into Urdu as ‘tanzeem’. But school textbooks till the early 1970s used both. Sometimes they stated the motto to be “Ittehad, Yaqeen, Nazm” and sometimes “Ittehad, Yaqeen, Tanzeem” — even though tanzeem largely means ‘to manage’ or ‘to arrange’ and it can also mean ‘organisation’.
This sequence of the words also appeared prominently in the special coins issued by the Z.A. Bhutto regime during Jinnah’s 100th birth anniversary in December 1976. The words on the coins only appear in English. However, the order of the words was suddenly changed after Gen Zia toppled Bhutto’s regime in July 1977. The word ‘faith’ was put before ‘unity.’ But it seems that the change went almost unnoticed by the media. Despite the fact that the altered order of words increasingly replaced the previous sequencing of the motto in textbooks, government documents and on the state emblem, I have yet to find anything written on this in newspapers published during the Zia regime (1977-88).
How Jinnah’s motto was deconstructed and misconstrued
What’s more, no one is quite sure exactly when the motto was rearranged. In his book Asia’s New Geopolitics, Andrew Small writes that the Zia regime almost immediately rearranged the order of the motto after taking over power through a reactionary military coup in 1977. Zamir Niazi in The Web of Censorship quotes Hamid Jalal — a former civil servant and father of the acclaimed historian and author Ayesha Jalal — as saying: “Jinnah’s ‘Unity, Faith and Discipline’ has been presented as ‘Faith, Unity and Discipline’. Perhaps our theocrats, clutching at straws, equate the word ‘faith’ used in the Quaid’s motto with Islam. There is evidence to show that for the Quaid, ‘faith’ was to be used in the context of the Pakistan Movement. Once Pakistan had been achieved, the Quaid as Governor General, in his first broadcast from Lahore on August 31 reworded his motto. He said: “It is up to you to work, work and work and we are bound to succeed and never forget our motto, ‘Unity, Discipline and Faith’.”
Famous author and intellectual the late Sibte Hasan was perhaps the first noted person to comment on the changed order of the motto. In an article published in a 1983 issue of the now-defunct progressive Urdu monthly Jido-Jehad (The Struggle), he wrote: “Zia, after failing to extract anything from Jinnah’s speeches to furnish his idea of a theocracy, ordered the word ‘faith’ to be put before unity in the motto.” In the same article Hasan added: “By faith Jinnah had meant faith in Pakistan, but Zia explained it to mean Jinnah’s desire for a theocratic state…”
Shuja Nawaz in his book Crossed Swords wrote that Zia had initially changed the motto of the Pakistan army from “Unity, Faith, Discipline” to Iman (Faith), Taqwa (Obedience) and Jihad fi Sabilillah. Probably this move eventually inspired the change in the order of the state’s motto as well.
Perhaps our theocrats, clutching at straws, equate the word ‘faith’ used in the Quaid’s motto with Islam. There is evidence to show that for the Quaid, ‘faith’ was to be used in the context of the Pakistan Movement.
Nevertheless, it was after Zia’s demise in August 1988 that more and more historians, columnists and intellectuals began to comment on the change. But almost all post-Zia governments in the 1990s were reluctant to rearrange the motto’s order. Ironically, it was during another military regime that the state finally decided to address the calls of those demanding that the motto be put back in its correct order.