KARACHI, Dec 25: Speakers at a conference on Tuesday said that if the country had been run according to the vision of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the nation would have progressed well and would not be in the mess it was.

They were speaking at a conference on the ‘Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of national integrity’ organised to mark the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation in the Civic Centre auditorium.

In his keynote speech, former diplomat Shahid Amin said the nation had lost track of the Quaid’s vision regarding Pakistan and strayed from the ideals he had bequeathed to the nation.

Owing to that, he added, the nation saw divisive tendencies, lack of justice, and all that the Quaid had opposed. This was not the Pakistan the Quaid had visualised.

He said the Quaid founded the country on the ideal of Islamic brotherhood, but today that sentiment was glaringly lacking.

That, he said, was reflected in the mayhem and the spilling of Muslims’ blood by Muslims. He said the Quaid had dreamed of a land where justice would be supreme but today it was not the case.

“We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for the rough deal we have given our minorities,” Mr Amin said quoting the Quaid’s speech to the legislative assembly on Aug 11, 1947, wherein the Father of the Nation had stated that the minorities would be equal citizens of Pakistan and that followers of all religions were free to go to their respective places of worship. He said despite the sense of despondency prevailing in the country, “we must acknowledge that our people are very resourceful and all that was needed to be done was to harness this resourcefulness in a constructive manner”.

Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu chief Aftab Ahmed Khan said Pakistan needed a sincere leadership. He said the Quaid passed away far too soon after the creation of Pakistan and after his departure the nation started faltering owing to which such a situation arose that led to the secession of East Pakistan.

He said it looked that the rulers had learnt no lesson from history and even now divisive tendencies existed, which were taking the nation away from the cardinal principle of national unity and integrity.

However, there would be no need for despondency once the nation started following the Quaid’s ideals in right earnest, he added.

Ali Hassan Sajid of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation said that every year December brought a lot of painful memories to the nation as in that month Pakistan had split and if people did not give up those divisive trends, God forbid, there could be a repeat of Dec 16, 1971.

Rafiudddin Raz, Dr Farhat Azeem, Arshad Sabri, Farhat Hashmi, Zakia Yousufi and others also spoke.