Pakistan Resolution

Pakistan Resolution

Pakistan Resolution or Muslim League’s Search for Survival

I actually wanted to go through a phase of introspection and make some important confessions to myself yesterday. Foremost being that I should stop finding footsteps in the mire; realizing for good the futility of my persistant infatuation with the infamous ideology question. There are number of reasons for this desperate conclusion. Firstly, Pakistan Studiesin my view, is merely an academic exercise having no objective influence on present state of affairs as well as future course of our collective action. Secondly, we are a nation (if it is accurate enough to be identified as such) purposefully failing to make sense of our past and being proud of this relentless obliviousness, we are always ready to be duped by petty slogans and sleazy shibboleths. Last but not the least, the above two observations have now become conventional wisdom and there is no reason one should remain stuck forever in one’s own stubborn optimism.
Nevertheless, while I was getting fagged out by PTV’s high-sounding portrayal of Lahore Resolution and trying to find my misplaced patriotism where I usually discover it (i.e in Mukhtar Masood’s brilliant essay Minar-e-Pakistan), I couldn’t resist taking Brother Adil Najam’s excellent advice and once again read the resolution myself; only this time with a side by sideexposition of Dr Ayesha Jalal.
In my humble opinion, the argument that the resolution somehow delineated the demand for Pakistan per se, as seen in the political realities of 1937-40 in Sub Continent, is not very accurate. And albeit its contextual importance vis-à-vis creation of Pakistan in 1947 has now become debatable in the light of fresh research, its textual importance cannot be undermined at all. A close look at the text itself and politics which environs it tells us so much about the bitter realities of Muslim politics in mid 30s and may further help us to investigate our failure in becoming a nation...

Similar Essays