August 11 QA speech: Missing direction

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

These were the famous golden words of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah while delivering his speech at the first Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, three days ahead of actual independence on August 14-15.

In his speech Mr. Jinnah, in fact, laid the foundations of the principles for a new country by describing it as being a state with no business with any religion.

Before concluding his historic speech, Quaid-e-Azam stated: “Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

But Quaid-e-Azam’s vision for a secular Pakistan was just ignored by his predecessors especially his Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who even presented the famous Objective Resolution on 12th March 1947 few months after Quaid’s death, which made many clauses which clearly mention the state would be a Muslim one.

This Objective Resolution has remained part of all the Constitutions including the present one of 1973. The official name of the new country was described as the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

“Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed” is one of the points of Objective Resolution states. The later amendments in the 1973 Constitution have further restricted the fundamental rights of non-Muslims. For example, a non-Muslim cannot become the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan according to the Constitution.

“A person shall not be qualified for election as President unless he is a Muslim of not less than forty-five years of age and is qualified to be elected as member of the National Assembly,” Article 41(2) of the Constitution states. 

Article 91(3) of the Constitution clearly describes: “After the election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, the National Assembly shall, to the exclusion of any other business, proceed to elect without debate one of its Muslim members to be the Prime Minister.”

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had a different vision for a new state like Pakistan and he clearly described in his 11th August 1947 speech.

“We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities — the Hindu community and the Muslim community — because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishnavas, Khatris, also Bengalese, Madrasis and so on — will vanish. 

Unfortunately, there is no hope for me that such angularities of the majority or minorities communities would vanish in Pakistan soon as we have actually missed the directions set by the Father of the Nation at the time of independence due to frequent military interventions and derailment of the democracy in Pakistan.

Even the Federation concept, described in the Objective Resolution was abandoned when the notorious system of “One Unit” was introduced on 22nd November 1952 in Pakistan thus all the federating units (provinces) and autonomous princely states were dissolved. “There will be no Bengalis, no Punjabis, no Sindhis, no Pathans, no Balochis, no Bahawalpuris, no Khairpuris. The disappearance of these groups will strengthen the integrity of Pakistan” the proponents of the One Unit scheme described it.

In fact Sindh, Punjab, then NWFP and Balochistan provinces were merged into a unit called West Pakistan. East Bengal province, which was in majority population wise was named as East Pakistan and both the units were given parity in the national resources. This decision was resisted by people in East Bengal, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan.

Although after the 1971 War and the separation of East Bengal the four provinces were restored, the princely states were restituted.

The angularities pointed out by the Father of the Nation have further reshaped as the religious zealots have gripped their power in the state authorities and there is a visible discrimination with the religious minorities in the Constitution and the laws of the state.

Labnon govt. resigns after deadly explosion in Beirut

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The entire Lebanon government resigned on August 10 after protests over a deadly explosion in the port area of the capital Beirut on August 4. Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his and the entire cabinet’s resignation at a broadcast published by the National News Agency in Lebanon, the state-run media outlet.

The Diab government had come under severe criticism after twin explosions near Beirut port in which over 160 citizens lost their lives whereas more than 6,000 were injured and over a dozen others were still missing after a nuclear-like blast in a storage house of a massive stockpile of the extinguishing chemical ammonium nitrate, which is the main component used for making fertilizers.

A day earlier of the entire government’s resignation, the Lebanon information minister Ms. Manal Abdel Samad announced her step down while apologizing to people for the government’s failure to protect their lives.

Intense protests had erupted in all over the country, with many calling for ministers’ “resign or hang,” according to NPR’s Ruth Sherlock.

The Lebanon government has set an unprecedented moral virtue and a sense of responsibility by presenting itself for accountability after the explosion despite the fact the Prime Minister stated while announcing his resignation that he was an “external victim of a corrupt and selfish political leadership”.

Such a demonstration of courage and steadfastness is seldom witnessed in most of the democracies especially in South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan.

Pakistani people have endured many catastrophes due to human error and terrorism, but no government official has ever taken responsibility and resigned. Even after deadly railway accidents in the last two years the Railway Minister Shaikh Rasheed has always refused to resign or even take the responsibility.

Similarly, the shameless Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan put the entire blame of the crash of PIA passenger aircraft in Karachi on May 22 on the pilot. About 97 including passengers and members of crew had lost their lives due to crash in Model Colony near Karachi Airport.

The Minister event went to the extent to say at the floor of the National Assembly that many Pakistani pilots possess fake degrees and training certificates. This resulted in removal of Pakistan origin pilots from many international airlines. Later, he amended his statement, however the pilots had already suffered a lot and country’s name was dotted worldwide.

Nai Gaaj drowns or replenishes?

After years of droughts, the arid Katcho area in Johi taluka of Dadu district is facing flash floods caused by flowing of rainy riverine “Nai Gaaj” streaming down after torrential Monsoon rains on Khirthir hilly range in the West bordering Balochistan province on August 7th and 8th.

Thousands of people and hundreds of villages were inundated due to the sudden flowing of the hilly torrent, causing floods. Heavy losses of properties and livestock have also been reported.

Video clips were circulated on social media, showing some people climbing on trees to save their lives. These video clips also included appeals from men and women to the authorities to save them from the gushing water of Nai Gaaj. The hill torrent passes through the Katcho area enters Manchhar lake, and ultimately to River Indus via inundation canals.

Breaches reportedly occurred in the protective embankment (dyke) FB Bund, which protects major cities. These breaches posed a threat of inundation of Johi town, the major settlement in the area, but due to the quick intervention of the authorities to plug the breaches this threat was averted.

However, hundreds of villages were submerged due to the breach and they are still inundated people have taken refuge on the Bund (dyke) and waiting for relief assistance from the government. A video showing the local police stealing the relief goods which was provided by the provincial government.

The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah visited the area on Sunday and inspected the relief and rescue operations.

Nai Gaaj is a major hilly torrent in Dadu’s Katcho area, which is often welcomed by people of the area as it replenishes the groundwater, which also irrigates the agricultural lands for bumper crops.

The biggest lake in Pakistan Manchhar is one of the main beneficiaries of the hilly torrents as it is facing a lot of pollution coming from the Main Nara Valley (MNV) Drain and defunct Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD), which carry industrial waste and sewerage water from northern areas of Punjab and Balochistan provinces.

According to senior journalist Aajiz Jamali, Nai Gaaj had caused flash floods in 1976, 1995 and 2010, which caused heavy destruction and loss of livestock and human lives.

The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) had carried out two major projects in this area: Nai Gaaj Dam and RBOD, both are incomplete. Experts believe heavy corruption and inefficiency have caused the non-completion of these major projects. The RBOD is aimed at carrying the polluted water till the Arabian Sea and saving Manchhar lake, which is currently receiving that highly polluted water.

Local people consider the flood in Nai Gas as a blessing. According to them, due to faulty development policy of the government, the flood becomes a misery for the people.