[Reader-list] Return to 1954(Kashmir Times)

[rashneek kher]

*Return to 1954
By Khalid Hasan
*Not a day has passed since 1954 when the people of Pakistan did not need to
read, soak in and act upon the findings of a document that could have kept
them from plunging into the hellhole of zealotry and ignorance that they
have increasingly mistaken for Islam. And never before has the need to do so
been greater than today, when we are inexorably rushing headlong into
medievalism, with large areas of the country no longer under the control of
the state or subject to its laws. What is being called "Talibanisation" is
actually surrender to tribalism and its dark, bloodthirsty code.
The document I refer to is the Report of the Court of Inquiry, constituted
under the Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of
1953, commonly known as the Munir Report. Ironically, it is the same Justice
Munir who also put that albatross around the nation's neck: the Doctrine of
Necessity. However, when, on judgment day, his good deeds are weighed
against his bad ones, it is his 1954 report that will keep him from the
place that no snowball can hope to survive in. The two-member court that
investigated the anti-Qadiani rioting in the Punjab consisted of Justice
Muhammad Munir and Justice MR Kayani, like Ahmed Faraz, another eminent son
of the city of Kohat. Between the two of them, they produced the most
rational guide as to what Islam was is what it has been made out to be. I
have been long of the view that the Munir Report - drafted by the brilliant
and inimitable Kayani - should be required reading in every school, college
and institution in Pakistan. And let the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul
and the Staff College in Quetta not be left out if and when that day comes.
Even elsewhere in the Islamic world, where violent, reactionary and
intolerant interpretations of Islam are being bandied around as the true
religion, the Munir Report will prove to be a shaft of light.
Discussing the establishment of a state based on religion, the Report held,
"No one who has given serious thought to the introduction of a religious
state in Pakistan has failed to notice the tremendous difficulties with
which any such scheme must be confronted." Munir and Kayani quoted Allama
Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 address to the Allahbad session of the All India
Muslim League. Iqbal said, "Nor should Hindus fear that the creation of
autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious
rule in such states. The principle that each group is entitled to free
development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow
communalism."
Munir and Kayani argued that since a demand was being made to declare all
Ahmedis non-Muslim (something Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, of all people, was to do
exactly 20 years later), those making this demand must know who a Muslim
was. They wrote, "What is Islam and who is a momin or a Muslim? We put this
question to the ulema . but we cannot refrain from saying here that it was a
matter of infinite regret to us that the ulema whose first duty should be to
have settled views on this subject, were hopelessly disagreed among
themselves." The court asked the ulema, who included the biggest names in
the business of interpreting Islam, to "give the irreducible minimum
conditions which a person must satisfy to be entitled to be called a
Muslim." They were unable to do so. What one said, the other refuted,
leaving the court to observe, "Keeping in view the several definitions given
by the ulema, need we make any comment except that no two learned divines
are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition, as each
learned divine has done and that definition differs from that given by all
others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the
definition given by anyone of the ulema, we remain Muslims according to the
view of that alim but kafirs according to the definition of every one else."
The court had the courage to observe that the authors of the Objectives
Resolution (now a part of the constitution, thanks to Zia-ul-Haq) "misused
the words 'sovereign' and 'democracy' when they recited that the
Constitution to be framed was for a sovereign state in which principles of
democracy as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed." They wrote, "An
Islamic state, however, cannot in this sense be sovereign because it will
not be competent to abrogate, repeal or do away with any law in the Quran or
Sunnah. Absolute restriction on the legislative power of the state is a
restriction on the sovereignty of the people of that state and if the origin
of this restriction lies elsewhere than in the will of the people, then to
the extent of that restriction, the sovereignty of the state and its people
is necessarily taken away."
The court felt troubled by the status of Muslims in India. Maulana Abul Ala
Maudoodi was asked if he would "permit Hindus to base their constitution on
the basis of their own religion." Maudoodi answered, "Certainly, I should
have no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of
government as shudras and malishes and Manu's laws are applied to them,
depriving them of all share in the government and the rights of a citizen."
Munir and Kayani concluded, "The ideology advocated before us, if adopted by
Indian Muslims, will completely disqualify them for public office in the
state, not only in India but in other countries also which are under a
non-Muslim government. Muslims will become perpetual suspects everywhere and
will not be enrolled in the army because according to this ideology, in case
of war between a Muslim country and a non-Muslim country, Muslim soldiers of
the non-Muslim country must either side with the Muslim country or surrender
their posts."
The two judges went on to say, "Nothing but a bold reorientation of Islam to
separate the vital from the lifeless can preserve it as a world idea and
convert the Musalman into a citizen of the present and the future world from
the archaic incongruity that he is today. It is this lack of clear thinking,
the inability to understand and take decisions which has brought about in
Pakistan a confusion which will persist and repeatedly create situations of
the kind we have been enquiring into until our leaders have a clear
conception of the goal and the means to reach it. . And as long as we rely
on the hammer when a file is needed and press Islam into service to solve
situations it was never intended to solve, frustration and disappointment
must dog our steps. The sublime faith called Islam will live even if our
leaders are not there to enforce it. It lives in the individual, in his soul
and outlook, in all his relations with God and men, from the cradle to the
grave, and our politicians should understand that if divine commands cannot
make or keep a man a Musalman, their statutes will not."
If Munir and Kayani's wise words have remained just words to us for 54
years, what hope is there that the next 54 years are going to be any
different?
*(Khalid Hasan is a senior Pakistani journalist-columnist hailing from Jammu
and Kashmir based in Washington).
-(Courtesy: The Friday Times)


-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
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