The following is the text of my keynote address at the celebration of 184th birth anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the VIP Hall of the National Press Club, Dhaka. The ceremony was organized by Nawab Salimullah Academy, and held at approximately 11 am on 25 December 2024. I delivered my address through pre-recorded video.
Can the countries of South Asia become as much united and friendly with each other as the countries of Europe are today? I believe that they can; this was the vision of Jinnah, for which our ancestors took part in a common struggle.
But first, I want to thank Mr Abdul Jabbar, President Nawab Salimullah Academy; and Syful Islam Shubho, Secretary General; for inviting me to be the chief guest and the keynote speaker for the celebration of the 148th Birthday of Quaid-i-Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the National Press Club, Dhaka. I am truly honoured. In Pakistan, we keep the love of Bangladesh warm in our hearts while respecting its sovereignty as an independent country.
Dhaka is the birthplace of visions and movements that have been shaping the history of South Asia. One such vision was the All-India Muslim League, founded here in 1906, in an event hosted by Nawab Salimullah Khan – just as the academy founded in his name is hosting the ceremony today. Another vision was SAARC – the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – the charter of which was signed in Dhaka in 1985, by the rulers of seven countries (and now there are eight).
These two visions, the Muslim League and SAARC, were, in fact one. The countries of South Asia need to see this if they want to survive the threat of Indian imperialism, which now appears to be becoming a bigger threat to the sovereignty of these countries than the British imperialism was in the past.
The easiest way of understanding this is by making a comparison with Europe. There, European Union became possible only when the countries of Europe understood that they must respect each other’s sovereignty, and that they should settle territorial disputes according to the consent of the people living in such territories. This is the simple principle that created European Union in 1993.
The hindrances in the realization of this dream had been (a) firstly, Hitler and the Axis Powers, who followed the completely opposite ideology; and (b) afterwards, the Cold War. European Union became possible only after both hindrances had been removed. In South Asia, Indian imperialism in its various forms has been posing the same hindrances.
This is what Jinnah tried to explain in 1943, exactly fifty years before the birth of European Union. Hitler and the Axis Powers attempted to unite Europe by bringing it under a single authority, which resulted in the Second World War. Jinnah showed that the same approach was being pursued in the Subcontinent by Gandhi and the Hindu supremacists, better known as Indian nationalists:
Hitler wanted a United Europe, and Gandhi and the Hindu supremacists wanted a United India.
European idealists proposed a redistributed Europe consisting of several states based on the consent of the respective people (today called the European Union), and the same was suggested by the Muslim League for the Indian Subcontinent through the Pakistan Resolution. The resolution proposed that (a) there should be more than one sovereign states in the Subcontinent; how many? It did not say at that time; and that (b) the minorities in every state should also have the right to develop themselves freely.
If we compare these two visions that were proposed for the future of South Asia, we can see that one was similar to what Hitler and the Axis Powers were proposing for Europe, and the result of which was the Second World War. The other was similar to the idea that has created European Union.
Quite naturally, then, the inheritors of this second idea took the initiative for creating SAARC in the 1980s. The organization was founded on the invitation of Bangladesh. This was eight years before European Union came into being. Yet, while European Union has become a thriving reality and a living force, SAARC remains an elusive dream even today. Why?
In my opinion, the single most important factor that is keeping South Asia back is that we have failed to see the connection between SAARC and the Pakistan Resolution of the All-India Muslim League. Every other reason can be traced back to this root cause.
The charter of SAARC says that the progress of South Asia requires all its states to respect the sovereignty of each other. How an organization based on this vision can flourish when India has kept propagating that this region could have been more prosperous if the partition had not happened in 1947? This poisonous doctrine contradicts the charter of SAARC, and denies the legitimacy of both Bangladesh and Pakistan, and yet it is being taught not only in India but throughout the world, thanks to the influence of the Indian imperialism.
I want to give you one example of the pervasiveness of this poisonous doctrine. Dhruv Rathee is probably the most influential blogger of South Asia, and widely respected as an enlightened and progressive person. Even he has been preaching the doctrine of United India through all the vlogs he has made about the independence movement. In one of them (‘What if India and Pakistan Never Separated?’), posted last year, he actually asked the youth of Pakistan and Bangladesh to start taking practical steps for revoking the independence of their countries, so that these two countries should merge back into India.
Can you imagine a liberal and progressive German making an appeal to Austria and Poland that they should merge back into Germany, as they had been annexed in the days of Hitler? How can you have peace in South Asia, or make SAARC a thriving reality, when even the most enlightened and progressive youth of the region do not have the slightest notion of the sovereignty of its countries?
My friends, it is my humble suggestion that today our tribute to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah should not remain restricted to the past. Can we adopt a new common goal for the future? That we want a better South Asia through the vision of Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League, and according to the charter of SAARC, because we understand both things to be the same.
I understand that there are controversies in Bangladesh with respect to Jinnah, Pakistan and the All-India Muslim League. Those controversies can be addressed with complete respect at some other time, and on some other forum. The one thing I want to say here is that by speaking about Jinnah or the Muslim League, and their achievements, we actually speak about the achievements of all the Muslims of South Asia, and they include especially the people of Bengal, Assam and Bihar, as they played the most important role in securing those achievements.
But what was the greatest of those achievements? It was not the creation of Pakistan, not even the independence of Bangladesh which happened afterwards as a further consequence. It was something bigger, and we have been made to forget it. It was the independence of the entire Indian Subcontinent, and the end of British rule. I have explained this in detail and with evidence in my book, How Jinnah Liberated India, and also in several of the videos on my YouTube channel. Let me just tell you here in a few words.
In December 1946, the British installed a Constituent Assembly in India, and promised that they would remain in India until the assembly had drafted a constitution for a united India, and the British had imposed such a constitution on the entire region. The process could take ten to twenty years, or might have lasted forever, and the Congress and the upper caste Hindu leaders of that time agreed. So, the British were now going to rule over the Subcontinent with the full support of those leaders.
Only the Muslim League boycotted the assembly, and since the League had won almost all the Muslims seats in that assembly, almost one-third of the assembly was going to remain empty. This was something which the British government could not justify even to its own people in UK. That is when the British decided to quit India, and here is the original draft of the statement produced for the British Prime Minister to read in the House of Commons. It starts with the words, ‘His Majesty’s Government greatly regret that it has not yet proved possible to bring within the Constituent Assembly in India all the major sections of Indian opinion and that the Muslim League, in particular, still find themselves unable to join in its deliberations.’
You can see that the reason being given here for leaving India is Muslim League – not the Congress, not Quit India Movement, not Subhash Chandra Bose, nor anything or anybody else. The final draft that was actually read out by the Prime Minister also stated the same thing, but in slightly different words, as you can see below.
Hence, according to the official statement of the British Government themselves, it was the Muslim League that made them quit India, while the Congress and other leaders had agreed to prolong the British rule indefinitely. Jinnah could not have done it alone, because alone he could just have one seat in the assembly and nobody would have taken notice of his boycott. Where did all those other seats come from? They came from the Muslims of the entire Subcontinent, and as you know, the biggest chunk was from the areas that are now called Bangladesh.
This is the cold fact of history. The Hindu supremacists did not liberate India. The All-India Muslim League did it, under the leadership of Jinnah, and only because of the support of the Muslim population of the Subcontinent – including the ancestors of the Muslims of Bangladesh. We are not taking away any credit from the followers of other religions. Many Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Buddhists and others also played an important role in the process but their contributions have been obliterated by those who have been promoting false narratives. In my book, I have brought them back to light as well.
Let me conclude. South Asia cannot prosper if it continues to believe in lies about the most important fact of how it achieved independence. SAARC cannot become like European Union if it does not recognize its true roots. On this birthday of Jinnah, let’s consider embracing a new vision for a bright future by saying that we want a better South Asia through the vision of Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League, and according to the charter of SAARC, because we understand both things to be the same.
