As minutes are ticking towards midnight, uproars of Pakistan Zindabad hails are coming from amongst frenzied crowds of people who make sure they are heard by every one. And where it conjures up an avalanche of patriotic emotions brimming up to the top, it sets one back to the time these hails were heard for the first time, on the eve of 14th August. It’s strange yet meaningful that the two nations celebrate their national days only 24 hours apart and ironic at the same time how these 24 hours' distance gave way to a myriad distances and differences between the two nations, once under one flag.
With the celebrations of this twin dominion, a bibliography of history is revised; the leaders who architect-ed the design of these states are remembered, upheld and praised for the tenets they laid for these two proud nations.Yet, how ironic it is that what an amnesiac mind we give to their truly proposed ideals, what perturbed them the most and what took them from us.
Partition ensued what was never imagined by our leaders. Our history never included, at least theoretically and practically any call for war, for oppression and violence. It was meant to be and could have been a peaceful, non-violent carving out on paper, of the two states. But the reality was much harder to handle as it was to believe, when a spasm of sectarian and racial violence that gripped the Indo-Pak sub-continent as days neared partition. The mass violence and humanitarian disaster that took the lives of hundreds of people, also consumed the two leaders.
Jinnah who was well-acclaimed for his formidable strength is reported by Mir Laik Ali, his political disciple, “Never in my life had I seen Mr. Jinnah emotional except on that day. He asked me if I had seen the…refugees as I drove from the airport..I had of course. Tears rolled down his cheeks several times as he spoke of the mass human misery.” Fatima Jinnah, his sister was also close enough to observe him, “even in this hour of triumph the Quaid-e-Azam was gravely ill…I watched him in sorrow and pain. He had little or no appetite and had even lost his ability to will himself to sleep. All this coincided with reports from both sides of the border of harrowing tales of massacres, rape, arson and looting. He began his day discussing these mass killings with me at breakfast and his handkerchief furtively often went to his moist eyes..”
And for Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest leader India is ever to have, announced to live in Pakistan to safeguard minority rights, cared so much that in the early 1948, “he won the last of his fasts –unto-death persuading India’s cabinet to pay its debt of 55 curores of rupees to Pakistan, helping to put an end to the slaughter and looting of Muslims in and around Dehli.”He the up bearer of peace who vehemently fought against violence was shot to death by a “hate-crazed” person.
Our leaders lived and died advocating a lawful and peaceful way of settling affairs. Jinnah who never thought he wouldn’t be ever able to step in his homeland again, never sold his property in Mumbai, planed to visit his house at Maraball hills during holidays. And Gandhi who willed to live the rest of his life in Pakistan had never imagined the iron walls erected between the two countries and what people of both sides have to go through, in the name of strict visa scrutiny, and even then denied the right to step in their motherlands. What a tragedy that scores of people who migrated from across the borders could never go back to meet their families. I can barely manage to imagine the pain that my grandmother had felt on being damned to never see her family and folks again. Why?
Even now, at every next instance, we see governments of each sides and sometimes people engaged in hurling abuses at each other. Does, having separate systems to operate and live in, mean a metaphor for hatred. And when do we really expect this six decade animosity to end? Is attaining peace and love we once shared ,and that is still ingrained deep down our hearts due to our centuries long connection with each other and our shared cultural and historical heritage, too much of a romantic ideal to attain?
Our real leaders,Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi never wanted this, never advocated for hatred. Then why We, the carriers of their legacy, their spiritual progeny insistent on going against their dreams. Today, let’s only pay tribute and homage to our leaders and swear to follow their proposed ideals that only, meant peace and love for each other while celebrating our national identities and days. Today, if I wish for something that is only this Aman ki Asha.
