HARM CAUSED BY WRONG THINKING
“Leaders within the Muslim community should disengage from separatist endeavors characterised by impassioned rhetoric and emotional politics in order to safeguard the community from the adverse consequences of misguided ideologies.”
In 1930, the annual session of the All-India Muslim League was held in the town of Allahabad. It was presided over by Allama Iqbal. In his Presidential address, he made the claim that in undivided India, Muslims would not be able to keep their identity protected and that, therefore, when India becomes independent, in the Muslim-majority areas of the country Muslims should have a separate homeland. This suggestion later became popular among many Muslims under the name of ‘Pakistan,’ and in 1947, a country separate from India came into being with that name. This concept of a separate Muslim territory was accepted by many other Muslim thinkers too. And, based on this same sort of thinking, several movements came into being in different parts of the world. The agenda of these movements can be described in one word: ‘Pakistanisation.’
Following such anachronistic thinking, in those countries that had territories on their frontiers with Muslim-majority, such movement, as can be called ‘Pakistanisation’, emerged with full zeal. In all such places, Muslim leaders emerged who, through their emotionally driven movements and fiery rhetoric, fomented emotional politics among Muslims based on separatism. The cases of Myanmar, the Philippines, Ethiopia, parts of China, and the former Yugoslavia can be cited in this regard.
These regional Muslim leaders were enthusiastically driven to the point of madness in their imaginary ideology of ‘Pakistanisation.’ And so, they did not keep their divisive political movements limited to peaceful methods of action. Rather, they led them on to bloody armed struggles. These violent movements of ‘Pakistanisation’ met with complete failure. They resulted in further exacerbation of the problems of the Muslims themselves.
Why did this destructive policy of ‘Pakistanisation’ become popular in so many parts of the Muslim world? The reason was the anachronistic thinking of the Muslim leaders of the times. They could not understand and appreciate the new changes that had come about in modern times. The whole world had become one and was entering the age of globalization, but at this very time, Muslim leaders, because of their lack of awareness of the age, were spearheading contrarian movements in the form of ‘Pakistanisation.’ These movements were synonymous with banging their heads against the massive boulder of the age, as it were. That is why these movements met with such negative outcomes as was fated for them from day one.
The changes that accompanied the modern age greatly increased the importance of mutual interaction between people from different religious backgrounds and communities. But Muslim leaders, with extreme foolishness, were spearheading their movements in complete opposition to this. Historical experience has conclusively proven that challenge and competition are indispensable means of progress. But these Muslim leaders, fired with misplaced zeal, were busy trying to construct a fanciful world for Muslims where they would supposedly face no challenges, nor any competition. From the immense opportunities for progress that modern developments had made available, it had clearly come to be seen that only through large-scale joint efforts among people from different religious and other backgrounds could big achievements be possible. But these Muslim leaders had come to imagine that it was their political task to construct imaginary political islands, as it were, for Muslims, where they would be devoid of the impact of inter-community interaction and cooperation. Modern communications have rendered the concept of geographical separation of peoples completely unnecessary. But these Muslim leaders, unaware of these changes, ridiculously wasted their time and resources on their useless movements. The modern age opened up a great opportunity in the form of freedom and also of democracy, which was based on the principle of power-sharing among members of the public, rather than the rule of a single individual. But these Muslim leaders neither understood the possibilities that these had made available nor succeeded in using them.
Modern changes had opened up another possibility, which can be called ‘The Age of Institutions’. In contrast to the Age of Monarchy, governance had now narrowed down within the restricted political boundaries of administration. Other than this, many new fields (for instance, in the areas of education, economy, and the mass media) had come into being in which individuals and groups could, by establishing institutions, obtain greater distinction than through exercising political power. However, these Muslim leaders were not aware of these modern possibilities. That being the case, how could they avail of them?
