KARACHI: Renowned columnist Ghazi Salahuddin said that Universities have now a pivotal role in building public opinion and giving the youth a positive direction in bringing positive change. Quaid-i-Azam declared religion not a matter of state in his 11th August speech and other speeches after the independence. Emergence of Pakistan as an independent state was no less than a miracle.
Jogendar Nath Mendal was the first temporary President of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly and he later went on to become first Pakistani Law Minister while Pakistan also had its first foreign Minister Sir Zafar ullah Khan, an Ahmadi which shows the secular mindset that prevailed at that time.
He was addressing a lecture entitled “The vision and the reality of Pakistan” under Distinguished Lecture Series Faculty of Social Sciences Karachi University at Arts Auditorium.
“Quaid-e-Azam was a secular person and an admirer of Turkey’s secular supreme leader Ataturk”, added Mr. Salahuddin while discussing the personality of Quaid-e-Azam.
He further added that the forefathers of Pakistan were from the elite Muslim class whose native language was Urdu and thus Urdu became the binding force for the Muslims of the subcontinent. We have cultural and historic ties with the South Asian region including India but we share no cultural and historical background with China. Identity politics is always destructive.
American government favored Pakistani army action in East Pakistan on which American Counsel General in Dhaka wrote many letters to the government demanding to withdraw the support of the military action. America supported Pakistan and stopped India to attack West Pakistan during the 1971 war as India had planned to attack West Pakistan too. It’s the responsibility of the state to provide education to its citizens, he added.
He highlighted that the definition of secularism is highly misinterpreted in Pakistan; secularism doesn’t rule out religion completely but only calls for its separation from state affairs and terms it as a personal matter of individuals. We need to learn lessons from the East Pakistan debacle and not to run away from the history.
Prof. Dr. Moonis Ahmar, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences University of Karachi in his concluding remarks urged the students to play their positive role in the society. He lamented upon the fact that only one million young people are enrolled in universities despite having the population of 200 million. It’s the young minds of the country who are lucky that they have golden chance to change the fate of the country.
