Letting Go Of The Past

iaquat came from an aristocratic background and always had an easy, affable charm about him. Unlike Jinnah, he got on with Mountbatten. But his commitment to the cause of Pakistan was deep. He was always aware that he would have to sacrifice his large landholdings in India once he migrated to Pakistan.

Liaquat was a trusted lieutenant of Jinnah and his first act as prime minister in August 1947 was to issue a formal declaration that henceforth all official correspondence would refer to Jinnah as the Qaid-e-Azam. The next day after Jinnah's death, Indian troops marched into the southern state of Hyderabad and tensions with India increased dramatically.

Liaquat now emerged as a bold and patriotic leader.On October 16, 1951, as he rose to address a large audience in Rawalpindi, an Afghan assassin shot him.As he lay dying, he spoke the Muslim declaration offaith.He left behind the equivalent of fifty pounds in his bank balance.

Nehru sent a gracious message: "The news has filled all his old friends and colleagues in the Parliament of India with the deepest sorrow, both in the personal aspect and in the larger background of the two peoples of India and Pakistan."

While Liaquat is little known in India and respected in Pakistan, the position is reversed in the case of Maulana Azad. As a young student, Azad studied Arabic and Islamic theology and edited the influential Urdu weekly Al-Hilal which was suppressed in 1914 for its anti-British writing. Azad spent many years in British jails. Earlier, he was a member of the Muslim League but in the 1920s crossed over to the Indian Congress Party and opposed Jinnah, who had in the meantime moved in the opposite direction.

Both Jinnah and Gandhi reflect the inclusivist traditions of South Asia and neither saw 1947 as the creation of two states which would remain in permanent confrontation and enmity. Jinnah's first and perhaps most important speech in Pakistan, on August 11, 1947, to the Constituent Assembly, clearly outlines his modern, democratic, open-minded and humanist vision for Pakistan. He exhorted Hindus to worship in their temples and Muslims in their mosques with freedom. Recall his story in Karachi about wanting to be the "Protector-General" of Hindus when he was the "Governor-General" of Pakistan. This side of Jinnah was written out of history in Pakistan which depicted him as a straightforward Hindu-hater and India-basher and was never mentioned in India where he was demonised.

As for Gandhi, we know that he began his prayer meetings by reading the Quran and the Bible.We know that he fasted when there were riots against Muslims in order to prevent them.And we know he was on his way to Pakistan in friendship after its creation—no doubt to the relief of some Congress leaders who were finding his presence burdensome—and Jinnah was prepared to welcome him there, when he was assassinated.

n the light of this discussion, we need to ask ourselves which is the way ahead in the 21st century.I suggest certain steps.First, we need to read and learn about each other. I find that the tragedy of South Asia is that few in Pakistan appreciate Gandhi's inclusiveness and few in India appreciate Jinnah's inclusiveness. In Pakistan, we need to know much more about figures like Gandhi. In India, people need to read and know more about Jinnah.

With this in mind I launched and completed a project on Jinnah, called the Jinnah Quartet (a feature film Jinnah; a documentary called Mr Jinnah: The Making of Pakistan; a book called Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin; and a graphic novel, The Quaid: Jinnah and the Story of Pakistan).I began to read on and discovered Jinnah, but also Gandhi. I consciously maintained Gandhi's position with dignity and honour—I did not respond to Attenborough's film Gandhi in which he had made Jinnah into a caricature as many Pakistanis wanted me to. I ignored the calls to take "revenge".

Yet the passions and prejudices are so strong in South Asia that even before the filming of Jinnah in 1997 I was attacked in India because commentators thought I would project Jinnah too favorably and Gandhi not favorably enough. Paradoxically, I was also attacked in Pakistan because some of the intelligentsia thought Jinnah was not being projected favorably enough and Gandhi too favorably. Some journalists went overboard and actually wrote that we were "Hindu agents" and had sold out to Indian interests because we had hired Shashi Kapoor to be in the film. On both sides, it became a question of izzat to support the hero and vilify the villain.

Because I am an anthropologist, I understood the importance of honour in our societies in South Asia: these extraordinary heroes had become symbols of our own identity. That's why my new book is titled Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World. As an anthropologist, I underline the importance of honour in our part of the world. However, we need to appreciate that to gain honour and respect we need to show honour and respect to others. We will then be able to solve problems where politicians have failed. This is true even of Kashmir.

Indeed, if they were looking down at South Asia, I am sure both Jinnah and the Mahatma would be pained at the turn of events. Jinnah would be dismayed among other things to learn churches have been bombed and a bishop shot himself in despair in Pakistan; that a young American journalist had his throat slit and was forced to say: "I am a Jew." But not only are non-Muslims targets of hate: Muslims are too frequently killed in a mosque in Pakistan. Gandhi would be broken-hearted to confront the rape, murder and arson of Muslims in Gujarat, his own home state. Both would be broken-hearted at the endless cycle of violence in Kashmir. Both would wonder whether the famous Sufi saying of the saint of Ajmer, Moinuddin Chisti, "sulh-e-kul," (peace with all), has now been replaced with "jang-e-kul," (war with all).

Finally, I would suggest that we think of the future in a positive and upbeat manner by taking inspiration from our common history and accepting our common historical figures. We need to accept them all for what they were. We must not see them in rigid categories that have frozen them as cardboard characters and pushed history into a direction of clash and confrontation.It is time to reclaim our common heritage.