On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of Lincoln Memorial- dedicated to the memory of the great emancipator Abraham Lincoln- in Washington DC and made that famous pronouncement, to a multitude of people joined together in a quest for racial equality, which has gone down in history as the “I have a dream” and “Let freedom ring” speech. It is one of those rare speeches that become ingrained in the conscience of nations, where the speech takes a life of its own, standing alone as a shining light of truth against terrible darkness.
Dr. King started off his speech with a reference to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. He spoke of the “great beacon light of hope” that the “Negroes” had seen 100 years prior to that. He went on to describe the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as a “promissory note” on which the US had defaulted. Dr. King then spoke of his dream to see a fulfillment of that promissory note, to live in a land where all men are created equal, where the descendants of slave owners could live together with the descendants of slaves in a bond of brotherhood and where race would no longer be a limiting factor. He then finished off with those historic words “Lets freedom ring…”
Two scores and five years later, as we stand at the threshold of a transformational US presidency, Dr. King would be proud- its been a “long time coming” but the long march to DC is finally over. The Americans have finally elected a “negro” to the White House and not only that but this new proud American president has a middle name that was till recently associated with one of America’s most hated foreign enemies. Much indeed was made of the fact that Obama was “secretly” a Muslim (which he is not) but perhaps the real spirit of America and what it stands for was captured by Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, and who should’ve been the first African American President of the US eight years ago if not twelve. Powell responded to “Muslim” allegation against Obama – criticizing his own party- by saying “Even if Obama was a Muslim, so what? Are you telling me that a seven year old Muslim American kid can’t dream to be president one day? This is not how we do things in America.” For us in Pakistan this is a poignant lesson, for we too have our own speech- the kind of speech that Dr. King delivered in Washington- which in many ways is a promissory note unto itself, one which we have defaulted on badly.
On August 11, 1947, at the inaugural session of the constituent assembly, the first Governor General of Pakistan – the first person of Asian birth and origin to ever hold that exalted post in the British commonwealth- M.A. Jinnah, who we in Pakistan fondly remember as the “Quaid-e-Azam”, stood up to speak for the first time after being elected as the first president of the Constituent Assembly – the first session of which was very symbolically presided over by Joginder Nath Mandal, a scheduled caste Hindu, who was also soon to become Pakistan’s first law minister. Immediately before his speech, the Congress leader from East Pakistan, Kiran Shankar Roy, had spoken congratulating Jinnah on his achievement and requesting that Jinnah make a clear pronouncement clarifying whether Pakistan would be a secular or a theocratic state. The 1700 word-long speech that Jinnah gave did exactly that.
He spoke of a Pakistan where life, liberty and religious belief of every citizen regardless of religion caste or creed would be fully protected, where religion would be a “personal faith” of the individual, where neither caste nor creed shall be any business of the state and where there would be no bars on any citizen for any reason whatsoever. This was not the first time or the last time that Jinnah said those things, but the way he said it that day in front of Pakistan’s highest legislative and constituent body about to embark on the onerous task of constitution-making left no doubt the kind of country he wanted. Sadly precious little of what he said was followed by Pakistan, hence our current nightmare. Yet what he said that day lives on as our national conscience. It is this – that uneasy feeling, the despair and pain we feel as Pakistanis when we see this state failing to fulfill the dream of a secular democratic welfare state based on social justice for all its children- be they Hindu, Muslim, Ahmadi, Christian and the non-believer, whether their language is Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Pushto or any other language spoken in this land of ours.
We must ask ourselves if a Non-Muslim Pakistani can ever dream of becoming the president or prime minister of this country? It is not even constitutionally possible sadly. Our current constitution bars a Non-Muslim from becoming the president of this republic and the oath for the prime minister is that of a Muslim, creating, therefore, a de facto bar there as well. This while our giant neighbour despite being 83% Hindu, has had two Muslim presidents and currently has a Sikh Prime Minister. The ruling party is led by a Roman catholic and knocking on the doors of Delhi is a Dalit woman. It is worth dwelling on whether if Jinnah had known this turn of events, he would ever agree to the creation of Pakistan?
The steps of Jinnah’s mausoleum await Pakistan’s Dr. King.
Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer in Islamabad, Pakistan
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