By Yasser Latif Hamdani
Our Urdu press, conspiratorial, nationalist and rightwing, is full of nazriati (ideological) warriors. This article is a rebuttal of two of the most popular standard-bearers of the ghairat brigade and the so-called Nazaria-e-Pakistan (idea of Pakistan).
In one of his recent columns (because in our country it is perfectly alright for in-service civil servants to moonlight as columnists), Orya Maqbool Jan has taken to task those misguided souls — such as this writer — who believe that Mr Jinnah wanted a secular Pakistan. Apparently, ‘secular’ is some sort of a bad word and anyone using this word in connection with Quaid-e-Azam is automatically a traitor. In this particular article, Orya Maqbool Jan relied on the ‘research’ of one Selena Karim who wrote a book called Secular Jinnah: Munir’s Hoax Exposed several years ago. The entire issue revolves around a quote attributed to Jinnah dating to a pre-partition interview.
In one of his recent columns (because in our country it is perfectly alright for in-service civil servants to moonlight as columnists), Orya Maqbool Jan has taken to task those misguided souls — such as this writer — who believe that Mr Jinnah wanted a secular Pakistan. Apparently, ‘secular’ is some sort of a bad word and anyone using this word in connection with Quaid-e-Azam is automatically a traitor. In this particular article, Orya Maqbool Jan relied on the ‘research’ of one Selena Karim who wrote a book called Secular Jinnah: Munir’s Hoax Exposed several years ago. The entire issue revolves around a quote attributed to Jinnah dating to a pre-partition interview.
