The Definition Of Nation
The significance and reality of Pakistan has not been fully understood in the west. To the west, nationality based on religion is an alien and often-incomprehensible phenomenon. This is because religion in the West has come to play such a restricted role. In the West, Germans and French are accepted as two separate nations. However, the fact of Hindus and Muslims in India representing two separate cultural entities is seldom appreciated. A young French student may visit a family in Germany, share their meals, may attend the same church and even marry a girl in the family without creating a scandal or surprise. But such instances of intermarriage have been extremely rare in the Indo-Pak Sub-Continent. Even some of the most ardent Indian Nationalist has found the idea totally unacceptable. As Sir Abdur Rahim observed:
“Any of us Indian Muslims traveling for instances in Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia among Chinese Muslims, Arabs and Turks, would at once be made at home and would not find anything to which we are not accustomed. On the contrary, in India we find ourselves in all social matters total aliens when we cross the street and enter that part of the town where our Hindu fellow townsmen live.”
Is Two Nation Theory A New Concept
A point generally raised by the opponent of the two-nation theory is that Pakistan was created accidentally and that the intellect of most of the Muslims at that time was overpowered by emotions. Moreover, that this phenomenon emerged in the early decade of the 20th century.
But, what the history reveals is something different. Two-Nation theory was not at all as new phenomenon.
History of Two Nation Theory
Mahatma Gandhi, speaking in the second session of the Round table conference in London in 1931, said that the quarrel between Hindus and Muslims was ‘coreview with the British advent’ in India. It would be difficult to maintain such a position historically because the conflict between Hindus and Muslims had started long before the emergence of the British power in India.
The phenomenon of Two-Nation theory originated with the advent of Islam in the Sub-Continent (712AD). According to Jinnah, “The concept of two nation theory originated the day, the first Hindu converted to Muslim.”
The partition of India was proposed more than seven hundred years prior to the Lahore resolution. In 1192 AD, on the eve of battle of Tarian, according to famous historian Farishta, Sultan Muizz-ud-Din had suggested to his rival, Pirthviraj, the partition of India, leaving the region of Sirhind, Punjab and Multan with Sultan and retaining the rest of India for himself. This proposal cropped up again after 150 years, when Al-Beruni pointed out the existence of the two big groups of people subscribing to two different religions.
“This (the religious difference) renders any connection with them” says Beruni, “quite impossible and constitutes the widest of gulf between them and us (Hindu and Muslims).”
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