By Zuhair Siddiqi

“MR. JINNAH is direct and blunt”, wrote R. G. Casey, the war-time Governor of Bengal, “and no one has any doubt what he means when he speaks”.This is a tribute which even the severest critic of the Quaid-i-Azam would not question; but in the State that he founded, and among his professed devotees, there has never been a dearth of people who would not hesitate to distort even the clearest of his pronouncements to suit their own ends and purposes. Take, for instance, his historic presidential address to the Constituent Assembly on the eve of the birth of Pakistan, which Mr. Bhutto rightly described some time ago as “one of the texts of our nationhood”. That speech, which includes the most emphatic enunciation conceivable of the ideal of a secular, single-nation State, has been a headache for obscurantists all these years. They have tried to explain away, distort, and even press, its sharpest and most significant parts. Continue reading What kind of state did the Quaid envisage? →