Religion and Politics: Early Years of Pakistan's Domestic and External Affairs

48 *Aman Memon: Aman Memon has obtained his PhD degree from the University of Sindh, in international Relations. He is the author of two books, Altaf Gauhar Papers: Documents towards the Making of the Constitution of 1962, (edited work) Published by Sanga-eMeel , Lahore, 2003 and Shift in Sino-Pakistan Relation: A Sequel to Post-Cold War Realities. *Mohamed Shakeel Ahmed: Muhammad Shakeel Ahmad received his Ph.D degree from Quaid-i-Azam University-Islamabad. He finalised his Ph.D research work in Department of History, University of Southampton, UK. His field of research is politics and history of Pakistan. Presently he is working as Assistant Professor in Department of Humanities, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology-Abbottabad (Pakistan). 1 Andreas Hasenclever and Volker Rittberger, “Does Religion Make a Difference? Theoretical Approaches to the Impact of Faith on Political Conflict”, in Religion in International Relations: The Return from the Exile, Febio Petito and Pavios Hatzopoulos, eds. (VA: MacMillan, 2003), p. 111 2 Ibid. Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVII, No.1 Fall 2013 Religion and Politics: Early Years of Pakistan’s Domestic and External Affairs Aman Memon* Muhammad Shakeel Ahmed* According to instrumentalist theorists, political conflicts very often emerged as a sequel to socio-economic and political inequalities “in and between the nations.” Conversely, they do not recognise “religious traditions and cosmologies” as “the genuine cause of political conflict.”1 Despite this views, the instrumentalists do accept the reality of politicizing religious traditions and radicalization of religious communities by the politicians for political gains particularly “in the times of economic decay, social disintegration or state collapse.”2 The study of the struggle for Pakistan adequately reveals that the Indian Muslim leaders in the days of “poverty, marginalisation” and “physical threat” from the Hindu majority, exploited religious sentiments of the Indian Muslims and depicted religion as an alternative political order and 49 the source for “recognition and security.”3 The post-independent political study of Pakistan reveals that the religion remained a significant source for internal political bickering and an instrument to further foreign policy goals. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, one of the founding fathers of Pakistan, considered “religion as a power of the utmost importance in the life of individuals as well as State”4 . In his well-known Allahabad address of 1930, he depicted India as “the only country in the world where Islam, as a people building force, worked at its best.” Considering Muslims of the Indian subcontinent as a separate religio-political identity, he demanded the creation of a “consolidated North-West Indian Muslim state…within the British Empire, or without the British Empire.”5 He further proclaimed that such geographical and administrative rearrangements would not only be instrumental to provide protection to the Indian subcontinent against any aggression from the northwest but also ensure peace and harmony among the Hindu majority and Muslim minority of the Indian subcontinent. Unfortunately, events of the post-partition days could not give any meaning to the “reflective thoughts” of Iqbal. The creation of Iqbal’s proposed Muslim state, in August 1947, neither could dilute security threat to the subcontinent from its north-west frontiers nor become a catalyst to promote “peace and mutual good will” among the newly emerged states— India and Pakistan. However, on a domestic front, Iqbal’s idea of religion based polity could not survive more than 24 years and disintegrated in 1971. In the study of the pre and post-partition political development of Pakistan, it is safe to say that during the freedom movement The Muslim League leadership successfully used religion as an instrument for political change, but after the creation of Pakistan they failed to apply religion as an agent for socio-economic and political development. Because, their ideology was not meant to “reconstruct society on truly Islamic basis of social egalitarianism and economic brotherhood; instead, the sole aim of appealing to religion (was) to subjugate the poor and illiterate masses and to legitimate repression and exploitation through religious dogma and superstition.”6 Consequently, Islam could not work as “a people building 3 Ibid. 4 Shamloo, Speeches and Statements of Iqbal, (Lahore: Iqbal Publication, nd), Pp. 12,13. Also see, “Sir Muhammad...