Pakistan Independence day!!

IfThereWasNoPartition The Bhutto's and Gandhi's would have married into each other - leading to a new sirname: Ganbhu

Happy Birthday to Pakistan's best ever commentator, Ramiz Raja. He turns 50 today. Happy Golden Jubilee too

His yearning for independence is reflected in what he wrote in May 1947 and as recorded by Dr ZH Zaidi in The Jinnah Papers that, “Pakistan means not only a matter of power and security, of loaves and fishes; there are things of the spirit involved in it. It means sovereignty of people and it will be all that it stands for. Will not people say with those Arabs who said, “What does it matter, how weak and poor our homelands are, if only we are masters in them.” Dr Javid Iqbal had noted that, “The Islamic State of Pakistan, as envisaged by Quaid-i-Azam, embraced the qualities of an ideal “Secular State.”

As recorded in Isha’at Habibullah’s autobiography Raja Mohammad Amir Ahmad once said the Pakistan would be an Islamic state to which Quaid-i-Azam responded by saying, “Did you realize that there are over seventy sects and differences of opinion regarding the Islamic faith, and if what Raja was suggesting was to be followed, the consequences would be a struggle of religious opinion from the very inception of the state leading to its very dissolution.” Mr Jinnah banged his hands on the table and said: “We shall not be an Islamic State, but a liberal, democratic Muslim State.” He certainly wanted to check sectarian menace that we confront to day.

He neither wanted Pakistan to be a theocracy. While talking to the people of United States in a broadcast talk on 26 February 1948 he said, “Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state — to be ruled by priests with a divine mission.” He in fact wanted to create a state that would foster socio-economic justice. In a public address in Chittagong on 26 March 1948 he said, “Pakistan should be based on the sure foundations of social justice and Islamic socialism — no ot