THE Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) recently organized a symposium in Jeddah to celebrate Pakistan’s National Day, the day when the leaders of All India Muslim League (AIML) met in Lahore and adopted the Lahore Resolution, which is also known as the Pakistan Resolution. This resolution stated that it wouldn’t be acceptable for the Muslims of the subcontinent anything other than an independent state called Pakistan. Until that time, the Muslim League party and its leaders were working for Hindu-Muslim unity in a single state and were engaged in a joint struggle for securing independence from the British colonial rule.

But the leaders of AIML came to the conclusion that it is not in the interests of Muslims to replace the rule of the British by the rule of Hindus. In the early years of his political career, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was one of the proponents of Hindu-Muslim unity, and was also a staunch advocate of the rights of minorities, especially the political rights of Muslims.

He quit the Congress party after realizing that the rights that the Muslims were demanding had not received any proper attention and acceptance from the Hindu leaders and hence he decided to join the Muslim League where he was chosen as the leader of the party. At the Lahore Conference, Fazal-ul-Haque, Bengal leader and prime minister of the province of Bengal, presented the famous Pakistan Resolution, which was unanimously adopted by the leaders of the party. They continued their struggle for the creation of a separate nation for Muslims until the creation of state of Pakistan in 1947.

Several prominent leaders of the Pakistani community in Jeddah attended the symposium, which began with a recitation of a few verses from the Holy Qur’an. Some poems praising the Prophet (peace be upon him) were recited on the occasion. There were also some other poems marking the great occasion and commending the great efforts of those who worked for the creation of the State of Pakistan. The population of the new state of Pakistan comprised of Muslims from the Muslim majority regions of India as well as millions of others who migrated from all parts of the subcontinent where they are a minority. They migrated either to West Pakistan or to East Pakistan.

The speakers dealt with the history of the struggle and the sacrifices made in order to secure a homeland for Muslims that protect them from the control of Hindus and safeguard their rights. They also spoke about the Kashmir problem and the great sacrifices that are being made by the people of Kashmir for independence under the oppressive Indian rule. The speakers called on the Pakistani government to exert all efforts, along with the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to mount pressure on the Indian government to implement international resolutions that guaranteed the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination. They also called on the Pakistani government to resolve the problem of Pakistanis who have been stranded in Bangladesh since 1971 through effective measures for their repatriation and rehabilitation in Pakistan.

In my speech, I thanked the organizers of the symposium for inviting me to address this important occasion, which prompted me to go down memory lane to the great struggle and sacrifices of the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent in the first half of the 20th century, which culminated in the birth of Pakistan, the largest Islamic country of that time. The decision taken by the leaders of Muslim League at their Lahore session was decisive in the creation of a separate nation for Muslims. This also stopped all attempts to keep Muslims and Hindus together in one country despite the temptations offered by Mahatma Gandhi to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, including the offer to be the President of the Republic of India. But Jinnah rejected the offer and told him that Muslims and Hindus are the two nations with differences in everything, and as such they cannot live in one state.

I pointed out that Pakistan has faced the problem of Kashmir since its creation. The partition was based on the two-nation theory under which Muslim majority regions would be part of the new nation of Pakistan while the Hindu majority regions would continue to remain part of India. On the basis of this theory, Kashmir should have belonged to Pakistan. But the king of Kashmir opted to join India. Consequently, India and Pakistan fought several wars over Kashmir. The first war came to a halt after the intervention of the United Nations. The UN adopted a number of resolutions, seeking to hold a plebiscite for the self-determination of the Kashmiri people and asking India to abide by those resolutions and end its occupation of Kashmir.

I also drew attention to the plight of the Pakistanis who have been stranded in Bangladesh since the secession of East Pakistan. These hapless people are languishing in their camps after having been driven out of their homes. They have been deprived of even the basic amenities of life.

The promises made by the successive Pakistani governments with regard to their repatriation and rehabilitation in Pakistan have not been honored. It was also sad to note that the Pakistani officials are even reluctant to speak about these people, who stood with the Pakistan army to maintain the unity of Pakistan during the civil war in East Pakistan that resulted in the secession and creation of the new state of Bangladesh. These people were keen on maintaining their Pakistani identity and Urdu, the language of Pakistan.

I made a repeated appeal to the government of Pakistan to shoulder their responsibility toward this people. I reminded the Pakistani officials that their negligence in taking up of this issue would be, in a way, running away from performing their responsibility. I suggested that the Pakistan government would instruct its embassy in Dhaka to issue passports for the stranded Pakistanis so as to lift the restrictions for their travel. Perhaps, this would be a major step toward resolution of their problems.

I also asked the Pakistani government to disclose the current status of the Rabita Endowment that was founded with the objective of solving the problem of stranded Pakistanis. The Endowment was created under the chairmanship of the then Pakistan President Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, and its members included several prominent Saudi and Pakistani figures, such as Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz and Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, former secretary general of the Makkah-based Muslim World League.

— Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast Asian affairs. He can be reached at algham@hotmail.com