Shoaib Akhtar at a talk show on Aaj Tak declared that he believed in the two-nation theory. The comment came after fellow panelist Harbhajan Singh made a ‘we are one’ comment about India and Pakistan. During the discussion, the Indian spinner said that relationship between cricketers of the two countries are hindered when someone insults India and the Indian Flag.
The two-nation theory was first promulgated by AMU founder Syed Ahmad Khan. According to the theory, Hindus and Muslims comprise of two entirely separate nations and cannot live together in a single country. The theory was responsible for the partition of the country and had widespread acceptance among the Muslim intelligentsia of the time.
While Indians, by and large, would find the comment by Shoaib Akhtar shocking, the fact of the matter is that it is the foundational truth of Pakistan. The very identity of Pakistan revolves around the two-nation theory, it was formed precisely because Indian Muslims at the time believed that they could not coexist with Hindus in a single country.
Since then, it has become taboo for Muslim politicians in India to espouse the theory in its entirety, and ‘secular’ political parties such as the Congress attempt to blame Hindus such as Veer Savarkar for the formulation of the theory. Nevertheless, it is a matter of historical record that the idea was first propagated by Syed Ahmad Khan and consequently, gained the support of the Muslim intelligentsia of the time.
What BR Ambedkar said about Pakistan
Intellectuals such as BR Ambedkar were of the opinion that the distinction made in the two-nation theory is very real due to the exclusivist nature of Islam itself. Ambedkar had written in his book ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’, “Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast, Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half-truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is a brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.”
Ambedkar has written elsewhere, “Among the tenets, one that calls for notice is the tenet of Islam which says that in a country which is not under Muslim rule, wherever there is a conflict between Muslim law and the law of the land, the former must prevail over the latter, and a Muslim will be justified in obeying the Muslim law and defying the law of the land…The only allegiance a Musalman, whether civilian or soldier, whether living under a Muslim or under a non-Muslim administration, is commanded by the Koran to acknowledge is his allegiance to God, to His Prophet and to those in authority from among the Musalmans…”
On another occasion, he wrote, “According to Muslim Canon Law, the world is divided into two camps, Dar-ul-lslam (abode of Islam), and Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war). A country is Dar-ul-Islam when it is ruled by Muslims. A country is Dar-ul-Harb when Muslims only reside in it but are not rulers of it. That being the Canon Law of the Muslims, India cannot be the common motherland of the Hindus and the Musalmans. It can be the land of the Musalmans—but it cannot be the land of the ‘Hindus and the Musalmans living as equals.’ Further, it can be the land of the Musalmans only when it is governed by the Muslims. The moment the land becomes subject to the authority of a non-Muslim power, it ceases to be the land of the Muslims. Instead of being Dar-ul-lslam, it becomes Dar-ul-Harb.”
Karl Marx on Islam
Karl Marx, the father of Communism so to speak, had remarked upon the exclusivist nature of Islam in the middle of the 19th century itself. He had said, “The Koran and the Mussulman legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of the various people to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faithful and of the Infidels. The Infidel is “harby,” i.e. the enemy. Islamism proscribes the nation of the Infidels, constituting a state of permanent hostility between the Mussulman and the unbeliever.”
What Shoaib Akhtar said is mainstream belief
Thus, what Shoaib Akhtar told Harbhajan Singh during the talk show is a mainstream belief among Pakistanis and even Islamists in India. The reason why Jammu and Kashmir had an autonomous stature for decades after independence was primarily due to the fact that it was the only state in India with a Muslim majority population.
Islamists in India regularly make comments that rekindle the flames that remind one of the authenticity of the two-nation theory. While ‘secular’ intellectuals make bizarre arguments to deflect attention from it, the reality is that Indian politicians at the time too accepted the truth of the theory when they accepted partition and the creation of India.
