In Defence of the League

The only bulwark against communism in Pakistan

A voice from India

In the following letter from somewhere in India, the writer, a very old subscriber of “The Light” and occupying a responsible position in the public life of Indian Muslims, puts in a strong plea not only to keep the Muslim League organization in Pakistan intact but also to make it a really vital and powerful organisation. The Congress in India and the League in Pakistan, he pleads, are the only bulwarks against the fast-spreading tide of Communism. The fall of these will only open the floodgates of Communism. The name of the distinguished correspondent is for obvious reasons omitted.

My Dear Yakub Khan Sahib,

        Assalamu Allaikum Wa Rehmatullahi Wabarakotuho

I hope this finds you in good health and cheer. After your memorable visit I could not for some reason or other, have the privilege and pleasure of writing to you and this letter might, after such a long period of silence, even surprise you.

I have been more or less a regular reader of The Light all these years and have managed to keep up my contact though uniliteral, with you thereby. I am writing this under a sense of duty to convey to you my feeling on a matter of vital importance to the cause of Islam and the Muslim community for which all of us are working. The matter is this. Of late, you have been criticising the Muslim League in your Dominion in scathing terms. I have no grievance about that. The Pakistan Muslim League really deserves and requires such honest and brutally frank criticism for the many sins of commission and omission on the part of several of its so-called leaders and votaries, but in offering your criticism about the shortcomings of the League you seem to advocate or at least encourage the winding up of the League organisation itself. I feel that this attitude of yours towards the League organisation as such is calculated to cause incalculable harm to the cause of Islam and the solidarity of the Muslims. You know how the anti-social forces of irreligion and atheism are having their full play in your parts through their press and platform and how their main target of attack is the Muslim League. They attack the Muslim League not because they are aggrieved by the real and imaginary sins which they lay at the door of the League, but because they have fully realised that that is the one organisation which keeps together the Muslims as a live political party having its moorings in Islam and they have to destroy it first if their object to disrupt and de-Islamise the Muslims is to succeed. I am afraid your attitude towards the League organisation as such would greatly encourage and strengthen these un-Islamic forces with consequences of a disastrous nature. What will happen if the League organisation is wound up? Muslims would get disrupted and a very large section of them would get affiliated to political parties like the Communist party. For another century you will not be able to build up a Political party based on Islam like the Muslim League with its great traditions and its magic influence to weld together all sections of Muslims in spite of the infirmities of many of its votaries. You know the tradition of a party cannot be trifled with without serious and disastrous consequences and parties cannot be formed every day. It is a realisation of this truth that induces the leaders of the Indian National Congress to keep up that organisation in our dominion even after the attainment of freedom, though more bitter criticisms are levelled against that organisation than against the Muslim League, as the Congress is the great bulwark of our state against disruptive forces. I would say that more than the attainment of Pakistan the keeping together of Muslims as a political party believing in the potentialities of Islam as a political force in a world which is being deluded into the belief that Islam is a spent political force is the great role which Muslim League has to fulfil. In view of this however eminent Pir Manki Sharif might be and however valuable his services in the past, his attempt to set up a rival organisation to the Muslim League deserves to be condemned by all lovers of Islamic unity. My request to you therefore is this: Criticise the shortcomings of the Muslim League unsparingly and even mercilessly, and plead for the purification of the League, but at the same time please call upon the Muslims to stand solidly behind the Muslim League in the interests of Islam and the political unity and solidarity of the Muslims.

I am not conveying these views of mine for publication, but only for your kind and careful consideration as coming from a humble brother who has great regard and admiration for you.

With respectful and affectionate regards,

Yours Sincerely, etc.

(An old subscriber of The Light – India)

Reply:

We take the liberty of publishing this communication in spite of our esteemed correspondent’s wishes to the contrary. We do so in the hope that the sentiments expressed therein with such an obvious ring of disinterested sincerity may open the eyes of the Pakistan Muslim League leadership to the great expectations that are associated with that organization and make them see the great disservice they are doing to the highest interests of Islam by making this legacy of the Qaid-i-Azam the sport of petty party politics or an instrument to further personal ends. We have no quarrel with the League as an organization. All we want is the purification of that organization for the very existence of Pakistan. In the hands of third-rate leadership, it is losing all hold on the popular mind and thereby becoming itself a disruptive force in the country.

The League´s proper role is to serve as a rallying centre, as in the hands of the Quaid-i-Azam, for the whole of the nation. This is just the essential element which is lacking in the present puny leadership of the League. If the voice of a sincere disinterested brother from across hundreds of miles somewhere in far-off India finds an echo in the hearts of clique mongers and self-seekers who have tarnished the good name of the League for their own pettiness of minds, the unwarranted publication of the sincere warning of the communication will be amply justified.

Editor: The Light – December 1, 1949.

Mohammad Yakub Khan