Kemal Ataturk and the Punjab Government

By Yasser Latif Hamdani 

Mar 12, 2012 

It is clear that Jinnah’s admiration for Ataturk went beyond mere tribute. To him Ataturk and his secular Turkey were examples for all Muslims, and indeed all people to follow. Under Jinnah’s presidency, Muslim League celebrated the Kemal Day on Ataturk’s birthday 

The Mayor of Istanbul was here for a visit and his pictures along with those of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif graced all of Lahore’s main roads. As per tradition, national icons and historical figures of both nations, including Maulana Rumi, were also displayed, with one glaring omission -- Kemal Ataturk, the great founding father of modern Turkey. 

This omission was deliberate and ideological. Someone in the Punjab government -- which is full of ideological right-wing cases -- decided that the founding father of the Turks was too secular an icon to be displayed on the roads of Lahore. Strange and ironic for a country that has numerous roads and monuments named after the great Ataturk. 

The Muslims of South Asia have had a long and emotional relationship with the Turks and especially Kemal Ataturk, who inspired many of our leaders, starting with Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Hector Bolitho in his book Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan (page 96), and Stanley Wolpert in his book Jinnah of Pakistan (page 130) attribute Jinnah’s decision to return to India to be based on a book by H C Armstrong on Kemal Ataturk, called Grey Wolf, An Intimate Study of a Dictator. Bolitho writes: “For two days Jinnah was absorbed in the story of Kemal Ataturk; when he had finished, he handed the book to his daughter -- then aged thirteen -- and said, ‘Read this, my dear, it is good.’ For many days afterwards he talked of Kemal Ataturk, so much that his daughter chafed and nicknamed him ‘Grey wolf’.”

The author spends two whole pages explaining how the book might have inspired Jinnah and the similarities between their causes. 

In November 1938 on Ataturk’s demise Jinnah had this to say: “He (Kemal Ataturk) was the greatest Musalman in the modern Islamic World and I am sure the entire Musalmans (sic) world will deeply mourn his passing away. It is impossible to express adequately in a press interview one’s appreciation of his remarkable and varied services, as the builder and maker of Modern Turkey and an example to the rest of the world, especially to the Musalman states in the Middle East. The remarkable way in which he rescued and built up his people against all odds has no parallel in the history of the world. He must have derived the greatest sense of satisfaction that he fully accomplished his mission during his lifetime and left his people and his country consolidated, united and a powerful nation. In him, not only the Musalmans, but the whole world has lost one of the greatest men that ever lived.” (Quaid e Azam and the Islamic World, page 14, compiled by Rizwan Ahmed and distributed in 1981 at the Islamic Summit at Makkah) 

It is clear that Jinnah’s admiration for Ataturk went beyond mere tribute. To him Ataturk and his secular Turkey were examples for all Muslims, and indeed all people to follow. Under Jinnah’s presidency, Muslim League celebrated the Kemal Day on Ataturk’s birthday. 

Why then did the Punjab government go out of its way to deliberately insult our Turkish brethren? Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, as it must be remembered, has nothing to do with the Muslim League that Jinnah led. In fact, it contains elements, to some extent, who opposed the creation of Pakistan and called Jinnah “Kafir e Azam” (Great Infidel). Its main spokesperson is Ahsan Iqbal, the son of Apa Nisar Fatima of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose father, in turn, was a famous Majlis-e-Ahrar leader. Majlis-e-Ahrar was not just anti-Pakistan but anti-modernity and anti-minority. Their woefully sordid role against progressive Muslims and Pakistanis is well documented. Even otherwise, the PML-N contains reactionaries and bigots of all kinds, which is why the PML-N is always allied with rabid right-wingers like Sipah-e-Sahaba and other fundamentalist parties. Recently PML-N was part and parcel of a movement to stop a minority sect from praying peacefully at its place of worship. What then can Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and their band have in common with Jinnah and his party? 

Their terribly bigoted campaign of personal attacks against Governor Salman Taseer Shaheed is not forgotten. Taseer Shaheed was a man who stood for a modern, democratic and progressive Pakistan, which gave equal rights to women, minorities and other marginalised groups. As a social liberal he was targeted and abused by that venom-spewing fellow Rana Sanaullah, who was not long ago found campaigning hand-in-glove with the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a bigoted sectarian organisation. All cultural activities have been brought to a halt by the small-minded Punjab government. 

Lahore Marathon and Basant -- the two events that put our hapless and kill-joy city on the map of the world -- have been sidelined or cancelled by the fanatics on the takht (throne) of Lahore. 

It makes sense then for the religious fascists and retrogressive reactionaries in power in Punjab to ignore the most important national icon of Turkey. It is a measure of our friendship with Turkey that slights and insults are ignored by them. Long live Pakistan-Turkey friendship and may it sustain blows by narrow-minded bigots who have made a mockery of Pakistan. 

The writer is a practicing lawyer 

Source: The Daily Times 

URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-history/kemal-ataturk-punjab-government/d/6833