G.M SAYED
       BY: G.M MEHKRI

Mr. G.M Sayed’s speech presented a pamphlet “A Plea for Sanity in National Policy in indeed a plea of national sanity. Those whom the gods kill; they first make them mad; Mr. G. M. Sayed’s plea is a warning against that madness that is increasingly threatening us. This madness is taking various forms. One of those forms is the most complete ignorment of Mr. Jinnah’s absolutely unmistakable plea for secularism in Pakistan, a plea which ended with the ringing words… in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, no in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense, as citizens of the State.” Another form this madness is taking is to say that Mr. Jinnah did not at all use these words in the connection in which it is being understood and to assert that it would be nothing other than blasphemy to attribute secular meaning to his words. Yet another form of insanity is to rush in where angles necessarily fear to freed, the realm of the intellect. Words like “nationality”, “nation” and Nationalism are the subject of the most impersonal, objective study by these specialist historians, sociologist political philosopher jurists and political scientists who have devoted their lives to he study of these concepts. Glimpses of their thoughts upon these concepts are to be had from to begin with, the Encyclopedia of Social Scrences, while whole bibliographies are there to guide the thoughtful. But who, except of G.M. Sayed wants to e thoughtful about such concept. Here is looks as if the lesser the though bestowed on such matters the more loud the pronouncements, which have become the laughing stock intellectual world. And these pronouncements have not remained mere pronouncements, but bid fair to claim revolutionary sanctity protected by the “Hukkam”, thou shall not think. In this pamphlet not only has G.M. Sayed fully quoted those words of Mr. Jinnah which many others wince at and wisht that he had not spoken them at all and desire that they should be obliterated from the memory of the rest of us, but also Mr. G. M. Sayed has quoted Maulana Obeidullah Sindhi who exposed the illusory concepts of the Muslims of this subcontinent which illusory concepts have left the present day India Muslim high and dry, the least of the minorities’ although they are the biggest numerical minority in India. Best of all in this pamphlet Mr. G.M. Sayed has pleaded before the well-wishers of Pakistan, for those considerations on the bases of which alone, not only according to G.M. Sayed, but according to the best of political thought in the world, the foundations of an enduring and self-sustaining structure of Pakistan as a nation can be well and truly laid. These considerations are the recognition of the facts, not fiction of regional nationalities on the basis of linguistic homelands and all the economic and cultural consequences that flow from that recognition. Nationalities are not all the same as nation. A nation can and often does contain any number of nationalities without any adverse consequences to the strength, integrity and solidarity of the Nation containing them. Soviet Russia is a stunning example of the truth of this statement. One of the very first thing that the Soviet State did on formation was to not merely recognize the existence of the various nationalities comprising as distinct and different nationalities, but also to have taken every possible step to encourage these nationalities through special institutes of intellect and culture to come into their strength to the over –all Soviet Russian Nationhood. So, instead of being amorphous lumps of secretly dis-satisfied and disgruntled mass the Soviet State presented a steel-wall of defense comprising willing nationalities. Most of these had for the first time in their long histories, that measure of cultural stature which, without the encouragement from the State, would not have been anything except a distorted dream for and oppressive authority finally weakened, reminding the student of history of the march of Attila the Hun to a Rome in which he did not allow single state to stand intact on its pedestal when he left it a colossal ruin. So G.M. Sayed wants us to be free from the fear of adverse consequences of the recognition of the existence of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious nationalities in Pakistan. When he made this speech way back in 1968, his voice was most completely the realities which G.M. Sayed has even pointing out with unerring insight and finger. That Mr. G.M.Sayed is standing for nothing other than justice and fair play to all the different province of Pakistan. That he is the stoxtess champion for the very existence of Pakistan. Even those of us who are transcendental specialists in deliberately his unstinting and his interpreting, will have to exert their talents to the breaking point to fail fault in what he was said. Some such specialists are to be found particularly in the camp of us ‘Al-Muhajereen’. We love to mis-understand G.M. Sayed. Like the Bourbons after the French Revolutionary, we have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the colossal follies of our specialization in negative thinking in the past. At least now we should not behave like that proverbial cow in the story which mistrusted its well-wisher and walked away with its butches. In my opinion there is no better well-wisher of us ‘AlMuhajereen’ than G. M. Sayed,. All that G. M. Sayed is asking of us Al-Muhajereen is that at least now we must take a lesson from our history and regard ourselves as truly Sindh is in Sindh. In exhorting the Indian Muslims to remain loyal to India after Independence, Mr. Jinnah warned them that “No country can tolerate traitors.” Nor can any province either.