The white in our flag reminds us of the minorities that have enriched our culture, social mores and polity, making Pakistan a true melting pot of cultures and civilizations, in keeping with our Indus Valley heritage. Indus Valley was a melting pot of cultures and languages brought forth to Indus Valley by a regular wave of foreign invaders like Persians, Greeks, Kushans, Scythians, Huns and Turks. The alluvial plains and their fecund nature welcomed all outsiders who melded well with the life-giving plains of the land of the six rivers. 

The relics found form the ancient ruins of well-planned cities like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa indicate a tolerant and pluralist society with syncretic ethos. The poison of communal hatred that had vitiated the communal harmony in parts of sub-continent that now constitute Pakistan, was a consequence of the charged political environment in the years leading up to the partition. That evanescent environment was a veritable anachronism in this part of the sub-continent where the accommodative ethos of Sufi saints defined the religio-cultural sociology of the popualtion. 

People since millennia have lived in harmony in the Indus Valley region that now constitutes Pakistan, a fact that was certainly not lost on the human rights focussed political sensibilities of the founder of Pakistan i.e Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He had very clearly articulated his vison for Pakistan in these words, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques, or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

The above words by the founder of Pakistan and one of the best legal minds of his times were in fact a Vade Mecum for the human rights and religious freedoms for the minorities. Pakistan as a state, has largely lived up to those high ideals barring some exceptions and desultory incidents, that never attained sanctity at the bar of public opinion that still echoes the centuries old catholicity of the........

© The Friday Times