The Irony of 23rd March

Pri­or to March 1956, Pak­istan nev­er cel­e­brat­ed March 23 and there nev­er was a gazetted hol­i­day on this day.

On Feb­ru­ary 29, 1956, Pakistan’s con­stituent assem­bly adopt­ed the first con­sti­tu­tion and on March 2, 1956, a res­o­lu­tion was passed by the same assem­bly to com­mem­o­rate March 23 as repub­lic day. The chief guest at the “repub­lic” day cel­e­bra­tions was Pres­i­dent Iskan­der Mirza, an ex-Gen­er­al turned bureau­crat, while the first Prime Min­is­ter, Chaud­hary Moham­mad Ali, a hard­core bureau­crat also graced the occa­sion.

March 23 was orig­i­nal­ly sup­posed to com­mem­o­rate the adop­tion of the first con­sti­tu­tion of Pak­istan and thus the dec­la­ra­tion of Pak­istan as a repub­lic. How­ev­er, when Field Mar­shal Moham­mad Ayub Khan abro­gat­ed the con­sti­tu­tion on Octo­ber 27, 1958 – bare­ly 30 months after its adop­tion – and declared mar­tial law, there was no con­sti­tu­tion and no ratio­nale for the “repub­lic” day. Hence, in order to jus­ti­fy cel­e­brat­ing the nation­al day, Ayub Khan’s regime changed it to com­mem­o­rate the 1940 land­mark; when on 23rd March All India Mus­lim League passed the Lahore Res­o­lu­tion which is con­sid­ered the foun­da­tion­al doc­u­ment in the mak­ing of Pak­istan.

Hence, a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor rede­fined “Repub­lic” day which the entire nation cel­e­brates now. It is also inter­est­ing to note that the Lahore res­o­lu­tion was passed on March 24 and not March 23. More­over, there was no men­tion of the word Pak­istan in it. The only thing which was sought in the res­o­lu­tion was a greater auton­o­my for the Mus­lim major­i­ty areas of the Indi­an Sub-Con­ti­nent.

The wel­come address at the gen­er­al ses­sion of the Mus­lim League was made by Sir Shah Nawaz Mam­dot who had left the Union­ist Par­ty two years back in 1938 and was made the Pres­i­dent of Pun­jab Mus­lim League.

A. K. Fazal-ul-Haq, a Ben­gali politi­cian head­ing the Krishak Pra­ja Par­ty pre­sent­ed the Lahore res­o­lu­tion. Lat­er, he was dis­missed from pub­lic office by Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al Iskan­der Mirza on charges of incit­ing seces­sion, and was lat­er banned from pol­i­tics by Gen­er­al Ayub Khan.

Inter­est­ing­ly it is con­tro­ver­sial as to who authored the Lahore res­o­lu­tion. Some say that it was writ­ten by Sir Sikan­der Hay­at Khan, KBE, MBE a Union­ist and a British loy­al­ist. How­ev­er, the dom­i­nant view is that the res­o­lu­tion was penned by Sir Zafarul­lah Khan. In the 1953 bloody Lahore riots, reli­gious extrem­ists called for Zafarul­lah Khan’s expul­sion due to his adher­ence to the Ahmadiyya faith. The pres­sure from reli­gious extrem­ists final­ly led to Zafarullah’s res­ig­na­tion as For­eign Min­is­ter in Octo­ber 1954.

It was only the Sindh Assem­bly, amongst all the provinces of undi­vid­ed India, which passed a res­o­lu­tion on March 3, 1943, pre­sent­ed by the late G.M. Syed on the lines of the Lahore Res­o­lu­tion, in sup­port of Pak­istan. On June 26, 1947 the Sindh Assem­bly, at a spe­cial ses­sion, decid­ed to join the new Pak­istan Con­stituent Assem­bly. Thus, Sindh became the first province to opt for Pak­istan.

On April 26, 1948 the gov­ern­ment of elect­ed Chief Min­is­ter of Sindh Mr. Ayub Khuhro which enjoyed the sup­port of major­i­ty of the mem­bers of the provin­cial assem­bly was dis­missed as MA Jin­nah ordered the Gov­er­nor Hiday­at­ul­lah to dis­pose him off.

The man behind pas­sage of the Pak­istan res­o­lu­tion in the Sindh assem­bly was G. M. Syed. Being a nation­al­ist he was labeled as a trai­tor by the estab­lish­ment. Lat­er he suf­fered 33 years of impris­on­ment, some­times even in soli­tary con­fine­ment. He died in police cus­tody at Jin­nah Hos­pi­tal Karachi on April 25, 1995 at the age of 91.