Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (Karachi, August 1947) MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH (1876–1948)

Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan
(Karachi, August 1947)
MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH (1876–1948)

Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly met for the first time in Karachi in August

1947 and Jinnah was the obvious choice as the President of the assembly.

is was Jinnah’s opening speech and it was made extempore. His audience

were mostly mullahs, pirs, nawabs, shahs and khans and Jinnah startled

them all by with his vision of Pakistan as a secular state where every

individual was free to practise his own religion. In his personal life, Jinnah

had never been an orthodox Muslim and in the hour of his triumph when

he had won for the Muslims a state they could call their own, he suddenly

reclaimed for himself, in his politics, his secular persona. L.K. Advani was

to praise this speech in the controversial address he made during his trip to

Karachi in 2005.

main speech

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I cordially thank you, with the utmost sincerity, for the honor you have

conferred upon me—the greatest honour that is possible for this Sovereign

Assembly to confer—by electing me as your first President. I also thank

those leaders who have spoken in appreciation of my services and their

personal references to me. I sincerely hope that with your support and your

cooperation we shall make this Constituent Assembly an example to the

world. e Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform.

e first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing our future

Constitution of Pakistan and the second or functioning as a full and

complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. We have to

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do the best we can in adopting a provisional constitution for the Federal

Legislature of Pakistan. You know really that not only we ourselves are

wondering but, I think, the whole world is wondering at this unprecedented

cyclonic revolution which has brought about the plan of creating and

establishing two independent sovereign dominions in this subcontinent. As

it is, it has been unprecedented; there is no parallel in the history of the

world. is mighty subcontinent with all kinds of inhabitants has been

brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is

very important with regard to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and

by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.

Dealing with our first function in this Assembly, I cannot make any wellconsidered

pronouncement at this moment, but I shall say a few things as

they occur to me. e first and the foremost thing that I would like to

emphasize is this: Remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body

and you have got all the powers. It, therefore, places on you the gravest

responsibility as to how you should take your decisions. e first

observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with

me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that

the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by

the state.

e second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from

which India is suffering—I do not say that other countries are free from it,

but, I think, our condition is much worse—is bribery and corruption. at

really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope

that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this

Assembly to do so.

Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that black-marketeers are

frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes

fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster which today is

a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we

constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A

citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than

the biggest and most grievous of crimes. ese black-marketeers are really

knowing, intelligent and ordinarily responsible people, and when they

indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished,

because they undermine the entire system of control and regulation of

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foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and

want and even death.

e next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has

been passed on to us. Alongwith many other things, good and bad, has

arrived this great evil—the evil of nepotism and jobbery. is evil must be

crushed relentlessly. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate

any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought

to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is

continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.

I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India

and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it,

but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of every one of us to loyally

abide by it and honourably act according to the agreement which is now

final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this

mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite

understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever

one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question

is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has

been done. A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and

Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may

not like it, but in my judgment there was no other solution and I am sure

future history will record its verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will

be proved by actual experience as we go on that it was the only solution of

India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have

worked and in my judgment it would have led us to terrific disaster. May be

that view is correct; may be it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same,

in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being

in one dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. ere is no other

solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State

of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate

on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor.

If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet,

you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a

spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no

matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his

colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with

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equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress

you will make.

I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and

in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority

communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community—because

even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis, and so

on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishnavas, Khatris, also

Bengalees, Madrasis, and so on—will vanish. Indeed if you ask me this has

been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and

independence and but for this we would have been free peoples long, long

ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400

million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it

had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length

of time but for this. erefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are

free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques

or to any other place 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. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions some

time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. e

Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now

there are some states in existence where there are discriminations made and

bars imposed against a particular class. ank God, we are not starting in

those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no

distinction between one community and another, no discrimination

between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this

fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.

e people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the

situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon

them by the government of their country and they went through that fire

step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and

Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an

equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.

Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will

find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims

would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the

personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the

state. Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and

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thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be

guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the

political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or

favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality,

and I am sure that with your support and cooperation, I can look forward to

Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world.

I have received a message from the United States of America addressed to

me. It reads:

I have the honour to communicate to you, in Your Excellency’s capacity as

President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the following message

which I have just received from the Secretary of State of the United States:

On the occasion of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for

Pakistan, I extend to you and to the members of the Assembly, the best

wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the

successful conclusion of the great work you are about to undertake