Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the forgotten father of Pakistan, had received an unexpected accolade from the Indian Hindu leader, Mr L.K. Advani. But very few anticipated that a dream that Jinnah had spoken about in his extraordinary presidential address to the constituent assembly of Pakistan would be actualised through a bizarre set of events. A few weeks ago, Mr Pervez Musharraf, in a fit of pique, had suspended the chief justice of Pakistan, Mr Iftikhar Chaudhary. The sequence of events that this unleashed has now resulted in a Hindu being appointed the chief justice of Pakistan. Mr Rana Bhagwan Das, who was sworn in as the acting chief justice, belongs to the handful of Hindu families who chose to make Pakistan their home. This might appear to be something of a paradox since Pakistan sees itself not only as a country of Muslims but, more importantly, also as an Islamic state. But it is nothing less than the fulfilment of the vision that Jinnah had presented to the people of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 as the president of the constituent assembly.

In that speech, Jinnah had said that every citizen of Pakistan, irrespective of his or her colour, caste or creed would be an equal citizen with equal rights, privileges and obligations. Thus Jinnah had not seen religion as an obstacle to the holding of high public office. He had appealed to the people of Pakistan to work towards obliterating the distinctions between majority and minority communities. The elevation of Mr Das to the position of chief justice does not remove the differences that exist between Muslims and other religious communities in Pakistan. But it is certainly a step in the removal of these. It should also be recalled that Mr Das is the first Hindu chief justice of Pakistan, but he is not the first non-Muslim to hold the post. In the Sixties, a Christian, Mr Cornelius, had been made the chief justice. Jinnah had emphasized that his guiding principle would be “justice and complete impartiality’’. Despite the Islamic orientation of Pakistan this is an ideal to which Mr Das should aspire to achieve. More than the prevalence of Islamic law, what stands in the way of justice and impartiality in Pakistan is the fact that it is not a democracy. Mr Musharraf has made the establishment of democracy in Pakistan an ever-receding horizon. He has thus also taken Pakistan further away from the founder’s noble goals and vision.