JAMAAT AND VIOLENCE

I REFER to Prof. Khurshid Ahmad’s letter (Dawn 30 Oct) on the Jamaat’s recent convention. The impression one gets from reading the letter is that the ‘Munir Report’ completely absolved the Jamaat from the responsibility of the civil unrest and disturbances of 1953. The facts are to the contrary. The report may be biased towards the Jamaat, but it has the following to say on the Jamaat’s role:

Now after this detailed statement of the activities of the Jamaat-i-Islami and its founder, the facts that are either admitted by or have been proved against the Jamaat are:

1) That Jamaat-i-Islami was a party to the Punjab Majlis-i-Amal.

2) That the Jamaat was also a party to the Majlis-i-Amal set up by the All Pakistan Muslim Parties Convention which had passed the resolution of ‘direct action’ in Karachi on Jan 18, 1953.

3) That Maulana Sultan Ahmad, who attended the meeting of the Majlis-i-Amal on Feb 26, 1953, in Karachi, did not dissociate himself from the activities of the Majlis-i- Amal, and the programme of sending volunteers to the residences of the Governor General and the Prime Minister was decided upon in his presence and without any protest from him.

4) That throughout one representative or another of the Jamaat- i-Islami kept on attending the meetings of Majlis-i-Amals of Karachi and Lahore.

5) That from the date that the resolution of ‘direct action’ was passed until the disturbances were in full swing, the Jamaat-i-Islami made no public declaration that it was not a party to the ‘direct action’ and that it dissociated itself from the activities which were being carried on in prosecution of the programme settled by the Majlis-i- Amal.

6) That in his speech at the Government House on March 5, (1953) Maulana Maududi, according to evidence which we see no reason to doubt or reject, stated that a civil war between people and the government was on and that unless the government stopped the use of force and opened negotiations with the representatives of the people, there was no occasion for an appeal for peace.

7) That the Jamaat-i-Islami in its resolution of March 5, 1953, repeated the same view as had been expressed by Maulana Maududi on that day in the Government House.”

It is heartening that the Jamaat in its present form is shunning violence.

The above extracts are all from the report of the Court Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (Justice M. Munir, President and Justice M. R. Kayani, Member), pages 251 and 252.