THE battle against the Taliban and extremism will decide the fate of democracy and the future history of Pakistan. Although the Taliban are continuing with their bid to push back the army and create rifts among political parties, there are no signs of demoralisation in the army.

Rather its fighting spirit is an inspiration. Even President Obama seems to be satisfied with its performance. In a recent interview with Jon Meacham of the Newsweek he observed that the Pakistan Army has recognised that the threat from extremism is a much more immediate and serious one than that from India that it had traditionally focused on. However, extremism is not spreading its tentacles only in the Swat valley, it has killed a large number of people in Kurram Agency, Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and other places. The Taliban and their ilk should be dealt with throughout the country.

Many Taliban defenders have resurfaced with the argument that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. But can they deny that Jinnah had asked a scheduled caste Hindu Joginder Nath Mandal to be the chairman of the first constituent assembly of Pakistan? Subsequently, he appointed Mandal as the law minister. Open-minded academics are yet to be convinced about how an adherent of the Hindu faith would have helped initially as chairman and later as minister of a law to draft an 'Islamic' constitution.

Jinnah had fought for a minority of India and all his words and actions testify that he would not have accepted a law or constitution in the country that would consider minorities as second-class citizens. Mr Mandal's appointments and Jinnah's keynote address to the constituent assembly clearly unfolds Jinnah's vision of Pakistan and its ideology.

That ideology is under threat by the Taliban who largely draw their support from the parties that opposed the creation of Pakistan. If Pakistan were for Islam then all Muslim leaders who supported the Indian Congress would have supported Jinnah. It is only after the creation of Pakistan and the death of Jinnah that the very same leaders assumed the role of spokesmen of the Muslim League and began to say that this country was created in the name of Islam. As columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee reminds the nation time and again Jinnah's vision of Pakistan is diagonally opposed to the Taliban's vision of Pakistan.

Historical evidence suggests that even the founding father of a religio-political party that is now backing the Taliban's slogan for Sharia had said, “Why should we foolishly waste our time in expediting the so-called Muslim-nation state and fritter away our energies in setting it up, when we know that it will not only be useless for our purpose, but rather prove an obstacle in our path?” However, later on this stance was revised. Now the party asserts that Pakistan has been achieved exclusively with the object of becoming the homeland of Islam.

It was in 1979 that a head of government declared that Pakistan had been created for the sake of Islam. While introducing the notorious Hudood laws, Ziaul Haq proclaimed that Pakistan had been achieved to become an Islamic state and promised to enforce an Islamic order in the country.

The Quaid had always maintained that the new state would be a modern democratic state, with sovereignty resting in the people, and with every member of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship regardless of religion, caste or creed.

As Jinnah himself put it in a radio interview in 1947 “Nationality, rather than religion, is the basis for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India”. The statement often quoted as proof of the ideology that created Pakistan, 'Pakistan ka matlab kya, La Ilahlah Illallah' was in fact one that had never been raised from the platform of the Muslim League. An election slogan coined by a Sialkot poet during the 1945 elections to decide the partition of India, it was vehemently opposed by Jinnah himself at a meeting of the Muslim League held under his chairmanship in 1947. The incident is quoted in the memoirs of a member of the council of the Muslim League.

“During the meeting, a man, who called himself Bihari, put to the Quaid that 'we have been telling the people Pakistan ka matlab kya, La Ilaha Illallah'. 'Sit down, sit down,' the Quaid shouted back. “Neither I nor my working committee, nor the council of the All India Muslim League has ever passed such a resolution wherein I was committed to the people of Pakistan. Pakistan ka matlab, you might have done so to catch a few votes.”

Raja Sahib Mahmoodabad, a leader of the Muslim League and close associate of Jinnah, also cited the incident in his memoirs. Mahmoodabad added his personal experience with Jinnah on the matter of establishing Pakistan as an Islamic state.

“During 1941-5, we advocated that Pakistan should be an Islamic state. I must confess I was very enthusiastic about it and in my speeches I constantly propagated my ideas. My advocacy of an Islamic state brought me into conflict with Jinnah. He thoroughly disapproved of my ideas and dissuaded me from expressing them publicly from the League platform lest the people might be led to believe that Jinnah shares my view and that he was asking me to convey such ideas to the public. As I was convinced that I was right and did not want to compromise Jinnah's position, I decided to cut myself away and for nearly two years kept my distance from him, apart from seeing him during the working committee meetings and other formal occasions.”

A careful study of the Lahore Resolution also bears out that when a demand for an independent state was raised no reference to the establishment of an Islamic state was made. What the religious parties in Pakistan cannot explain is why, if Pakistan was to become a homeland of Islam, all prominent members of the ulema in India at the time of partition opposed the movement for Pakistan.

As Keith Callard in his well-known study argues, the background of the men who organised the campaign was not theology and Islamic law, not Deoband, but Cambridge and the Inns of Courts. He suggests that had the movement for Pakistan been one for an Islamic state it would have arisen from religious schools and would have been led by the ulema.