Islamic State of India

Irfan Ahmad, in “Islamism and Democracy in India”, narrates:

In Pakistan he [Maududi] opposed the League leaders because they were also trying to establish an “infidelic system [kafirana nizam]“, the only difference being that it would be presided over “by an Abdullah [meaning a Muslim] rather than a Ram Prasad [meaning a Hindu]“. In India the Jamaat interpreted Maududi’s words to mean that even Hindus could run an Islamic state if it were based on the principles of submission to God, humanism and the sovereignty of God.

In the 1960s, Syed Hamid Husain (1920-1985), a prominent Jamaat[-i-Islami] leader, visited AMU [Aligarh Muslim University]. A scion of a feudal family, Husain, before converting to the Jamaat, was a Communist, was Westernized, and was an avid filmgoer. Under the Jamaat’s influence, he resigned from his job with the British Army, considering it haram. Because he had a Western education, the Jamaat regarded him as its star preacher for AMU. In his lectures to students, Husain attacked secularism, nationalism, and democracy, presenting Islam as an alternative system based on submission to God, humanism and the sovereignty of God. Describing Husain’s alternative as “foolish” and “reactionary”, an agitated student asked Husain how an Islamic system was possible in India. Intizar, a retired AMU professor who was a student at the time and attending the lecture, told me that Husain replied, “Yes, it is [possible]. If Hindus accepted the three Islamic principles, India could become an Islamic system.” When asked if he meant that Hindus had to convert to Islam, he answered no. At that, Intizar and his friends laughed at Husain’s “foolishness” [be-vaqufi] and “irrationality” [pagalpan].

TFT on Taseer's father

The Friday Times Nuggets

Daily Jinnah noted that Governor Taseer’s dead body revealed that he was wearing a chain around his neck with a tablet with Allah and Muhammad PBUH written on it. This proved that the governor was himself a lover of the Prophet PBUH. His father MD Taseer was also a lover of the Prophet PBUH and had supported the killer of a Hindu blasphemer in his time.

Pakistan and taxes

Prof Christine Fair in The Daily Times

To free Pakistan of international meddling, Pakistan’s political leaders need only to subject themselves and their patronage networks to an agricultural and industrial tax, a move which Pakistan’s leadership has steadfastly avoided throughout the state’s entire history. Of course, it must improve income tax compliance too.

Given this refusal to expand its tax net, the state relies upon an admixture of international assistance and punitive and regressive domestic sales and income taxes to pay its bills. Sales taxes are especially regressive because they affect the poor far more than the wealthy. Government servants — whose income tax is deducted from their wages — and other honest income tax payers pay their way while the wealthy agriculturalists and business elite abscond. Bangladesh has a better tax compliance record than Pakistan.

A.I.R. 1930 Lahore 157

Ilam Din murdered Rajpal, the publisher of the pamphlet "Rangila Rasul", on April 6, 1929.  Ilam Din was sentenced to death on May 22, 1929.  Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Farrukh Hussain filed an appeal to the Lahore High Court against the death sentence.  Following is the All India (Law) Reporter record of the case.

Blasphemy - Rajpal attacked thrice?

Mahasha Rajpal, publisher of the pamphlet "Rangila Rasul" made it three times to the New York Times:
September 27, 1927 after he was stabbed, and April 7 and April 8, 1929 after his murder.  From these I learn something that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere.

Re: "I don't regard myself as an Indian"

In the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation, Maulana Azad noted Jinnah's statement of "I don't regard myself as an Indian".

"I don't regard myself as an Indian"

In an interview of Jinnah by Norman Cliff, published in the News Chronicle(London) of March 30, 1946, Jinnah declared "I don't regard myself as an Indian".  This was just after the Cabinet Mission arrived in India, and just before they arrived at Delhi to start conferring with Indian leaders.  This interview was mentioned in the Times of India a couple of days later, and so was known in India.

I suppose Jinnah's regarding himself not as an Indian was also a negotiating ploy.