Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 34
34 Dangers f or Pakistan When I came to Lahore from Qadian , some very important people came to meet me. They said, “Lahore is now in danger as well ,” and , “ G uide us on what to do. ” My response was that n ot only is Lahore in danger , rather all of Pakistan is in danger. When you campaigned to create Pakistan, you did so on the understanding that you would receive a s mall p ortion , and no more than th is. And you asked for it [ Pakistan ] , knowing that our money wa s limited, our resources we re inadequate , and that we w ould have to s truggle a great deal to defend ourselves. It was not that you asked for a great er amount [of land] and you were given a small portion or that you asked for the large r part of India, and you were given the small er portion. In fact, you have received that which you asked for. The dangers that you perceive now existed even then; these dangers are not new, and these dangers are fundamental to Pakistan. Now that Pakistan has been established, one of two things will certainly happen : e ither it will triumph, or it will be vanquished. If you w ish to be victorious then there is no need to ru n away; and if you desire defeat , then remember there is no country in the world w hich wil l shelter the thirty million Muslims of West Pakistan, or the seventy million Mus lims of East and West Pakistan combined. Only six million people migrated from East Punjab , but still millions of people still wander about without a place t o stay. Even though thos e millions of people did not emigrate of their own will, rather they were invited by Pakistan ’s g overnment , who said they had made an agreement with East ern Punjab ’s g overnment that Muslims from there would migrate to Pakistan and in exchange , the Hindu s from here would leave for East Punjab. They were guaranteed help in the form of land and housing, and they were told to leave their homes and to migrate to West Punjab. Solely upon this expectation, they le ft their homes and solely based upon this hope, they s ettle d in West Punjab. Even we, t he people of Qadian , are one small example, as we did not wish to leave Qadian. We lived in a small town, and we planned to unite the Muslims of the surrounding villages and towns and therefore not leave the area , b ut within days the entire Eastern Punjab was empty [of Muslims]. Even though