11th August 1947. Quaid's speech.
If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he
belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste ......or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State
with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make.
I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities,
the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the
Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the
way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and
specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its
hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free
to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to
do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India
today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made
and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no
distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle
that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge
the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say
with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they
are all members of the Nation.Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and
Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.
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