Objectives Resolution

The Objectives Resolution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on March 12, 1949. Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, had presented it in the assembly on March 7, 1949. Out of 69 members of the assembly, 21 voted for it. All the amendments proposed by minority members were rejected. Consequently, all of them voted against it. Hamid Khan, senior vice-president of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party, writes that it cannot be denied that some of the proposed amendments to the objectives resolution were quite reasonable and moderate and the minorities’ point of view ought to have been accommodated in the larger national interest.

The resolution proclaimed that the future constitution of Pakistan would not be modeled entirely on a European pattern, but on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam. The resolution, in its entirety, has been made part of the Constitution of Pakistan under Article 2(A).

The Pakistani Objectives Resolution proclaimed the following principles:

Arguably combining the features of both Western and Islamic democracy, it is considered one of the most important documents in the constitutional history of Pakistan. It was strongly supported by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Dr. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, Dr. Omar Hayat Malik, Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, Noor Ahmad, Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, Muhammad Hussain and others. At the time it was passed, Liaquat Ali Khan called it "the most important occasion in the life of this country, next in importance only to the achievement of independence". However, not everyone in Pakistan had such as high praise and unbounded admiration for it.

The non-Muslim members of the constituent assembly vigorously opposed it, and all of them voted against it. Birat Chandra Mandal said that Jinnah had unequivocally said that Pakistan would be a secular state. Sris Chandra Chattopadhyay (1873-1966), the Dhaka-born leader of the opposition, said in the constituent assembly on March 12, 1949:

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