LAHORE: Jinnah was of the view that two sovereign States should be named Hindustan and Pakistan but to his utter surprise Hindustan was named India by the colonial rulers despite his reservations.

 Dr Martin Lau Dean of Sheikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law at LUMS stated while delivering a special talk on “M. A. Jinnah and the Missing Case of Pakistani Constitution”, held under the auspices of Information Technology University, Punjab (ITU)’s Centre for Governance and Policy here Sunday.

 He shared his research outcomes regarding the legal developments in the early decade and said that in the early years after independence Pakistan lagged behind India in terms of Constitutional Development being a newly born country on the map of the World. M.A. Jinnah wanted Democracy, Unity and Social Justice in newly established State of Pakistan as in the understanding of Jinnah, there was something progressive in Islam as compared to Hinduism, he added.

 Dr Lau described the historical developments and said that in 1943 Muslim League started using the term “Hindu Raj” and Jinnah feared that an independent India under the domination of Hindus would turn the Muslims into a perpetual minority, therefore, he focused on the separate homeland for the Muslims of the majority areas of Hindustan. Had there been an opportunity for Jinnah to live more, the unanswered questions to the constitution would have been settled, he replied to a question.

The talk was followed by a series of the important question-answer session by the audience, which included ITU Students, faculty and large number of representatives from civil society, judiciary and students from law schools.

 Dr Martin Wilhelm Lau is a household name in the field of South Asian History. After completing his undergraduate studies in South Asian History from the University of Heidelberg, Germany he joined LUMS. Dr Lau was a Professor in South Asian law and Deputy Head of Law School at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

 He served as a Chair of Law School and Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at SOAS from 1995-1998. While working as a consultant for numerous legal assistance projects in Afghanistan, Somalia and Iran, Dr Lau also served as a visiting faculty at Harvard School of law and Nagoya University side by side.

Other major contributions involve his splendid work in the field of Islamic Law for LLB program for University of London.