have overcome and of the dangers that still lie ahead. Thwarted in their desire to prevent the establishment of Pakistan, our enemies turned their attention to findings ways and means to weaken and destroy us. Thus, hardly had the new State come in to being when the Punjab and Delhi holocaust came. Thousands of men, women and children were mercilessly butchered and millions were uprooted from their homes. Over fifty lakhs of these arrived in the Punjab within a matter of weeks. The care and rehabilitation of these unfortunate refugees, stricken in body and in soul, presented problems which might well have destroyed many a well-established State. But those of our enemies who had hoped to kill Pakistan at its very inception by these means were disappointed. Not only has Pakistan survived the stock of that upheaval, but it has emerged stronger, more chastened and better equipped than ever.
There followed in rapid succession other difficulties such as withholding by India of our cash balances, of our share of military equipment and lately, the institution of an almost complete economic blockade of your Province. I have no doubt that all rightthinking men in the Indian Dominion deplore these happenings and I am sure the attitude of the mind that has been responsible for them will change, but it is essential that you should take note of these developments. They stress the importance of continued vigilance on our part. Of late, the attack on your province, particularly, has taken a subtler form. Our enemies, among whom I regret to say, there are still some Muslims, have set about actively encouraging provincialism in the hope of weakening Pakistan and thereby facilitating the reabsorption of this province into the Indian Dominion. Those who are playing this game are living in a Fool's Paradise, but this does not prevent them from trying. A flood of false propaganda is being daily put forth with the object of undermining the solidarity of the Mussalmans of this State and inciting the people to commit acts of lawlessness. The recent language controversy, in which I am sorry to make note, some of you allowed yourselves to get involved even after your Prime Minister had clarified the position, is only one of the many subtle ways whereby the poison of provincialism is being sedulously injected into this province. Docs it not strike you rather odd that certain sections of the Indian Press to whom the very name of Pakistan is anathema, should in the matter of language controversy, set themselves up as the champion of what they call your “just rights"? Is it not significant that the very persons who in the past have betrayed the Mussalmans or fought against Pakistan, which is after all merely the embodiment of your fundamental right of self-determination, should now suddenly pose as the saviors of your just rights and incite you to defy the Government on the question of language? I must warn you to beware of these fifthcolumnists. Let me restate my views on the question of a State language for Pakistan. For official use in this province, the people of the province can chose any language they wish. This question will be decided solely in accordance with the wishes of the people of this province alone, as freely expressed through their accredited representatives at the appropriate time and after full and dispassionate consideration. There can however, be only one lingua franca, that is, the language for inter-communication between the various provinces of the State, and that language should be Urdu and cannot be any other. The State language, therefore, must obviously be Urdu, a language that has been nurtured by a hundred million Muslims of this sub-continent, a language understood throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan and above all, a language which, more than any other
