The Point

A fiend and malicious figure of Jinnah’s character is imbibed into the minds of Indians through history books in schools and colleges who because of his malevolence for “mother land India” divided the country. In his book, Jaswant Singh questions the vilification of Mr. Jinnah and holds him least responsible for the partition. He, instead, assigns much of the blame to Pandit Nehru and Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the most revered figures of independence movement in India. He admired Jinnah as a great nationalist and a man with prodigious leadership qualities. In an interview with CNN-IBN, Jaswant regarded Jinnah as an intricate, complex personality of great character and determination. Adding to this he said that he was drawn to the personality, sufficiently attractive to go and research it for five years. He goes on to say that Jinnah was a great man who created something (Pakistan) out of nothing singlehandedly and stood against great might of BritishSamraj and congress party, who did not really like him. He vigorously defends his thesis by saying that his conclusion is not new rather he just corroborates the facts borne out of historical events. In his talk
to Dawn News, a Pakistani TV channel, he called Jinnah, Quaid-e-Azam, and respect for our Quaid in Jaswant’s eyes is quite visible. (See video below)

 Have you read the book?

Repercussions of the book were widespread. India or more specifically BJP was practically “set on fire”. The BJP ruled Gujarat and Congress ruled Madhya Pardesh banned the book and their workers burnt it. Police check posts were established on highways which were given the authority to search through even the personal luggage of people travelling so that they are not carrying the book with them. Ironically all of it was done without reading the book. The authorities took only few hours to ban a book which contains 752 pages. When responsible people were approached with a question “Have you actually read the book?” the answer was either “No” or “Some of it” or even “I don’t need to”. Gujartat Chief Minister, infamous Narinder Modi, accused the author of giving derogatory remarks about the so called “Son of Gujarat”, Vallabhai Patel, forgetting that Jinnah’s forefathers also belonged to Gujarat and his mother tongue was Gujrati and not Urdu. How come that he is so bitter for another son of Gujarat? The most entertaining fact comes after the Gujarat high court’s decision revoking the ban where it states that it appears that authors of the notification invoking ban on the book not even have read the book. The lawyer of Jaswant’s book termed it as a slap on the face of Gujarat government and a slap it was indeed. Even more ridiculously, Gujarat government withdrew the original ban order and replaced it with a new one. (Watch the debate of three different Indian News Channel below, first debate was so aggressive that in the 2nd half of debate participants started talking in Hindi whereas debate started in English)

Jaswant Singh hit back his former colleagues calling them sycophantic and time savers upon his expulsion from the BJP, a party to which he gave 30 years of his life.  He said that they should base their opinion on historical fact and not on prejudice. (See interview with Al Jazeera below)

Discussion

Mr. Jaswant Singh’s proposition that Hindus and not the Muslims are the responsible for the partitions is old. In 1946, K.L. Guaba wrote a book with the title “Consequences of Pakistan” whose first chapter is; “Responsibility of Pakistan – The Hindus”. The chapter starts with the sentence that Hindus are primarily the architects of Pakistan and presented several incident to prove it. [This book is out of publication but I have a copy of it in my library]. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a devout follower of Gandhi (and strangely of Islam also) too found fault in Pandit Jawahir Laal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhai patel. He charged them for lagging political foresightedness which Jinnah possessed. Azad stated at the page 201 in the 1988 edition of his famous “India wins freedom”; “I was surprised that Patel was now an even greater supporter of the two-nation theory than Jinnah. Jinnah may have raised the flag of partition but now the real flag bearer was Patel.” Authors like Rajmohan Gandhi and H.M. Seervai dragged Gandhi in this controversy also. Like Jaswant, Rajmohan Gandhi was also fascinated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In his “Eight Lives: A Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter”, he criticized his own grandfather and accused him of drawing religion into politics. This became the starting point of H.M. Seervai’s research. Sifting through the Transfer of Power Paper, Seervai found that due to his latent bias, Gandhi did not oblige the rights of Muslims of India. Notwithstanding with his guise of a saint, he absolutely refused to accommodate Muslims on the national political scene thus cornered them and forced them to demand partition.

However conclusion of Jaswant’s discourse is largely incorrect. He is failed to appreciate the significance of the two-nation theory and disproves it. He wrongly infers that Jinnah’s demand of Pakistan was merely a negotiating tactic to safeguard just claims of Muslims in India. Undoubtedly Jinnah was a nationalist at the beginning of his political career and so were Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Allama Iqbal and other top leaders of Muslim cadre but we see a transition of ideology in all these leaders with the passage of time. Sir Syed whose reformation movement was not limited to Muslims, later was found saying that gulf between these two nations will only widen, who would live, would see. This is exactly what happened. On the other hand we also see a complete change over in Iqbal’s doctrine of nationhood. In his illustrious address at Allahbad in 1930, he regarded the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim state as the final destiny(italics mine) of the Muslims of India. Jaswant objurgates the ideologues like Iqbal who dreamt of Pakistan and he refutes the existence of authentic and systematic series of historical affairs which led to the creation of Pakistan. To him emergence of world’s first Islamic Republic on the map of South Asia is purely a matter of fate and a result of some unfortunate(italics mine) happenings. It seems that Jaswant fell short of approaching many statements of Quaid-e-Azam where he clearly articulated Islam as a universal religion and a complete code of life and that Muslims are a separate nation by all means. He focuses only one part of the Quaid-e-Azam’s 11th August 1947 speech at the first constitutional assembly of Pakistan and does not see it in the whole context. Jaswant also views creation of Bangladesh as a negation of Two-Nation theory. As a matter of fact creation Bangladesh was the result of incompetency of the rulers of united Pakistan and their failure to address the economic and social grievances of Bengalis who were far more aware of their political rights than their counter parts in West Pakistan. He should not forget that India helped in the creation of Bangladesh.  Nonetheless Bangladesh maintained its Islamic identity and is a member of Organization of Islamic Conference. No need to mention that Dhaka enjoys better ties with Islamabad than Delhi, infact all South-Asian capitals have excellent relationship with Pakistan as compared to India. 

An extensive treatment of two-nation theory can be found in a book titled “Two Nation Theory”, Royal Book Co. Karachi, 1985, by Shafique Ali Khan. (The book can be found in Quaid-e-Azam Public Library, Jinnah Garden, Lahore and I strongly recommend my readers to go through this book in order get a comprehensive overview of ideology of Pakistan.) More over a book by Syed Hassan Riaz “Pakistan was Inevitable” (also present in Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore) sheds light on almost all historical incidents, starting from invasion of Muhammad bin Qasim till Jinnah, and establishes the genuineness of Two-Nation theory. One might say that these books are Pakistani or Official versions but historical references made in these are irrefutable. Had Jaswant Singh gone through these works, he would have reached a different conclusion.

I apologize that I neither have time nor space to discuss the Two-Nation theory but for a concise treatment, you may like to listen to Dr. Asrar Ahmad’s lecture, “Allama Iqbal, Quaid-e-Azam and Ideology of Pakistan”, which he delivered at Convention Centre, Islamabad, in 2007 and is available at YouTube link to which is being provided here.

Conclusion

Reaction of fundamentalist Hindus to this book only shows that Two-Nation theory is very much alive and prevalent in the sub-continent. Today our beloved leader, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, has resurfaced all over India, over shadowing Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Every news channel, every newspaper and every intellectual is discussing him as a man of remarkably great and exceptionally outstanding character.

Mr. Jaswant Singh also gives us, the Pakistanis, a reason to envy Indian politicians. I do not see any of the Pakistani lawmakers even close to Jaswant Singh in stature and intellect. Hardly any of them have written a book on Quaid-e-Azam (probably Aitazaz Ahsan did) and I seriously doubt that many of our so called parliamentarians can even read.

Re-emergence of Quaid-e-Azam in India further aggravates the need to explore events of Pakistan movement and educate ourselves and our youth about it and its leaders. History has given its verdict and now it is up to us that how quickly we understand it.

Both these books are different;while Satanic verses is a novel, the Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence is a historical work ; Hence they differ from each other, but they have one thing in common; both are marred by controversies.They have created a different impact on the respective authors; while the former had posed a threat on the life of its author, the latter has caused the eclipse of the political career of its author.

Satanic verses:

Image via Wikipedia

The book relied upon the life history of Muhammad and based on the real life characters like Amitabh Bachchan and a lit bit of Rama Rao.No sooner the book was published and released in the year 1988, than it fell like an atomic bomb in the Islamic world causing devastating consequences.The theme of the book was considered as blasphemes against the teachings of Prophet. In Pakistan a riot was broken out against the book. In the year 1989,in Iran, the then temporal ruler Ayatollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa against Salman Rushdie to kill him.Though Khomeini was dead still the Fatwa is in force because, a Fatwa can be withdrawn or revised only by the person who issued it. In India, respecting the opinion of the Muslim people, the book was banned.

However, unmindful of the consequences of the Fatwa and the violent reaction against the book in the Islamic world, Salman Rushdie took asylum in England. The book was even considered for the Booker Prize and it received many other rewards.

But true to its title, Satanic Verses caused a lot of bloodshed, leading to the death of many people by mass murders who were involved in the publishing and selling the book.

Jinnah : India-Partition-Independence :

Image via Wikipedia

It is a recent book written and published by the veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh. Some of the contents of the book are controversial. For example, it eulogized Pakistan’s Jinnah ignoring the fact that he was the prime mover and largely responsible for the partition of India. Besides, adding insult to the injury, the book has also undermined the role of Sardar Vallabai Patel, the first home minister of India, who was primarily responsible for the integration of various princely states into the Dominion of India.

Hence the book evoked an instant furor among the BJP leaders; they met in Simla and expelled Jaswant Singh even from the primary membership of the BJP unable to brook the controversial remarks contained in the book against Jinnah and Sardar Vallabhai Patel;BJP leaders have considered it as a violation of their party ideology and discipline.The expulsion move was supported by the BJP president as well as by other senior leaders of the BJP including L.K.Advani; the RSS has also supported this move.

Gujarat government, headed by Narendra Modi of BJP, has banned the book from selling or circulating in any form of it.

Even though both Satanic verses and Jinnah : India-Partition-Independence are controversial works, while the former has caused the death of many precious lives including a life threat on Salman Rushdie, the latter work though did not cause any loss of lives, it has seriously undermined the political career of a person who was one of the founder member of the BJP and associated with it for more than 30 years.It has also seriously affected the future of BJP.

Finally a word about Jinnah: He not only partitioned India but also partitioned BJP!