Retrospection and introspection are expected to yield come concrete results. They often bring to light what was hidden or unknown to light. Reassessment of individuals and movements helps us to learn from our past mistakes and move ahead.
An assessment of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, widely known as the Father of Pakistan is worth ones while. However, unlike any other political figure Jinnah is one of the most complicated both as an individual and a political leader. Both Jinnah and Gandhiji came from Gujarat. While Jinnah spoke little Gujarati, Gandhiji spoke and wrote in Gujarati. Both of them were also trained lawyers. They studied law in England. While Gandhiji claimed to represent millions of ordinary people Jinnah said time and again that Gandhiji represented the Hindus alone. And he wanted to be the ‘Sole Spokesman of the Muslims’.
The Sole Spokesman of the Muslims spoke little Urdu. He did not take the trouble to learn it. But he claimed that there was a concerted effort to wipe out the language. He was a chain smoker. He enjoyed his pork, something a devout Muslim considers to be the abode of the devil. He did not say his prayers five times a day as a devout Muslim is supposed to do. He is reported to have touched the Holy Quran the sacred text of the Muslims only once. But he wanted to be recognized as the sole representative of the Muslim community.
It is also reported that his driver was a Sikh from the Punjab, his stenographer a Brahmin from Kerala, his cook a Hindu from Goa. He fell in love with a Parsi woman and married her. However, he objected when his daughter, his only child, fell in love with a Parsi and married him. He went to Pakistan alone. His daughter stayed back in India.
He never kept a diary or authored any book.
When Bal Gangadhar Tilak was accused of being anti national by the British, Jinnah tried his best to save him. Gopal Krishna Goghale thought that Jinnah was free from all sectarian prejudice and had all the qualities that would make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India said, Jinnah,“whose fair ambition it is to become the Muslim Goghale may in some glorious and terrible crisis of our national struggle pass into immortality as the Mazzini of the Indian Liberation”.
The same Jinnah also said, “The Mussalmans are not a minority, as it is commonly known and understood…. Mussalmans are a nation by any definition of a nation, and the must have their homelands, their territory and their state.” (Pirzada II, Pa337)
As neither Gandhiji nor the Congress regarded Jinnah as the sole spokesman of the Muslims, he said, “Why does not Mr. Gandhi agree-and I have suggested this to him more than once, and I repeat it again from this platform-why does not Mr. Gandhi honestly now acknowledge that the Congress is a Hindu Congress, that he does not represent anybody except the solid body of a Hindu people? Why should not Mr. Gandhi be proud to say, ‘I am a Hindu, the Congress had solid Hindu bcking?’ I am not ashamed of saying that I am a Mussalman. I am right I hope, and I think even a blind man must have been convinced by now,that the Muslim League has the solid backing of the Mussalmans of India. Why then all this camouflage? Why all these machinisations? Why not come as a Hindu leader proudly representing your people and let me meet you proudly representing the Mussalmas…” (Pirzada 2, pa 333)
The fact that Mahatma Gandhi alone was the person who always opposed partition is also known widely. Pyarelal, his secretary and biographer has noted Gandhiji as having said , “The purity of my striving will be put to test only now. Today I find myself all alone. Even the Sardar and Jawaharlal think that my reading of the situation is wrong and peace is sure to return if partition is agreed upon…..They do not like my telling the Viceroy that even if there is to be partition, it should not be through the British intervention or under the British Rule…. They wonder if I have not deteriorated with age….Nevertheless I must speak as I feel I am to be a true and loyal friend to the Congress and to the British people, as I claim to be…regardless of whether my advice is heeded or not. I see clearly that we are setting about this business the wrong way. We may not feel the full effect immediately, but I can see clearly that the future of Independence gained at this price is going to be dark. I pray that god may not keep me alive to witness it...” (Pyarelal, The Last Phase, vol II 200) Mahatma’s words are plain enough.
Nehru himself has admitted as much later.
Ayesha Jalal Pakistani scholar and historian in her The Sole Spokesman, says that actually Jinnah did not want the partition. And the demand for Pakistan was just a bargaining chip. Although many have hailed it as a scholarly work it did not find her arguments convincing.
What has Jaswant got to say about Jinnah? He says that Jinnah has been demonized in India. In an interview with Karan Thapar broadcast by CNN-IBN, Jaswant commented that, “a distinction has to be made between Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s personal attributes as a human being and his politics. The personal attributes are admirable. His equations with human beings of all communities were a real example. His politics were abhorable. Particularly after 1940”. What is one to make of it?
Karan: - you said India has demonized him and yet you completely overlooked and ignored the fat that he launched against India the first threat to Indian sovereignty and the first war that India faced. And he did it within three months of partition. That is not mentioned.
Jaswant: - That would have required altogether a different and a separate book. Already it was running to 900 pages. The book had to be cut down. There are limits to it.
Karan: - What happens if people turn around and say that by overlooking and ignoring this, you have not only written a one-sided account but you have exculpated Jinnah of the charge of launching war against India?
Jaswant: - I have not exculpated because among the first of the sentences that I used in this interview is that a distinction has to be made between his personal attributes and his public conduct. These are two very different things”.
Is he going to write a sequel to his biography of Jinnah that runs to 669 pages?
Are we to wait and watch?
An assessment of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, widely known as the Father of Pakistan is worth ones while. However, unlike any other political figure Jinnah is one of the most complicated both as an individual and a political leader. Both Jinnah and Gandhiji came from Gujarat. While Jinnah spoke little Gujarati, Gandhiji spoke and wrote in Gujarati. Both of them were also trained lawyers. They studied law in England. While Gandhiji claimed to represent millions of ordinary people Jinnah said time and again that Gandhiji represented the Hindus alone. And he wanted to be the ‘Sole Spokesman of the Muslims’.
The Sole Spokesman of the Muslims spoke little Urdu. He did not take the trouble to learn it. But he claimed that there was a concerted effort to wipe out the language. He was a chain smoker. He enjoyed his pork, something a devout Muslim considers to be the abode of the devil. He did not say his prayers five times a day as a devout Muslim is supposed to do. He is reported to have touched the Holy Quran the sacred text of the Muslims only once. But he wanted to be recognized as the sole representative of the Muslim community.
It is also reported that his driver was a Sikh from the Punjab, his stenographer a Brahmin from Kerala, his cook a Hindu from Goa. He fell in love with a Parsi woman and married her. However, he objected when his daughter, his only child, fell in love with a Parsi and married him. He went to Pakistan alone. His daughter stayed back in India.
He never kept a diary or authored any book.
When Bal Gangadhar Tilak was accused of being anti national by the British, Jinnah tried his best to save him. Gopal Krishna Goghale thought that Jinnah was free from all sectarian prejudice and had all the qualities that would make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India said, Jinnah,“whose fair ambition it is to become the Muslim Goghale may in some glorious and terrible crisis of our national struggle pass into immortality as the Mazzini of the Indian Liberation”.
The same Jinnah also said, “The Mussalmans are not a minority, as it is commonly known and understood…. Mussalmans are a nation by any definition of a nation, and the must have their homelands, their territory and their state.” (Pirzada II, Pa337)
As neither Gandhiji nor the Congress regarded Jinnah as the sole spokesman of the Muslims, he said, “Why does not Mr. Gandhi agree-and I have suggested this to him more than once, and I repeat it again from this platform-why does not Mr. Gandhi honestly now acknowledge that the Congress is a Hindu Congress, that he does not represent anybody except the solid body of a Hindu people? Why should not Mr. Gandhi be proud to say, ‘I am a Hindu, the Congress had solid Hindu bcking?’ I am not ashamed of saying that I am a Mussalman. I am right I hope, and I think even a blind man must have been convinced by now,that the Muslim League has the solid backing of the Mussalmans of India. Why then all this camouflage? Why all these machinisations? Why not come as a Hindu leader proudly representing your people and let me meet you proudly representing the Mussalmas…” (Pirzada 2, pa 333)
The fact that Mahatma Gandhi alone was the person who always opposed partition is also known widely. Pyarelal, his secretary and biographer has noted Gandhiji as having said , “The purity of my striving will be put to test only now. Today I find myself all alone. Even the Sardar and Jawaharlal think that my reading of the situation is wrong and peace is sure to return if partition is agreed upon…..They do not like my telling the Viceroy that even if there is to be partition, it should not be through the British intervention or under the British Rule…. They wonder if I have not deteriorated with age….Nevertheless I must speak as I feel I am to be a true and loyal friend to the Congress and to the British people, as I claim to be…regardless of whether my advice is heeded or not. I see clearly that we are setting about this business the wrong way. We may not feel the full effect immediately, but I can see clearly that the future of Independence gained at this price is going to be dark. I pray that god may not keep me alive to witness it...” (Pyarelal, The Last Phase, vol II 200) Mahatma’s words are plain enough.
Nehru himself has admitted as much later.
Ayesha Jalal Pakistani scholar and historian in her The Sole Spokesman, says that actually Jinnah did not want the partition. And the demand for Pakistan was just a bargaining chip. Although many have hailed it as a scholarly work it did not find her arguments convincing.
What has Jaswant got to say about Jinnah? He says that Jinnah has been demonized in India. In an interview with Karan Thapar broadcast by CNN-IBN, Jaswant commented that, “a distinction has to be made between Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s personal attributes as a human being and his politics. The personal attributes are admirable. His equations with human beings of all communities were a real example. His politics were abhorable. Particularly after 1940”. What is one to make of it?
Karan: - you said India has demonized him and yet you completely overlooked and ignored the fat that he launched against India the first threat to Indian sovereignty and the first war that India faced. And he did it within three months of partition. That is not mentioned.
Jaswant: - That would have required altogether a different and a separate book. Already it was running to 900 pages. The book had to be cut down. There are limits to it.
Karan: - What happens if people turn around and say that by overlooking and ignoring this, you have not only written a one-sided account but you have exculpated Jinnah of the charge of launching war against India?
Jaswant: - I have not exculpated because among the first of the sentences that I used in this interview is that a distinction has to be made between his personal attributes and his public conduct. These are two very different things”.
Is he going to write a sequel to his biography of Jinnah that runs to 669 pages?
Are we to wait and watch?
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