Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence Book

When this book was published, it created a massive controversy for Jaswant Singh, when the BJP leadership immediately sidelined him for writing a book assumed to glorify Jinnah. Quite possibly this decision was before anyone bothered to read the book. The title of the book I suppose conveyed the impression it did. This book is well worth a read since it is largely objective, though it is also boring in parts and could have been much crisper and a lot more readable.

The book is actually quite balanced about Jinnah - certainly very sympathetic to him till about the late 1930s, but is critical of his 'Muslims as a separate nation' theory, vanity and inflexibility after that leading to the partition of India. The book is however, very critical of Nehru and the Congress (especially in the 1920s and 1930s and even after), and how it pushed Jinnah from being a votary of Hindu - Muslim unity to demand a separate homeland for Muslims, and emerge as the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan.

The book starts with exploring the entry of Islam into India and this part is largely academic with no new information. It then moves on to Jinnah, his early life, contrasting his approach with Mahatma Gandhi. While Jinnah was a constitutionalist, believing in being entirely legally correct in conduct, Gandhi took to non co-operation to protest unjust laws as well fight for freedom for the country. A major theme of the book is how the Congress made no attempts to be inclusive and brushed aside the Muslim league as a non-entity in the 1920s and 1930s. A hurt Jinnah gradually consolidated Muslim support and emerged as the primary spokesperson. There were windows of opportunities till quite late to reach a rapprochement between the Congress and the League, but only Mahatma Gandhi made a sincere attempt to do that almost right till the day of independence. Within the Congress too there were diverse opinions from people such as C Rajagopachari, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan and Abul Kalam Azad.

His mistrust of the Congress, and the consolidation of Muslim support also leads Jinnah to become more inflexible and demanding in the later years (late 1930s and 1940s). For instance, he insisted on equal numerical representation for the League in the provincial government planned and also demanded that the Congress should not nominate any Muslim, as he was the primary spokesperson for Muslims in India. Right till the end, Jinnah leaves the definition of Pakistan open. The portions where Mahatma Gandhi questions him about what will happen to minorities in the new nation of Pakistan, leads Jinnah to claim that they will be taken care of. Beyond a point, it looks like Jinnah improvised his positioning based on circumstances. The part where he calls for a 'Direct Action Day' encouraging violence and communal rioting to prove his point is especially disturbing and so much out of character based on his earlier conduct and views. And yet, he seemed to return to a more broad minded approach once he got his Pakistan - assuring minorities of equal rights.

As Jaswant Singh points out, many disturbing aspects of the two nation theory and the event of partition remain with us today. Jinnah died too soon after the formation of Pakistan, leading to a nation devoid of a soul (which it was only just forming) where minorities face an uncertain future in the face of rising religious extremism. Just maybe, if he had lived longer, as also Mahatma Gandhi, our region could have been a different place.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.