The compulsions driving a politician
A new work on Pakistan's founder sets Farida Shaikh thinking
With the advent of the British traders, the Muslim Mogul rulers of India who were the 'patron of power… descended to a position of petitioners in the durbar of the firangi.' The book is a political biography of an extraordinary man, Jinnah, who played a major role in the partition of India. It is a retrospective study on the period covering 1947, the finale on 14 and 15 August of the real life drama! What was central to this enactment? Was it the politics of policies, the setting up of countless commissions with gaping omissions, or the mismatch of vision and mission of the political players, the barren situational context, or circumstances beyond control, or the egoistic clash of proud personalities that led to a separate state for the Muslims? Politely speaking, writer Jaswant Singh was out of office (he still is) when he undertook the work. He had all the time for research and reflection, and to write a book. This he did; the intended choice of his subject was for 'a clearer understanding of why India was partitioned in 1947.' The final book took five years to complete. In 1999, the then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, made a bus journey to Lahore. The writer accompanied the prime minister to the 60-meter high tower, Minar-e-Pakistan. Here, on 23 March 1940, the All India Muslim League adopted a resolution for the creation of Pakistan, a separate Muslim state out of India. As biographical writing on Jinnah by a political writer from India was missing, Jaswant Singh decided to go for such a study. He makes deep acknowledgements to Dr. Z.H.Zaidi, editor-in-chief of the Quaid-i-Azam Paper Project, National Archive of Pakistan. More than two dozen photographs adorn the edition. It is reader friendly, with an arrangement of 11 chapters in 525 pages, an introduction, 26 appendices, endnotes and index to give 669 pages to the book. Jinnah appears on the cover in two tones, with the maps of Pakistan and Kathiawar in Gujarat, his roots. The chapters say it all --- chapter 3 (Turbulent Twenties), chapter 4 (Sharpening Focus---Narrowing Opinions) and chapter 9 (Mountbatten Viceroyalty), the End of the Raj. Eleven appendices are on chapter 8. These cover the Wavell Plan 1945, the Muslim League convention 1946, Muslim League's Memorandum to the Cabinet Mission, Congress Proposals to the Cabinet Mission, the Cabinet Mission's Plan of 1946. There are also the 3 June 1947 Statement,Wavell-Gandhi-Nehru-27 September 1946 post-Calcutta killings, Wavell-the Viceroy's Journal Ed. Penderel Moon, Notes by Field Marshal Sir C. Auchinleck, the Long Term Plan and the Congress submitted panel of 15 names for the proposed Executive Council. On Bangladesh's birth (p.479), it is clear that the birth of Pakistan was not the end of the debate on partition---particularly the status of the minority Muslims in India. The partition debate on the status of minority continues in India and Pakistan amid the past agreed upon principle of reservation, 1909, and the partition that took place in 1947. This principle cannot be denied to the Muslims of Indiawho now demand a 'third partition, the second being the birth of Bangladesh.' On Sylhet, the Bengal Boundary Commission highlighted differences of opinion. The body proposed a transfer to East Bengal of 'contiguous Muslim areas of all such districts . . .even if they did not adjoin Sylhet.' Unfortunately, implementation suffered, as there was a reduction of power delegated to the members, followed by amendments to the Indian Independence Bill. The chairman, without 'the knowledge of those whose lives were to be altered, gave the final signal on the boundary.' During the 1923 provincial elections, under the leadership of C.R. Das, Muslim opinion reflected itself, thereby substantiating the finding that 'the Muslims of Bengal…are not a monolithic united group,' as contained in the Bengal Pact. Partition based on faith was like a 'robe of peace… it was …constant tension and threat.'. . .'this thought is in some manner central to our enquiry about Jinnah's journey' and is directly connected to Muslims being a separate nation. The reforms of 1909-19 introduced elections in the local bodies. This was an opening for the Muslims, starting with the reservation of seats, to special percentage, to minority rights, to preserving the Muslim majority as in Punjab and Bengal, to parity and finally partition. Even so, why was partition necessary? Was this for security purposes, or for communal order or for peace? These reasons were, in the opinion of the writer, insufficient for a division of India. Instead, that 'Muslims are a separate nation' was the thesis for the continuation of the political process ushered in by the Montford Reform. This 'illogical' and 'unacceptable' slogan led to the break up of India by the Congress, the League and the British. Moreover '…this fractured the great unity of this ancient land…what was domestic Hindu---Muslim became international---India and Pakistan.' Against this background, notes Singh, 'Jinnah was to my mind fundamentally in error proposing Muslims as a separate nation,' and profoundly wrong when he spoke of 'lasting peace' after the emergence of Pakistan. Many years after that, General Zia-ul-Huq remarked more realistically on Muslim nationhood. 'But if Pakistan does not become and remain aggressively Islamic it will become India again.' To pursue this policy was a sure way of survival and moving forward like Muslim Turkey and Egypt. It was clear from the contest between the majority and the minority that the Muslims could only survive by 'a voice in their own political, economic and social destiny.' Congress had refused to form a government with the Muslim League in Uttar Pradesh in 1937. Also in 1946 election Muslim League won all the seats but the formation of the government was the monopoly of the Congress. For Jinnah, these events made matters as clear as daylight: that contesting elections successfully did not provide a passport to political participation, that brutal betrayals are in the next queue. It is then sequential that the political circumstances that surrounded Jinnah led him, a non-practising Muslim, a secular barrister to boot, to adopt, surely with a heavy heart, the slogan of Muslim nationhood to win 'space' for the strictly silent Muslims to speak for themselves, about their own destiny and dream. And I am appreciative of the situation, more for having seen the first general elections of Pakistan in 1970 that stole the opportunity for the Bengalis to forming a government for the country. That of course led to the emergence of Bangladesh from the ashes of East Pakistan. As I read the book I keep wondering why the BJP has thrown Jaswant Singh out of it. What went wrong and what was the offence committed for which he must undergo such dishonour? The closest (and plausible?) answer probably is that he spoke his mind. And then G.B.Shaw's remarks rush in: 'a slip of the tongue is no fault of the mind.' The findings, on the part of Jaswant Singh, from this arduous research on political history not only raise eyebrows, but also set readers thinking into the deepening debate on partition. It is a remarkable book in another sense. It has crossed all borders and boundaries etched by the 1947 partition and thereafter.
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