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Thread: Pure History by Jaswant Singh's

  1. #1
    Ever since the launch of Jaswant Singh’s magnum opus entitled Jinnah: India- Partition-Independence
    almost a month ago, there has been a spate of comments, mostly by critics who had not read the book.
    This was primarily due to the fact that the political fallout generated by the publication was quite dramatic.


    The author, a leading figure of the Bharatia Janata Party, was expelled on grounds that his views conflicted with the stated position of the party. The State Government of Gujarat actually banned the book, but later had to lift the ban under the orders of the Indian Supreme Court.


    In Pakistan, commentators gloated over the fact that Nehru and Patel were portrayed as villains of the piece as far as partition of the subcontinent was concerned and the writer had sought to remove the demonisation of Jinnah in this context.


    Some commentators even ascribed motives to the author, claiming that he was trying, either to discredit the Congress Party or that he wanted to add fire to Pakistani sentiments by denying all the credit for partition to the Quaid-i-Azam.


    Such an impassioned political reaction was understandable, firstly because of the continuing and intensive public interest in the subject, and secondly, because the author is an important and highly regarded personality on the regional, indeed the world stage.


    I myself have read the book but, while reviewing it, I cannot avoid my own views about the author, whom I have known for a long time. This might detract from the objectivity of the review, but I do believe that the true value of his contribution to history cannot be judged without knowing the man himself.


    In 2004, I co-authored a book with Ambassador G. Parthasarthy of India, titled Diplomatic Divide. In this we spoke about our respective experiences as envoys in Delhi and Islamabad. At that time I wrote about Jaswant Singh, ‘I saw in him a man of keen intellect, of great character and with an impressive command of the English language. Some in Pakistan have accused him of being arrogant. He is not. He is just dignified and polished.


    ‘I am convinced that he shares with Atal Bihari Vajpayee a deep-seated and genuine desire for good relations with Pakistan. He was always forthright and honest with me, even more so after I retired and he was in high office. Each time I met him, I came away more impressed by his objectivity and his sincerity. I am sure that one of his great regrets remains that he was not able to put India-Pakistan relations on the right track before he left the Ministry of External Affairs.’


    I quote this in full, because I wish to emphasise that Jaswant Singh is not the sort of person who would spend so much of his time and energy on a project because he had some ulterior motive. His book must be taken at face value as a scholarly work backed by thorough research and expressive of his true beliefs.


    Reactions to the book are bound to be governed by how one interprets the partition of British India. To those who see it as the greatest of tragedies, the architects of it deserve the censure that comes their way. Jaswant Singh makes it clear that he thinks partition was little short of a crime and that it was, until the very last minute, avoidable.


    He does not hesitate to put much of the blame on Indian icons like Nehru and Patel. To those who see partition as a great victory for the Muslims of India and, particularly, for Jinnah as an individual, any attempt to deprive the Quaid of personal glory is naturally resented.


    Jaswant Singh at no stage seeks to minimise Jinnah’s achievement. All he tries to point out is that the Quaid was, till the very end, prepared to accept a united India in the shape of a loose federation, wherein Muslim majority provinces would be free to fashion their own destiny. He never sought an Islamic state as such, and even his ultimate demand for a separate Muslim state was essentially an effort to gain political space for a sizeable community which would otherwise be condemned to a condition of permanent minority. As against this, Nehru, Patel and the Congress insisted on a classic form of democracy, where majoritarianism would be the basic principle but Congress, in its generosity, would grant some concessions to minorities.


    Jaswant Singh’s thesis that the Congress leadership made partition inevitable is, of course, not entirely new. Maulana Azad, the president of Congress in 1947, disclosed this in the portions of his book India Wins Freedom which were published 25 years after his death.


    The official transfer of power papers published in London between 1970 and 1983 had laid the foundations for a reappraisal of events leading to partition and the role of various leaders. The distinguished Pakistani historian, Ayesha Jalal and the Indian jurist H.M. Seervai had followed up with revisionist works. And then, there were the Wavell diaries.


    All Jaswant has done is, I believe, come down on the right side of history, but with more detail and with bolder assertions. This book is not a classic biography describing the life of its subject in detail. Wolpert has published a more personalised account and Hector Bolitho a sponsored one. In addition, there have been numerous works by Pakistani authors which are little more than panegyrics, which would probably have embarrassed Jinnah himself were he alive.


    Jaswant Singh himself says that he is writing about ‘the epic journey of Mohammed Ali Jinnah from being the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity to the Quaid-i-Azam of Pakistan.’ And he takes his reader through that journey, highlighting every stage at which Jinnah championed the cause of a united India. Broadly speaking, he seems to endorse the views of Dr Sharif-ul-Mujahid who divides the Quaid’s political life into three parts. First, as a nationalist freedom fighter and part of Congress against the British; second as the promoter of understanding between Congress and the Muslim League and finally, out of sheer frustration and disappointment, as the fierce advocate of a separate Muslim state.


    In this last phase, Jaswant does not detract from the Quaid’s singular achievement, but as one who decries the breakup of his country, quite fairly points out how he was driven to it by Congress leaders.


    In the process of guiding us along Jinnah’s epic journey, Jaswant Singh also enlightens the reader on the part played by other protagonists in the earth-shaking event that was the partition of India. Along with Nehru and Patel, he seeks to correct the images hitherto held of Gandhi, Wavell and Mountbatten. He rightly points out that it was Gandhi, and not Jinnah, who introduced the religious idiom into the politics of the freedom struggle.


    ‘One was devoutly and expressly Hindu, the other but a casual votary of Islam. One shaped religion to his political ends; the other shunned it on grounds of principle.’ It was Gandhi and his Congress colleagues who first spoke of the inevitability of separation. Then by their words and actions, they made it obvious that Muslims could never expect a fair deal in a united India. The refusal to bring the League into the UP cabinet in 1937 was as clear a signal if any. On the other hand, Jinnah, some years earlier, was berating a group of students in London for talking of a separate state, as revealed by Aslam Khattak in his Pathan Odyssey. Apart from revealing the role of Congress leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel, Jaswant Singh also comes down on the right side of history in redefining the parts played by other protagonists in this momentous drama.


    The one man who has been completely misunderstood by the conventional historian of the period is Archibald Wavell. By nature an unassuming man, he was unable to project his correct image as a well-wisher of India and as one whose intellect gave him a firm grasp of the intricacies of the situation. Jaswant Singh now joins those who portray this soldier-statesman in his true light.


    Conversely, many of the myths surrounding Mountbatten, which have already been exploded by others, find appropriately rough treatment in this book. This self-centered, vain and ambitious personality must bear heavy blame for the cavalier manner in which he set about the historic task assigned to him. He brought to a bloody end a 200 year old history of British rule by squeezing the process into two months. About setting the date of transfer forward by a year, he said ‘the date came to me out of the blue because it was the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender.’
    So, the hundreds of thousands killed and the millions displaced was a price he was ready to pay in order to satisfy a whim. As Jaswant points out, however, the Labour government in England under Attlee must share the guilt for they accepted Mountbatten’s advice. It is generally believed that Churchill did not like Wavell, whom he had once relieved of his Africa command. But Churchill did have a grudging regard for him and always moved him to higher office. Attllee, on the other hand, did not even extend the minimum of courtesy to this honourable man.


    Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence, is, all said and done, an honest and scholarly work. It is not an easy read. No book of 500 pages can be. The author is well-known for his mastery of the English language and those who hear him speak will attest to this. But his writing seems to discard the fundamental principle of good prose which calls for short, simple sentences. In order to add flourish, he is at times, indulgent with his syntax and takes some liberties with vocabulary. Which of us would, for example, use words like ‘ideational’, ‘ovatious’ and ‘concision’? Despite this, it is an essential and informative read for those who want to come to a balanced understanding of a great historical period.


    It is also a significant work in promoting a realisation that in the Pakistan of today, ‘the dream of the late Quaid and the current reality do not entirely harmonise’. Jinnah never envisaged an Islamic state in the sense that the rightist elements in Pakistan want to see it. Nor did he have enough time to set the tone for the new state. Most of what we know of his democratic and constitutional leanings comes from his statements and actions before Pakistan was born. It was his misfortune that he left behind no credible second-rung leadership to take over the helm.


    The heart of the country he created lay in Punjab, where the leadership had traditionally been the creation of the British, so it was always likely that, after him power would shift to the feudals and the military. Moreover, his dream of a Muslim majority entity encompassing virtually the whole of northern India, including a united Punjab and Bengal was finally translated into an untenable structure with two geographically and culturally separate wings.


    Mountbatten openly said this would not last more than 25 years. He was right when, almost to the day, Bangladesh came into being after another bloodbath.


    Writers in Pakistan would do well to follow the example of Jaswant Singh and be unafraid of challenging old shibboleths. Hero-worship does not make nations. Jinnah’s message must not be turned on its head as a slogan in pursuit of power. In this book, we have a distinguished Indian statesman, an ardent opponent of partition, advising us that what has been done cannot be undone, nor should it be. But it is still not too late to realise Jinnah’s dream of two communities, now with their own sovereign countries, to work together and in harmony for the common good of all the millions of South Asia.



    The writer is a former ambassador to India and Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence

  2. #2
    xcellent...thanks 4 posting...

  3. #3
    thanks dear

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