THE recent book by Jaswant Sindh, Jinnah - Partition of India, has become sensational news in Pakistan. Every leading newspaper in this country carried a news report, special report and reviews. It also featured in Dawn TV popular evening programme 'News Eye' the other night.

Several other leading Indian scholars, jurists and historians have written on Jinnah from time to time and these include Sarojini Naidu, former President of the Indian National Congress; H.M. Seervai, a former Advocate-General of Bombay; M.C. Chagla, former Chief Justice of India; Rajmohan Gandhi, the brilliant professor, historian and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi; Rafique Zakaria, Akbar Peerbhoy, A.G. Noorani and others.

But this book by Jaswant Singh, a former foreign minister, defence minister and finance minister of India, is perhaps the first political biography of Mr Jinnah written by a leading politician in India. We have yet to receive and review the book but the effect it will have on Jaswant Singh's political career, only time will tell.

Jinnah has always been a dominant political figure in India and, according to Beverly Nichols, the most important man in Asia. He was a Member of the Indian Legislative Council, Member of the Congress Party even before Mahatma Gandhi returned to India.

Jinnah was hailed as the best ambassador of the Hindu- Muslim unity and apart from being a brilliant politician and visionary statesman, he was also committed to Hindu-Muslim unity and the protection of all minorities, initially in India and thereafter in Pakistan.

For Jinnah it was a hard and difficult road to travel from being an Indian nationalist leader and member of the Congress who fought against the British domination of his country and struggled for the independence of the subcontinent from British rule to becoming the champion of the demand for Pakistan and ultimately galvanizing the scattered Muslim masses of India into a nation even before Pakistan became a reality in 1947.

Jinnah was an Indian nationalist before he became the Quaid-i-Azam to Muslims and then Pakistan's Governor-General and its founding father.

While Jinnah has re-emerged triumphantly in India, efforts made by The Jinnah Society and its supporters and well-wishers to create an awareness of “Jinnah's Pakistan”, though supported by civil society and media quite enthusiastically, has been given a lukewarm response by the government.

We now know where we stand in Pakistan and it is gratifying that a re-emergence of Jinnah has occurred in India. Work on Jinnah continues in Pakistan, the latest being The Jinnah Anthology, but our celebrations of the Independence Day instead of being thought-provoking and academic enlightenment of the people, particularly the youth, is confined to the usual lip-service, waving flags, and patriotic dramas and songs. Notwithstanding this situation, the world will continue to assess Jinnah's capabilities and he will be judged by the totality of his achievements in the background of the situation he was placed in and the role he was destined to play. The new political biography by Jaswant Singh is an example of this continued exercise which will hopefully continue.

LIAQUAT H. MERCHANT

Karachi

(II)

THE uproar in India over Jaswant Singh's book on the Quaid is not uncharacteristic serious and objective students of influencing dynamics which culminated in the Partition unmistakably record that the chronically-dominant feature of it all was the psyche and mindset of the predominantly Hindu leadership of the Indian National Congress which, where Muslims were concerned, was given to chicanery and hypocrisy.

Most first-hand, fair and knowledgeable chroniclers writing about what Jaswant Singh describes “as the painful period of the subcontinent's history” have written in largely the same vein as Jaswant Singh.

One such eminent writer is Sir Zafarullah Khan, former Pakistan foreign minister and a president of the International Court of Justice. This is what he has to say about the last hope (The Cabinet Mission Plan) of bringing into being of a united India. I quote from his memoirs (Servant of God)

“In the summer of 1946, Prime Minister Attlee had sent a Cabinet Mission composed of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander to India to work out, in consultation with Indian leaders, a plan for the independence of India. “The Mission worked hard and unsparingly and produced a plan which, to the surprise and relief of everyone, was agreed to by both the Congress and the Muslim League. But the relief was short-lived.

“As soon as Mr M.A.Jinnah, by a remarkable feat of statesmanship, announced the Muslim League's acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan, Mr Nehru, who had just succeeded Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as the president of the Congress, and who intensely disliked the Plan, announced his interpretation of certain clauses of the Plan, which was completely subversive of the meaning and spirit of the Plan. “Mr M.A. Jinnah thereupon repudiated the Plan in disgust. Lord Wavell, the Governor-General, sent for Mr Gandhi and Mr Nehru and tried to persuade them to agree to work the Plan according to its true purpose and intent, but to no avail.

“Finally, Mr Attlee, the Prime Minister, invited Mr Jinnah and Mr Nehru to London in a last-minute attempt to salvage the Cabinet Mission Plan, but could not overcome Mr Nehru's intransigence.”

HAJRA MANSUR Karachi

(III)

FORMER Indian foreign minister and senior BJP leader has written a monumental book admiring the statesmanship and leadership qualities of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

By voicing the language of his conscience, Singh has earned the expected ire of his party which promptly expelled him from its ranks. While taking stern action against one of its principal leaders, the Hindu extremist party has lost and Jaswant Singh has won the moral high ground.

Singh, through his epoch-making publication, has tried to demolish the walls of hatred which have kept India and Pakistan at daggers drawn against each other for more than six decades, fuelling misery of one-fifth of humanity inhabiting the subcontinent, besides inviting overbearing interference of major powers in the regional affairs of South Asia.

Jaswant Singh deserves to be rewarded by the people and the government of Pakistan in a befitting manner for his glowing tribute to the founder of Pakistan. He has changed the complexion of distorted South Asian history by bringing facts to the knowledge of the misinformed millions of this part of the world. This is a remarkable achievement by a non-Muslim politician who has broken the ice and made peace in this region an objective worth fighting for.

I suggest some Pakistani writer should take a cue from Sing and consider writing a book on M.K. Gandhi, an outstanding symbol of non-violence of the 20th century. We in this conflict-torn region need more Jaswant Singhs to rid the Saarc area of the cancers of hatred and war. We may be tempted to shower more scorn on BJP which, by nature, is an extremist outfit.

Let us rather go beyond the confines of inhumanity exhibited by the RSS mafia and show that we are capable of looking at the positive aspects of Indian leaders as well. While we cannot convince every Indian to fall in love with Jinnah, similarly every Pakistani cannot be expected to give a standing ovation to the philosophy of Gandhi. As we have no choice but to live in this region, it is better to live in peace instead of threatening to nuke each other out of existence.

Time at our disposal to promote peace, rather than war, is extremely limited. Jaswant Singh has shown the way .The leadership provided by Singh is worthy of emulation by all advocates of peace. The mindset of this great Indian admirer of Jinnah must not go in vain.

B.A. MALIK

Former ambassador

Islamabad