'We needed to make a demon of Jinnah... Let's learn from our mistakes'

How seriously has India misunderstood Jinnah?

I think we misunderstood because we needed to create a demon.

We needed a demon because in the 20th century, the most telling event in the entire subcontinent was the partition of the country.

Your book reveals how people like Gandhi, Rajagopalachari and Azad could understand the Jinnah or the Muslim fear of Congress majoritarianism but Nehru simply couldn't understand. Was Nehru insensitive to this?

No, he wasn't. Jawaharlal Nehru was a deeply sensitive man.

But why couldn't he understand?

He was deeply influenced by Western and European socialist thought of those days. Nehru believed in a highly centralised polity. That's what he wanted India to be. Jinnah wanted a federal polity.

Because that would give Muslims the space?

That even Gandhi understood.

You conclude that if Congress could have accepted a decentralised federal India, then a united India, as you put it, “was clearly ours to attain”. Do you see Nehru at least as responsible for partition as Jinnah?

He says it himself. He recognised it and his correspondence, for example with the late Nawab Sahab of Bhopal, his official biographer and others. His letters to the late Nawab Sahab of Bhopal are very moving.

(via 'We needed to make a demon of Jinnah... Let's learn from our mistakes').

A 'victorious' Congress, ruling for most of the 60 years of post-colonial India, had three clear propaganda imperatives.

1 - TINA, There is no alternative

They needed to prove that it was only the Congress which could 'take on' and 'defeat' the 'glorious and the mighty' British Empire on which the sun never set. The logic went, "what could India(ns) have done without the Congress". This thinking went deeper and dirtier, when a certain Deb Kant Barooah, declared "India is Indira and Indira is India."

Fact is, that Britain was bankrupt and could not hold onto India. Fact is, that for a 150 years - from 1797-1947, many rebellions, wars, individual hits were made against the colonial British Government. The myth of non-violent Indian freedom movement, served both colonial and Congress interests. It showed the British as 'civilized' colonialists - and the Congress as 'enlightened' leadership. Just like most Western literature caricatures African-American characters as hard-working, humble, docile, placid, obedient, gentle!

2 - If you don't have an enemy, create one!

The Congress needed to create an enemy. A demon, who they could blame, use, abuse - and Pakistan fitted the bill perfectly. A failed state (!), a hotbed of terrorism - and to top it all, an Islamic State. What more could the West-Congress combine ask for?

Easily slipping into colonial legacy of 'divide et impera', the Congress went onto a disastrous foreign policy trail of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai. A solid realtionship with Pakistan would have, arguably, saved Tibet from the Chinese maws - which Nehru's foreign policy predicated.

3 - Craven desires

To gain Western approval, acceptance, favours, privileges et al.

Consider the English language policy of the post-colonial Congress Government. It has massively subsidized English education in India so that the children of the elite could 'escape' to the West. The demeaning 'population control theory', the English language education - all, a result of this need of the Congress Party.

The deliberate colonial distortion of Indian history continues unchecked and unhindered. You only have to read Congress Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's speech at Oxford, praising the Raj, while receiving his honorary doctrate, or Chidambaram's decision to end "abject poverty" in India that he seems to "have known for 5,000 years."

Coming to the BJP

When Advani goes to Pakistan and praises Jinnah, it cannot be an accident, or a slip of the tongue. It had to be a deeply thought out, well considered move - one can say, after watching Advani for nearly 30 years now. The man does not go out and missteps so wrongly. The 'Advani-Jinnah-comments-fracas' was for media consumption - and BJP party workers. If Advani wanted to re-write history (about time too), that was one way!

And if there were any doubts, then Jaswant Singh's book, seals the argument.

PS -

1. Dutifully, within 48 hours, the BJP decided to 'expel' Jaswant Singh from the party, for his pro-Jinnah book on 19th August, 2009.


2. Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, promptly banned the book, in Gujarat. I see good sales for Jaswant's book - and rehabilitation of Jinnah in India, BJP willing.


3. On 23rd August Arun Shourie, 'tore' into the BJP leadership on the subject of Jaswant's Singh's book. India Today reported that he said, "Jaswant Singh's book is a scholarly work. It deserves to be read,", criticising the party for pulling the Jinnah remark out of context of the entire book.


4. One day later, on 24th August, KS Sudarshan, the former head of RSS weighed in on Jaswant Singh's side. It was reported that

"Jinnah had many facets. If you read history then you will come to know that Jinnah was with Lok Manya Tilak and was totally dedicated to the nation. And when Gandhi started the Khilafat movement, with the idea that currently we are opposing the British and if Muslims join in then their support will help gain independence. But at that time Jinnah opposed it saying that if the Caliph in Turkey has been dethroned, what has India got to do with it. That time nobody listened to him, which saddened him. So he quit the Congress and left for England and only returned in 1927," Sudarshan said.