The Jin of Jinnah

Shiban Khaibari     

 

It sounds quite astonishing that there are people who want to rewrite history in their own whimsical way, sensationalizing events with absurd and imaginary ideas. It sounds quite prosaic that it should come from the pen of a noted political leader of a political party which claims to be more Indian and patriotic than others. Mr. Jaswant Singh has created a cobweb of confusion and contradiction for himself as none is going to buy his fictional history as regards the partition of the county or his eulogizing Mohammad Ali Jinnah and casting aspersions on the Iron Man of India, Sardar Patel. Jaswant Singh has lost sight of the fact that the concept of Pakistan was conceived by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan way back in 1867 who said that Muslims and Hindus were two separate Nations, thus sowing the seeds of brazen exclusiveness, who strangely enough, persuaded Muslims not to join the congress party when A.O. Hume founded it in 1885. This concept was polished, reshaped and made politico-religious necessity for Muslims by Mohammad Iqbal whose slogan of separate Muslim State was duly adopted by the Muslim League in 1940. Enough ground was made for creation of a separate State for Muslims even in British India which means that even achieving freedom from foreign yoke was given no importance, in comparison. The elections of 1945-46 saw Muslim League sweeping the Muslim vote which emboldened Jinnah to give a call for civil disobedience by Muslims in 1946 that resulted in large scale communal holocaust in Bengal. Gandhi Ji offered the highest Executive post to Jinnah in undivided India, in case he retracted from his firm stand for a separate state for Muslims but he spurned the offer and Jaswant Singh blaming Nehru and even the Sardar for partition is condemnable and entitles Jaswant Singh to live in the paradise of his Jinnahian Pakistan and leave India for good. He is sorry for demonization of Jinnah but what about his writings which have undermined facts and done a great disservice to the victims of partition, rather he has insulted their sacrifices. It is a matter of satisfaction that BJP has distanced itself from the mess of what Singh has come out with, thus in the process done some face saving exercise as it is yet to come out of L. K. Advani's Jinnah praise aftermaths. Jaswant Singh's vision seems to have been blurred enough so as to "question" the wisdom of Indians in not calling Jinnah as secular Indian as written by him, it is just a sham and a vain attempt of building an apocryphal air of something to look like a "great find". After all, stuff of fiction and a stark reality are two different incongruent things. BJP has shown him the door.

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Courtesy: Shiban Khaibari and The Martand- The Official organ of All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference: 31st August, 2009