Daily Times

Much has been written on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and the circumstances leading to the partition. But the book titled, The Quaid, The Muslim League and the Partition by Dr Ayesha Jalal, stands out far above the rest, other than the biographies. It was written by the author for her doctoral dissertation that she submitted in the Cambridge University. It was, therefore, natural that it had to first gain acceptance by her English professors, who had their own outlook on the changing events in the subcontinent during the transfer of power.

It has to be admitted that the book has its own merits: it is well-researched and written in a racy narrative that makes it a delightful reading, though she has hardly touched upon the deeper, personal side of the Quaid that were the hallmarks of the works of Hector Bolitho and Stanley Wolpert. Her style remains cold and objective to the end.

The main thesis of Ayesha Jalal is that Jinnah claimed to be the sole spokesman of all Indian Muslims not only in the provinces where they were in majority but also where they were in minority. Yet given the political geography of the subcontinent, it was clear that there would always be as many Muslims outside a specifically Muslim state as inside it. Jalal adds that Jinnah never wanted a separate Muslim state; he was using the threat of independence as a political bargaining chip to strengthen the voice of Muslim minority in the would-be sovereign India. According to her, what Jinnah had dismissed as a “mutilated, moth-eaten Pakistan” is what he was actually fighting for.

Jalal raises the question: “What did the Quaid-i-Azam get on August 14, 1947? Was this actually what he was striving for?” One may put to her a counter-question: “What did the Congress get on August 14, 1947? Was this actually what it had been striving for until May 1947?” It had been asking for an Indian Union to keep the minorities in complete subjugation to the brute majority of Hindus, particularly Muslims who constituted almost a third of the Hindu population? Jalal herself says that the British followed the policy of Divide and Rule, which was changed into Divide and Quit in 1947. If the Congress leaders, who were hell-bent on opposing partitioning of the Indian Union, had failed to realise their political dreams, then who in that tug of war was the victor if not Jinnah, even with his “moth-eaten”, “truncated” and “mutilated” Pakistan?

The Quaid looked at the question not from a religious angle (reference his interview to Beverly Nicholas where he termed the partition as “partly religious, but by no means exclusively”). He knew that Muslims were scattered all over India but were in majority in north western and eastern side of India. Since Muslims, in fact, constituted a separate and distinct nation, both in practice and ideals, freeing the predominantly Muslim majority areas from the eternal yoke of Hindu domination, after the end of British Raj, amounted to choosing the lesser evil. Could we blame a mother who in a violent hurricane rescues two of her children, but cannot rescue the third child who is swept away?

Jalal’s hypothesis rests on the same logic. It is wrong to say that “the need for a strategy covering the interest of all Muslims” was not there. She writes, “The Partition of 1947 was no more than a partial solution to the Muslim minority problem in the subcontinent.” She further elaborates that “citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh can merely look helplessly across the borders at the plight of India’s Muslim minority under siege.” So, she concedes that at the present time, the Muslim minority is kept under siege in India. Thanks to Quaid-i-Azam, today the entire population of Pakistan is not held in siege by Indian Hindus. Does Jalal mean to say that if the country had not been partitioned, Hindus would not have kept the Muslim minority under siege? She admits that the partition was a partial solution to the problem, but she does not say anything about the complete solution of the problem. Her stand implies that Muslims should have allowed themselves to suffer the eternal scourge of Hindu domination.

An outstanding merit of Jalal’s book is that it also gives an unorthodox view of the circumstances leading to the partition by showing “how did a Pakistan come about which fitted the interests of most Muslims so poorly.” But the story unfolded by her does not tell where Jinnah had erred, or where he was presented two choices but chose the wrong course. She only disputes his idea of giving a geographical boundary to the largely scattered Muslims who could not be bundled together geographically. Now this is a matter of perception on which more than one views are possible.

During the British Raj, the author explains, the central authority in the Union of India vested with the British, who held full sway over all religious and ethnic communities. But after their departure, the central authority had to be given to the major players, which were Hindus and Muslims. The Congress tried to arrogate to itself the central authority as the sole champions, which Jinnah disagreed with. The British could not resist Jinnah’s stand. If in the course of the settlement Muslims had to be appeased in the shape of a separate homeland whose creation would not have been possible without Jinnah, why should the author grudge it? If the author considers this development to be unfair, what should have been the solution according to her? By implication, it can be said that she would have been happy if the central authority had been given to the Congress to play ducks and drakes with the minorities, and instead of a segment of Muslim population, the whole lot of Muslims should have been thrown at the mercy of Hindus. One shudders at such a possibility.

A strain of bias in favour of the Congress and His Majesty’s government runs through the entire book. Jalal has tried to downplay the Congress maneuvers and their volte-face on critical developments but, quite grudgingly, has not spared the Muslim League or Jinnah even from their innocent overtures to offset the Congress machinations. Lord Wavell’s declaration that “the ability of Congress to twist words and phrases and to take advantage of any slip in wording is what Mr Jinnah has all along feared” is a case in point.

Jinnah’s pre-eminent gift to his nation was the freedom he won for them. Admittedly, the Pakistan that was thus born was not the one conceived by him

On Pages 186 and 187, Jalal claims that “Jinnah’s Pakistan did not intend to throw the advantages of undivided Punjab and Bengal to the winds, nor did it plan to leave the Muslims in Hindustan un-protected.” The division of these provinces was against their natural and economic homogeneity, which was looked with contempt both by the British and Jinnah, and had Lord Mountbatten not been partial towards the Congress, that crass blunder could have been averted. Quaid-i-Azam position was that if the two provinces with clear Muslim majority but with a few districts populated by minority were given to Pakistan, it would balance the fears of Muslim minority living in Hindu-dominated areas that had to fall in India. If the position had been accepted HMG, Jalal might not have this book to write.

The chapter The end game: Mountbatten and Pakistan describes the insurmountable difficulties in the way of the Quaid to achieve his aim of a truly viable Pakistan. It recounts how Mountbatten took a fancy to Jawaharlal Nehru, and how a game was planned to frustrate the aims of the Quaid. Jalal writes, “Nehru described his rival (Mr Jinnah) as one of the most extraordinary men in history, the key to whose success was his ability to avoid taking any positive action that might split his followers. But Nehru believed that it might be possible to frighten Jinnah into cooperation on the basis of the short time available. This was ‘grist to Mountbatten’s mill’.” Thus was hatched a conspiracy to frustrate Jinnah, and to coerce him to agree to the Partition Plan, which Mountbatten had prepared in his secret meetings with Nehru about which the Quaid was kept in the dark.

Jalal later elaborates, “Mountbatten abandoned all pretence of dealing evenly between the Congress and the League. While one side represented by Nehru was invited to join, the other party i.e. Jinnah was not even given the slightest hint of the new scheme.” She writes, “Negotiations with only one of the two contending sides was the novel concept that Mountbatten introduced into Indian political life.” She further says, “Mountbatten failed to observe the pretence of impartiality. It had been agreed to show the Plan simultaneously to all main political leaders, but he [Mountbatten], in an act of friendship with Nehru, showed him the Plan, but kept it away from Jinnah.”

The original partition plan had envisaged “separation first and reunion afterwards”. Mountbatten recommended that it to be recast in material detail. According to Jalal, the revised Plan was “essentially an alternative Congress Plan”. Later, she writes that the Congress proposal for a United India was rejected by the HMG on Jinnah’s persuasions. Due to the short time-table of transfer of power by Mountbatten (being in league with Congress), and the threat that any delay would defeat the creation of Pakistan, “Jinnah had to settle for whatever he could get, while the British remained in India”. Jalal forgets to mention that the helplessness of the Quaid was accentuated by the fact that he had been suffering from a fatal illness (about which only he knew) while the time was running out for him. That fact was of paramount importance.

Another dangerous game was about to start. Jalal writes, “Menon’s proposal, sent to London, for handing over power to the interim govt (headed by Congress), was the most serious and immediate threat, and Jinnah would have no truck with them. In his anxiety to ward off this disaster, he was prepared to negotiate a grudging assent to the draft declaration.” According to Jalal, all that was done by Jinnah “to get the Viceroy to drop the idea of transferring power to the interim government (which meant a ‘Congress government’). The author could not resist admiring Jinnah saying that for him “it was better to have a few acres of the Sindh desert provided it was his own, rather than have a united India with a majority rule.”

Evaluating the entire game plan, Jalal writes, “Congress’ demand for a re-constitution of the interim govt without the League was seen by Jinnah as a grave threat to Pakistan’s future. Mountbatten was tempted to bow down to Congress pressures but had to admit finally that Jinnah was correct by the ‘letter of the law’.”

Some people raise the objection as to why Quaid-i-Azam chose to be the governor general of Pakistan and, in that course, to lose much more; on that Dr Jalal has this to say: “To share a common governor general with Hindustan would have given Congress an excuse to use this joint office to make terms separately with the Muslim areas in the event that the Pakistan Constituent Assembly fell to pieces. It was to avoid this disaster that Jinnah had to exercise the powers of a governor general himself, and in the process, consolidate the League’s authority over the Muslim areas.” Finally, Jalal thoroughly condemns the entire policy of Mountbatten handling the partition of India, and calls it “an ignominious scuttle enabling the British to extricate themselves from the awkward responsibility of presiding over India’s communal madness.”

It appears to me, therefore, that Ayesha Jalal has merely interpreted the events of the partition from the standpoint of the Congress. Nevertheless, the truth filters out in details of the circumstances leading to the partition. The reader becomes aware of the insurmountable difficulties placed by the overwhelmingly powerful forces against the one man whose will and courage outwitted them all. If in the course of this excruciating struggle some snags remained un-filled, which, as the history shows, were beyond human control, then nothing can lessen his greatness. Jinnah’s pre-eminent gift to his nation was the freedom he won for them. The Pakistan that was thus born was not the one conceived by him (due to the division of Punjab and Bengal), whatever area was secured for Muslims to live in freedom and honour as a sovereign state has remained one of the most outstanding achievements in history. It is quite another thing if the posterity has not lived up to his ideals.

It has become fashionable in intellectual circles lately to indulge in self-accusation. This is symptomatic of a deeper malaise where we even spurn our past with a vengeance that is a sign of a severe psychosis. We hate our values, our past, however glorious it had been, and even our heroes, because we are not happy with our environment or ourselves. I do not count myself an exception to this sorry trend, but I do realise that it has to be overcome.

One school of thought even opposes the partition of the country on the ground that Muslims would have been more prosperous had they lived in India alongside Hindus. There is no way to ascertain as to what would have been our fate had we co-existed with Hindus except to know the truth from the present plight of Muslims living in India. In 2006, then prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, constituted a high level committee, headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar, to report on the plight of Muslims in India. The horrible results were as follows:

– in rural areas: 94.9 per cent of Muslims were living below poverty line.

– only 3.2 per cent of Muslims got subsidized loans.

– only 2.1 per cent of Muslim farmers had tractors; just 1 per cent owned hand pumps.

– 54.6 per cent of Muslims in villages and 60 per cent in urban areas had never been to schools. In rural areas, only 0.8 per cent of Muslims were graduates, while in urban areas despite 40 per cent of Muslims receiving modern education only 3.1 per cent are graduates. Only 1.2 per cent of Muslims are post-graduates in urban areas.

The percentage of Muslim prisoners in jails far exceeds that of Hindus, within the context of their population ratios, which according to the committee is an indicator of their being a victim of discrimination and suspicion. The report of the Rajinder Sacher Commission truly reflects the contemporary status of Muslims in India.

This should serve as an eye-opener to the harsh reality about the status of Muslims in India. We are grateful to Quaid-i-Azam for his immense gift of an independent and a free homeland to mould our lives according to our own values and ideals. If, unfortunately, we have failed to live up to his expectations, we are to be blamed for that and not the Quaid. In our present circumstances when we in our sheer desperation cast aspersions on the Quaid for our own failings and misdeeds, it is surely an act of our own madness.

The writer is a freelancer