08-27-2009, 03:16 PM
email
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Modi government's ban on Jaswant Singh's Jinnah book is one sign too many of the Hindutva predisposition to solving debates by means of muzzling. But it was right to disapprove of the book's misrepresentation of history, and this not only regarding the role of Gujarat's hero Sardar Patel.
On one point, Jaswant is right: Jinnah was truly a great man. But for the opposite reason than the one he gives: not for being a "secular" guardian of Muslim interest (note the Nahruvian-secularist contradiction in terms: a guardian of one community's interests is by definition communalist, even if he does so by peaceful means and cooperation, as Jinnah did in the 1916 Lucknow Pact), but for achieving the territorial relaization of Muslim communalism, viz. Partition. Jinnah was a man of impressive strength, for he forced a political arrangement on an unwilling majority, on the colonial overlords and even on a large part of his own community.
Contrary to what Congress secularists and Hindu nationalists claim, the British did not engineer nor even favour partition. India's numerous white-supremacists, of both the secular and the Hindutva variety, refuse to concede agency to mere natives and insist that anything of consequence must have a white hand behind it, i.c. British machinations behind the Partition. But in reality, Jinnah was very much his own man, pursuing the non-white agenda of Islam, not at all a British stooge. Viceroys Linlithgow and Wavell told Jinnah they would never countenance the division of their neat and well-integrated empire, and Mountbatten only gave in under Jinnah's forceful pressure, which made Partition seem inevitable. Additionnally, the changing world situation after WW2 with the incipient Cold War made the British government see emerging opportunities in a partitioned India (viz. to enlist Pak in the Western alliance), so they reconciled themselves to it. But all through, the initiative for Partition was with Jinnah.
In comparison, Gandhi and the Congress leaders were small men, or at any rate very ineffective strategists. They had the majority with them, the British and a section of the Muslims, yet they failed to achieve their objective of keeping India united. One of their main weaknesses was the one still afflicting Jaswant Singh, Advani and most Sangh people: a complete failure (or refusal) to understand Islam. With that mindset, they had no chance of defeating a determined Islamic attack.
Of course there is a difference between a failure to outwit Jinnah so as to prevent Partition, of which failure the Congress leaders were indeed guilty, and a deliberate complicity in the Partition, of which Jaswant Singh (along with Nathuram Godse) accuses them. They opposed Partition but grudgingly buckled under Muslim pressure.
As for the massive bloodshed accompanying Partition, here guilt is a bit more evenly divided. At the time, Dr. Ambedkar had floated the suggestion of a complete exchange of population, making India as Muslim-free as Pakistan would (eventually) becomre Hindu-free. Jinnah was willing to consider this, along with Rajaji, Patel, Morarji Desai and others, and Nehru whose focus then was on securing his own PM ambitions would have gone along, but the man who put his foot down against this lives-saving proposal was Gandhi. Much as I respect Shourie and his veneration for Gandhi, my study of the events only tells me that Gandhi bears an enormous guilt for making the Partition, once accepted, far bloodier than it need have been. Moreover, the non-exchange of population has led to the continuation of Hindu-Muslim violence long after Partition, including the Hindu genocide of 1971 in East Bengal, and we haven't seen the end of it yet. Gandhiji has a sea of blood on his hands. The Congress leaders are indirectly guilty in that they kept on defering to him and didn't show him his place on the dungheap of history.
Except for Ambedkar, few people at the time reasoned: "We'd be better off without the Muslims." Hindus including the Hindu Mahasabha were too multicultural ("secular") for that. Pakistan, by contrast, was built on the Muslim rejection of multicultural coexistence. Imagine what India could have been today for Hindus if the exchange had taken place. No Babri Masjid complications, Hindu sacred places would of course have been under Hindu control. Sanskrit could have taken its rightful place. One modern civil code for all. Bollywood cinema would have been far more Indian, Hindu films would have been not Urdu but Hindi. Issues could have been debated and policies decided on their own merits without always having to be sidetracked by communal considerations.
Girilal Jain is of course right to say that Partition gave Hindu society another lease of life, which Muslims in a united India would never have conceded to them. But tghat window of opportunity doesn't last forever. If they allow power equations to develop similar to those of the 1940s, the outcome may be similar to Jinnah's victory 14 August 1947. This is all the more likely if Hindu leaders cultivate the same babes-in-the-wood approach of their 1940s predecessors. Of that mentality, Jaswant Singh's book, like Advani's earlier Jinnah comments, is a sad example. Not because he extols Jinnah and depreciates Nehru and Patel, but because his analysis is informed by a total ignorance of Islamic politics.
Even sadder is that in all the reactions to his books, this same ignorance and incomprehension of (or at least indifference to) Islamic politics remains in evidence. On this topic, the whole of India seems to be in the dark. Not even "groping in the dark", for someone who is groping at least understands that he lacks something and needs to find it. Most Indians in this debate seem perfectly satisfied with their ignorance.
Kind regards,
KE
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Modi government's ban on Jaswant Singh's Jinnah book is one sign too many of the Hindutva predisposition to solving debates by means of muzzling. But it was right to disapprove of the book's misrepresentation of history, and this not only regarding the role of Gujarat's hero Sardar Patel.
On one point, Jaswant is right: Jinnah was truly a great man. But for the opposite reason than the one he gives: not for being a "secular" guardian of Muslim interest (note the Nahruvian-secularist contradiction in terms: a guardian of one community's interests is by definition communalist, even if he does so by peaceful means and cooperation, as Jinnah did in the 1916 Lucknow Pact), but for achieving the territorial relaization of Muslim communalism, viz. Partition. Jinnah was a man of impressive strength, for he forced a political arrangement on an unwilling majority, on the colonial overlords and even on a large part of his own community.
Contrary to what Congress secularists and Hindu nationalists claim, the British did not engineer nor even favour partition. India's numerous white-supremacists, of both the secular and the Hindutva variety, refuse to concede agency to mere natives and insist that anything of consequence must have a white hand behind it, i.c. British machinations behind the Partition. But in reality, Jinnah was very much his own man, pursuing the non-white agenda of Islam, not at all a British stooge. Viceroys Linlithgow and Wavell told Jinnah they would never countenance the division of their neat and well-integrated empire, and Mountbatten only gave in under Jinnah's forceful pressure, which made Partition seem inevitable. Additionnally, the changing world situation after WW2 with the incipient Cold War made the British government see emerging opportunities in a partitioned India (viz. to enlist Pak in the Western alliance), so they reconciled themselves to it. But all through, the initiative for Partition was with Jinnah.
In comparison, Gandhi and the Congress leaders were small men, or at any rate very ineffective strategists. They had the majority with them, the British and a section of the Muslims, yet they failed to achieve their objective of keeping India united. One of their main weaknesses was the one still afflicting Jaswant Singh, Advani and most Sangh people: a complete failure (or refusal) to understand Islam. With that mindset, they had no chance of defeating a determined Islamic attack.
Of course there is a difference between a failure to outwit Jinnah so as to prevent Partition, of which failure the Congress leaders were indeed guilty, and a deliberate complicity in the Partition, of which Jaswant Singh (along with Nathuram Godse) accuses them. They opposed Partition but grudgingly buckled under Muslim pressure.
As for the massive bloodshed accompanying Partition, here guilt is a bit more evenly divided. At the time, Dr. Ambedkar had floated the suggestion of a complete exchange of population, making India as Muslim-free as Pakistan would (eventually) becomre Hindu-free. Jinnah was willing to consider this, along with Rajaji, Patel, Morarji Desai and others, and Nehru whose focus then was on securing his own PM ambitions would have gone along, but the man who put his foot down against this lives-saving proposal was Gandhi. Much as I respect Shourie and his veneration for Gandhi, my study of the events only tells me that Gandhi bears an enormous guilt for making the Partition, once accepted, far bloodier than it need have been. Moreover, the non-exchange of population has led to the continuation of Hindu-Muslim violence long after Partition, including the Hindu genocide of 1971 in East Bengal, and we haven't seen the end of it yet. Gandhiji has a sea of blood on his hands. The Congress leaders are indirectly guilty in that they kept on defering to him and didn't show him his place on the dungheap of history.
Except for Ambedkar, few people at the time reasoned: "We'd be better off without the Muslims." Hindus including the Hindu Mahasabha were too multicultural ("secular") for that. Pakistan, by contrast, was built on the Muslim rejection of multicultural coexistence. Imagine what India could have been today for Hindus if the exchange had taken place. No Babri Masjid complications, Hindu sacred places would of course have been under Hindu control. Sanskrit could have taken its rightful place. One modern civil code for all. Bollywood cinema would have been far more Indian, Hindu films would have been not Urdu but Hindi. Issues could have been debated and policies decided on their own merits without always having to be sidetracked by communal considerations.
Girilal Jain is of course right to say that Partition gave Hindu society another lease of life, which Muslims in a united India would never have conceded to them. But tghat window of opportunity doesn't last forever. If they allow power equations to develop similar to those of the 1940s, the outcome may be similar to Jinnah's victory 14 August 1947. This is all the more likely if Hindu leaders cultivate the same babes-in-the-wood approach of their 1940s predecessors. Of that mentality, Jaswant Singh's book, like Advani's earlier Jinnah comments, is a sad example. Not because he extols Jinnah and depreciates Nehru and Patel, but because his analysis is informed by a total ignorance of Islamic politics.
Even sadder is that in all the reactions to his books, this same ignorance and incomprehension of (or at least indifference to) Islamic politics remains in evidence. On this topic, the whole of India seems to be in the dark. Not even "groping in the dark", for someone who is groping at least understands that he lacks something and needs to find it. Most Indians in this debate seem perfectly satisfied with their ignorance.
Kind regards,
KE
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