It is hard to believe if one says Quiad- i- Azam M.A. Jinnah was in forefront to oppose the establishment of Muslim League in 1906. Later he became the supremo of the Muslim League and could carve out a separate Muslim nation i.e. Pakistan as the Sole Spokesman. Another shocking revelation is that Jinnah did not want the Partition! Both the statements are factually and historically correct. A hardcore nationalist Barrister Jinnah had been a Congressman whom the Aga Khan, the first honorary President of the Muslim League, considered “our doughtiest opponent in 1906” who “came out in bitter hostility towards all that I and my friends had done and were trying to do. He was the only well-known Muslim to take this attitude…He said that our principle of separate electorates was dividing the nation against itself.”
The Aga Khan records his observations in “The Memoirs of Aga Khan” published in 1954. With the blessings of Lord Curzon’s successor, Lord Minto the Muslim League took birth under the leadership of the Aga khan and the Nawab Samimulla Khan of Dhaka. After 1 October 1906 deputation of 35 Muslims to Simla Palace of the Viceroy to seek blessing of Lord Minto, December 1906 had two separate conventions of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta (now Kolkata) and of the Muslim League at Dhaka respectively. Jinnah was at Congress convention serving as the Secretary to the Congress President Dadabhai Naoroji. His political Guru Gopal Krishna Gokhale too was attending the Congress convention.
Jinnah always showed the greatest respect and regard for Lokmanya Tilak. He appeared for Tilak in the Bombay High Court also. He never said anything derogatory of Tilak. Two persons in public life for whom Jinnah showed the greatest respect were Gokhale and Tilak. He had hard and harsh things to say about Gandhiji, Nehru and others; but as far as Gokhale and Tilak were concerned, Jinnah had the most profound admiration and respect for them and for their views.
“Jinnah did not want Partition, in case people have forgotten that, similarly, when the United Bengal plan was floated, Jinnah said it was better that Bengal remained united,” reveals Ayesha Jalal, who is known for her most talked about book “The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the demand for Pakistan”. Prof. Jalal is a Pakistani-American historian who serves as the Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University. Since the publication of her first book, The Sole Spokesman, in 1985, Ayesha Jalal has been Pakistan’s leading historian. Educated at Wellesley College in the United States, and Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, she received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1998 for showing “extraordinary originality and dedication in [her] creative pursuits…”
Prof. Jalal says, “When Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung tried to force him (Jinnah) to commit to an Islamic state in 1943, he resisted and said the Constitution of Pakistan would be what the representatives of the people wanted, what the people of Pakistan wanted. One of the great fallacies of those wedded to seeing history purely through the 'great men in history' argument is that they don't see the context. What I have said many times is that there is too much made of the history Jinnah made and too little of the context that made Jinnah. He operated within the context of Muslims in India being a [religious] category, even though they were not united or organised.”
“Jinnah was from a province where Muslims were in a minority. He wanted to use the power of the areas where the Muslims were a majority to create a shield of protection for where they were in a minority. The possibility that the areas that became Pakistan would offer a kind of protection for Muslims living in areas which have remained in India was not acceptable to the Congress. It was easier for them to partition the subcontinent and let these areas go.”
H.M Seervai, one of the greatest jurists of India, stated very clearly that it was the Congress leadership that was to blame for the partition of India. All you need to do is pick up his introduction to the Indian constitution, published separately as “Partition of India: Legend and Reality”. Moreover, Seervai was not the first one to state this. Maulana Azad said as much about this in his own book “India Wins Freedom”. B.R. Ambedkar’s book on Pakistan “Pakistan or the Partition of India” had stated these facts in the 1940s and Jinnah himself recommended his book to Gandhi during their talks in 1944. Of course, the Congress means Sardar Patel, Pandit Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi too. The only Congress leader who opposed the Partition was the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan who cried saying “you have thrown us to wolves”. Abul Kalam Azad in his “India wins Freedom” blames the Sardar for the Partition calling him “the torch-bearer of the Partition.” The blame-game continues till date.
The contrast in the life of Jinnah is rightly described by his onetime close lieutenant Justice M. C. Chagla in his autobiography “Roses in December”: “Jinnah was in those days my beau ideal, both in politics and in law. Who could have dreamt that one day Jinnah would change from a great nationalist to a rank communalist, and that he who was the most eloquent advocate of India’s unity would become responsible for the break-up and partition of the country?”
“So long as Jinnah remained a nationalist and the Muslim League continued its old policy (of Hindu-Muslim unity), I remained with Jinnah and also with the League. But as soon as Jinnah became communal-minded and started two-nation theory, I parted company both with him and with the League,” records Chagla, late Chief Justice of Bombay High Court who became Union Minister in Pandit Nehru ministry and Indira Gandhi Ministry as well. Of course, he opposed PM Mrs. Gandhi’s 1975-77 Emergency and blessed the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 as the party of the future.
Next Column: The Celebration of 15 August at Red Fort
Photo Line: Jinnah reading Dawn, the Karachi-based Daily he founded
