November 9,1998
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BOOKS Stiff Child of India Jinnah had many qualities but his obduracy overshadowed them all. By K R Malkani SECULAR AND NTIONALIST: JINNAH
The learned author of this book would seem to think that Hindus, the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi were more responsible for this tragedy than Muslims, the Muslim League and Jinnah. Now it is true enough that Jinnah was expected to succeed Tilak as the foremost leader of nationalist India. But he did not. Some Gandhians could insult Jinnah. Nehru could attack and ridicule Jinnah -- and the latter could return the compliment by dubbing Nehru the "Peter Pan of Indian politics". But the real reason for the falling out went far beyond subjective factors. World War I had radicalised the Indian political scene. The days of the moderates were over; mass politics was the in-thing. And mass politics -- with defiance of law, countrywide non-cooperation and courting jail -- was not Jinnah's cup of tea. His qualification for Congress membership was matriculation -- and not plying the charkha. An even bigger factor in the acrimony of Hindu-Muslim relations was a clash of dreams. In the context of separate electorates, the Hindu thought of his glorious ancient past. The Muslim recollected the glories of medieval India. Nobody seemed to have the wit and the wisdom to harmonise the two dreams into one grand new mosaic. However, the single biggest impediment was without doubt the British plan to put off India's independence as much as possible -- and to leave the country divided and weakened. Partition was a British plan. The Muslim only lapped it up in the belief that the Hindu would never agree to cutting up Bharat Mata and, therefore, the slogan could be used to extract more and more concessions from him. The Muslim did not realise the Hindu was also a Bania who could work out a political profit and loss account. In this complex situation, Jinnah's personality further complicated matters. As a man of ability and integrity he commanded respect. But as a man of insufferable arrogance he made any negotiations difficult. He looked upon Mahatma Gandhi as "that wretched Bania". An additional problem with Jinnah was that though he was a great criminal lawyer, Sarojini Naidu, a dear friend of his, found him quite innocent of history, literature and philosophy. He therefore lacked the intellectual pabulum of a Gokhale, a Sapru or a Kunzru. As a result he won the case (for Partition) but lost the country and, sad to say, died a broken-hearted man. It is about time India and Pakistan realised Partition was a British game -- and learnt to harmonise the Hindu and Muslim dreams.
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That Mohammed Ali Jinnah was very secular and for
long years an earnest nationalist is well known. He was for independence at the earliest;
and he was opposed to separate electorates. He said he was Indian first and Muslim only
second. He was the sole top leader to oppose the Khilafat agitation and call it dangerous
to Indian nationalism. He used to donate Rs 1,000 a month to the Congress. His role model
was Gokhale. Yet he ended up as the architect of India's partition. 
