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Jinnah: Secular and
Nationalist Dr Ajeet Jawed.
Some swear he was secular to the core, while others call him a diehard communalist in the garb of a liberal, and still others describe him as a typical politician—a self-serving hypocrite with no ideological moorings whatsoever. Contrary to the impression given by the book’s title, this is no exercise in panegyrics. Instead, it takes a re-look at the man who is seen in diametrically opposite lights. This enigmatic celebrity, one of eight children, was educated in the Sind Madrassah and the Christian Missionary High School, Karachi. Thus, contrary to general perception, he did have grounding in Islamic education, albeit initially. Later on, he was exposed to a freethinking education system. At the age of 17 he went to England and studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. Was there more to the man than the caricaturised images we’ve got so used to? Jinnah and Gandhi had common political guru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Jinnah had shown all the traits of a true patriot. While Sarojini Naidu was convalescing in England, she was impressed by the nationalist zeal of the young Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who’d founded the London Indian Students’ Association. She wasn’t the only one to come under his spell. Jawed points out that Jinnah "showed greatest respect" to Tilak and Gokhale. So impressed was he with the latter’s secular outlook that "he wanted to become like Gokhale". He disagreed with Tilak’s extremist mindset, but admired his patriotic fervour. Jawed says: "After Justice Davar had sentenced Tilak to six years’ rigorous imprisonment, the government conferred a knighthood upon Davar. Jinnah wrote a scathing note to the effect that the Bar should be ashamed to want to give a dinner to a judge who had obtained knighthood by doing what the Government wanted." There was a time when Jinnah had advocated abolition of separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims, yet he subsequently asked for special reservations for the Muslims, as guarantee against the Hindu domination in undivided and independent India. On September 21, 1917, talking in the Central Legislative Council, he thwarted attempts to communalize the ICS: "Why should not a Brahmin…be put in charge of any province or any district… What will happen to the North-Western Frontier, if he goes there? "Yet, the same Jinnah didn’t hesitate from playing the communal card as "a bargaining counter". The demand for Pakistan was to get political mileage for himself, a strategy that backfired, as evidenced in these words: "I never wanted this damn Pakistan! It was forced upon me by Sardar Patel…" Even today, the Muslims from UP who migrated to Pakistan are treated as outsiders. There’s an episode wherein MC Chagla asks Jinnah, "You are fighting for Pakistan mainly in the interest of the Muslim majority states. But what happens to the Muslims in states particularly like Uttar Pradesh, where they are in a small minority." He replied: "They will look after themselves. I am not interested in their fate." Jinnah obviously failed to mould the subcontinent’s political processes. He became a passenger rather than the driver of India’s destiny by resorting to self-serving reactionary politics. Did Gandhiji’s support to the Khilafat Movement harm the cause of Jinnah-led liberal Muslims, forcing the latter to up the communal ante? Most probably, yes. This movement threw up another Muslim leader of substance, Abul Kalam Azad, forcing Jinnah to employ his impressive barrister’s skills to counter all moves that threatened his position as the sole voice of the Muslims. Azad achieved prominence in the pan-Islamic Khilafat Movement and became president of the All-India Khilafat Committee in 1920. This helped obscurantist mullahs to raise their public profile at the cost of more reasonable Jinnah-led Muslim League. Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress in 1906, and, in 1910, was elected to the Indian Legislative Council in Delhi as a Congressman. He joined the Muslim League in 1913 and became its president in 1916, the year that saw him almost pulling off a common Congress-Muslim League platform. Jinnah resigned from the Congress in 1920, but was still committed to settling Hindu-Muslim differences. The divisions, however, widened in 1928 when the Nehru Report rejected his 14-point constitutional compromise proposal. The Congress only pushed Jinnah into the quagmire of fundamentalism through its political shenanigans. The League lost heavily in the provincial elections of 1937, while the Congress, led by Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru, won a majority in 7 of the 11 provinces. The Congress’s refusal to form coalition governments with the Muslim League, particularly in the United Provinces, proved to be the final Hindu-Muslim break. Jinnah’s political ambitions, his ego and the political circumstances of the time weaved a persona that still bemuses scholars and statesmen alike. He almost became a visionary statesman, who settled for being a mere politician. |
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