DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI examines the Jinnah controversy started by Jaswant Singh’s book and says that to fix responsibility for the Partition, things ought to be seen in their proper historical – not hysterical – perspective.
The less-then-well-read Saffron leadership stands on the proverbial banana peel when it takes avoidable exception to the well-researched, scholarly conclusions on the role of the late lamented Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Mr Mohammed Ali Jinnah in the Partition. It appears as if the paranoid leadership has not gone through the key writings of foreign historians and commentators as well as those of its own ideologues on the subject.
Equally lamentable but ridiculous is their unawareness of their own leading lights rather founders on the significant events of 1947, hence their jaundiced views.
SHYAMA PRASAD MOOKHERJEE
Is it not a fact, as rightly pointed out by Mr Pranab Mukherjee, that the Jana Sangh founder, Mr Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, had supported the Partition Plan? To quote the Finance Minister, he had not only welcomed the Partition Plan prepared in June 1947, but was also instrumental in the division of Bengal and Punjab by demanding that the principle of religious majority to decide the area’s inclusion in India or Pakistan be extended from provinces to the districts as well. Mr Pranab added: “That is how Bengal and Punjab got divided. This is how the Sylhet district in undivided Assam went to Pakistan now Bangladesh. Now if they (BJP) want to forget their own legacy, only God can help them.
RELEVANT SUBJECT
The other question is: What is the relevance of such silly questions today? Do these questions strengthen the BJP as a seamless Opposition party? Have these questions any place in contemporary India? Would the BJP-RSS leadership mind what their ideologue Mr H V Seshadri has, in his magnum opus “The Tragedy of Pakistan” said on the role of (leave Nehru for a while) Sardar Patel? To quote Mr Seshadri: “When the new Viceroy Lord Mountbatten announced on June 3, 1947, the plan of transfer of power, it came as a stunning blow to the people, for that plan, approved by Nehru and Patel, had envisioned cutting up Bharat and creation of Pakistan!… The great and trusted leaders of Congress had turned their back on the sacred oaths they had taken and the pledges they had administered to the people. What took place on August 14-15, 1947 was that gross betrayal of the nation’s faith, the betrayal of the dreams of countless fighters and martyrs who had plunged into the fire of freedom struggle with the vision of Akhand Bharat in their hearts.”
THE QUESTION
Why the Saffron is so touchy about certain personages who, after all, were human beings and liable to err. Neither they were, nor are they, beyond comparison and comment. The stuff they were made of had no divinity at all. They were of the earth earthy. If this assertion is true, let them be treated as humans, not sacrosanct deities. Their praise or reappraisal or criticism or denunciation has to be looked into this primary light.
A recent, domestic example is: One need not elaborate in what opinion, and in what degree of reverence, the Congress holds Mrs Gandhi, Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Mrs Sonia Gandhi at official level. But did it hesitate in giving a ticket and later on berth in the Ministry of External Affairs to Mr Shashi Tharoor? Or did the party high command not know what the ace diplomat had written in his India: From Midnight to Millennium? Mr Tharoor wrote: “Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a toddywallah (liquor trader) rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometime wonder, might India’s political history have been different?” Further Mrs Gandhi was skilled at the acquisition and maintenance of power, but hopeless at the wielding of it for larger purposes. She had no real vision or programme beyond the expedient campaign slogans; “Remove poverty” was a mantra without a method … declaring a state of emergency, Indira arrested Opposition, censored the Press and postponed the elections. Mr Tharoor added: “The rot set in. Compromise followed sell-out as New Delhi returned to business as usual. Charges of corruption in a major Howitzer contract with the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors tarnished the mystique of the dynasty; little children saying gali gali me shor hai, Rajiv Gandhi chor hai (Here it is said in every nook, Rajiv Gandhi is a crook). Mr Tharoor also took digs at Sonia Gandhi, pointing out that she went to Cambridge to study English not political philosophy.
‘THE TURIN SHROUD’
Referring to Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s “renunciation” and her nomination of Manmohan Singh as prime minister, he said: “A builder’s daughter from Turin, without a college degree, with no experience of Indian life beyond the rarified realms of the prime minister’s residence, fiercely protective, of her privacy so reserved and unsmiling in public that she has been unkindly dubbed “the Turin shroud” …
Now the Congress is benefiting from Mr Tharoor’s talent and experience while the Saffron is busy making foes out of friends. Because of a peculiar ever-arguing and stagnant mindset, the Saffron is wallowing in crises of multidimensional magnitude.
Both, improper lionization and unjustified demonisation are indicative of bad national health. This unfortunately has happened in our country. Patel and Advani are just two cases in point. Mr Advani does not lead, but is led. This is the opinion of one of his critics. If wrong, should this impression not be corrected? The Saffron owes a reply.
PAKISTANI VIEW
How do the neighbouring Pakistanis think about our worthies? In the words of a Pakistan journalist, Mr Mohammad Hanif, quoted by The Times of India: “In the popular imagination, which is basically fuelled by the Right wing Urdu press, Gandhi is some kind of a pervert Hindu fanatic who personifies the Muslim communalists’ idea of a cunning baniya. We are frequently reminded of “baghal me churi, muh pe raam raam.” Nehru is seen as a suave seducer who managed to usurp large chunks of the Punjab, Bengal and Kashmir that should have been part of Pakistan.
Does the Saffron relish this insult to India’s luminaries simply because Gandhi and Nehru are not identified with the Jana Sangh or the BJP?
RSS ADVICE
The crisis the BJP or the RSS is in is complex. What makes the problem confounded is the advice of the RSS chief to the BJP stalwarts to vacate their posts to be filled by candidates provided by the RSS. Mr Mohan Bhagwat has made it known that 70 loyalists are waiting in the wings to fulfil their patriotic duties.
In the current no-holds-barred mutual fight, some “state secrets” are coming out through TV channels and newspapers: In early 2008, the iron-man Mr Advani had claimed that he was not present in the Cabinet committee meeting where the decision to swap three Pakistani militants for the release of hijacked Indian passengers in Kandahar was taken. After Mr George Fernandes, now Mr Jaswant Singh has made it clear that Mr Advani was in the meeting. Mr Brajesh Mishra, the then National Security Advisor, has also asserted that Mr Advani was in the meeting that unanimously decided to release three terrorists. Mr Yashwant Sinha says: “Truth should be spoken. I completely back Mishra. It’s a matter of recent history. Thus all the members of the CCS have contradicted the “Lohprush”. All said and done, how can a former Union Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister say he did not know about the swapping of prisoners? Did he lie to the nation? Would he mind coming out clean?
In another startling revelation, Mr Jaswant Singh told the media that Mr Vajpayee had been so much disturbed by Gujarat riots that he wanted to sack Narendra Modi but Mr L K Advani did not allow that to happen. If that was done, he told Mr Vajpayee, “toh party me bawal khara ho jayega” (there will be anarchy in the party).
TIGHT-ROPE WALK
As the matters stand, the BJP is walking on edge, punctuated with eggs. Apprehensive of high profile desertions, the internal authority of the BJP, a divided house, has evaporated into thin air. This vacuum is, in turn, accelerating the pace of the crisis of confidence in the squabbling bunch. Add to it the fear of the dissenters spilling the beans or opening the cans of worms.
Three top-ranking stalwarts — Mr Sinha, Mr Singh and Mr Arun Shourie – had of late been pressing for fixing responsibility for the debacle in elections. What has added anger to the resentment is the questionable promotion of leaders and strategists, Mr Arun Jaitley, Mrs Sushma Swaraj and Mr Rajnath Singh, who for all the practical purposes are responsible for the routs and refusal to fix accountability. But much more than the BJP, the cadre-based RSS has to be blamed for this state of affairs, as the latter misleadingly claims to be a cultural body but keeps remote control in its hands. Obviously their religious whims and fancies cannot be implemented by any Alliance dispensation.
ORDER OF PRIORITIES
In this backdrop, the appropriate manner appears to discuss the irritant called the core ideology of the RSS. What is to be noted is the order of priorities of the two parties. It is Muslims, not the Hindus who top the list. The Saffron holds Muslims responsible for all the ills India is afflicted with. It has (at least) two yardsticks – one for Muslims and the other for the majority community.
The Hindutva happens to be a significant point of the Saffron’s core ideology. Hindutva is a conundrum inside a riddle. Originally propounded by Mr Savarkar in a vague manner, Hindutva apologists and practitioners periodically add their own thinking to the belligerent doctrine. Now Hindutva has its own view on economy, defence, culture, nationalism etc etc.
They claim through this grafting that Hindutva is capable of world leadership. But its front-rankers including Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee do not know what Hindutva is.
HATRED FOR JINNAH
Besides Hindutva, a part of the Saffron core ideology happens to be Sardar Patel. How is that? In a similar vein, one can ask why the pristine pure hatred for Jinnah who, we believe, was neither an angel nor a saint. He loved life, ate, drank and enjoyed everything prohibited in the Scripture. From Islamic standards, his persona was not iconic. He did not subscribe to any extremist or fundamentalist (read terrorist) ideology. He was out and out Indian till he was frustrated by a string of deceptions and broken Congress promises like: “We will enter the UP assembly unfettered by any commitment.” Had he not been decisively pushed to the wall by the Congress obduracy, Pakistan, many feel, would not have come into being. The rest is history.
There was an iota of untruth when Mr L K Advani, during his 2005 visit to Pakistan, wrote about Mr Jinnah in the visitors’ book: “There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. But there are very few who actually create history. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual… his address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, is a forceful espousal of a secular state. My respectful homage to the great man.”
Mr Jinnah is being pilloried for the crime that originally he has not actually committed. According to a responsible chronicler of events, as perhaps we all know: “Pakistan began with Iqbal as a poetic fancy. Rahmat Ali and his English allies at Cambridge provided it with ideology and dogma. Britain’s Divide and Rule diplomacy over a period of half a century was driving blindly towards this goal. What Mr Jinnah did was to build up a political organisation, out of the moribund Muslim League, which gave coherence to the inchoate longings of the mass by yoking it to the realisation of the doctrinaires’ dream. Two world wars within a generation, bringing in their train a vast proliferation of nation States as well as the decay of established Imperialisms and the rise of the Totalitarian Idea, were as much responsible for the emergence of Pakistan …”
SUDARSHAN’S VIEW
Now after perhaps a second thought, Mr K S Sudarshan, the man who had denuded Mr Advani of honour, said in Indore on August 25: “Jinnah was a true (Indian) nationalist and secular in his outlook until he was painted in a corner by Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru… The former RSS chief added: “It was not Jinnah but Gandhi’s soft corner for Nehru that resulted in the 1947 partition… Gandhi had repeatedly offended Jinnah. One day when Jinnah went to meet the Mahatma, he was made to wait for an hour. Jinnah was a man of self respect… Jinnah had worked with Lokmanya Tilak. He was a man committed to nationalism.”
In the wake of this debate, various commentators have recalled that Jinnah stood for unified India and that Tilak had once described Jinnah as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.
At the bottom of this debate lies the question: What transformed “secular” Jinnah into a “communal” Jinnah?
Let there be an honest, thorough, deep and unbiased research on the question. It should be plainly facts-based.