Many tomes have argued that Mohammed Ali Jinnah wanted a secular Pakistan and was really a liberal. It has been implied that if Pakistan had followed his “real” vision, it would have had a very different trajectory. Eminent Pakistani scholars suggest this, as do some figures of the Hindu right like L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh.
These arguments are quite bogus. Jinnah first set the house on fire, then expressed some regret at the death toll; he sought the first country created in the name of Islam, and after getting it said he wanted it to be secular. Pakistan (or Land of the Pure) he called his project, though there would be little room in the hearts of the new nation’s keepers to respect the Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He formulated the “two-nation” theory, then spoke of the need for Pakistan to treat its minorities well.
How on earth would the residents of his “nation of the pure” respect the minorities when the word ‘Pakistan’ itself suggests that non-Muslims are impure?
One can understand why Advani would have empathy for Jinnah. He too led one of the most divisive movements in recent Indian history; but during the climax, when Babri Masjid actually fell, he wrung his hands and said it was the “saddest day” of his life. To this day he struggles to be accepted as a secular liberal. In personal life, Advani is no fundamentalist. Jinnah was an elitist with a taste for delicately cut sandwiches and fine spirits. But that in itself is no evidence of his being liberal or secular. On the contrary, it reveals that he could practice the most cynical politics, driven by personal ambition and thwarted ego (apparently vis-a-vis Jawaharlal Nehru). The real liberal and humanist was dhoti-clad M.K. Gandhi, who had discarded all accoutrements of his class origins. From the vantage point of his upper-class nose, Jinnah is said to have looked down upon Gandhi, though historians tell us it is Nehru who really annoyed the barrister.
Obviously, a whole set of complex processes led up to the Partition. But personalities do shape histories and Jinnah shaped that of the subcontinent. Pakistan is now an Islamic republic with nuclear weapons; also home to some of the most dangerous forces in the world. This has caused many deformities. India, too, has been mutilated by the politics of Jinnah: its scars are visible in the politics of Hindu versus Muslim that is now just a habit with us.
Saba Naqvi is political editor, Outlook; E-mail your columnist: saba AT outlookindia.com
