Jaswant Singh and M A Jinnah

There has been an enormous kerfuffle in India over the new book by Jaswant Singh on the life of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, and sometime barrister, man of the world and supreme constitutionalist. The book alleges that Patel and Nehru are equally - if not more - to blame for Partition in 1947 which created the states of India and Pakistan, and laid the foundations for Bangladesh, out of British India. Jaswant Singh has been expelled from the Hindu nationalist BJP. His book has been banned in Gujarat - I have no polite words for Narendra Modi and his administration - and a few other states are planning to follow suit.

Jaswant’s thesis is not new, neither do I think he is a great historian. However, he does deserve kudos for daring to speak against received wisdom in India. In historical circles, the role of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Jinnah in India’s partition is very well known and well documented. I would ask you to read Stanley Wolpert’s “Shameful Flight”. The title of the book comes from a speech by Churchill in Parliament in March 1947. By then in opposition, this was a phrase he used in an emotional speech decrying the haste with which the Mountbatten plan required the British to partition India and leave. Even as an unreconstructed Empire-apologist and a near-racist, he was accurate in predicting the bloodbath and the chaos that would follow. But I digress. Wolpert traces the evolution of the Partition plan. Once the 1946 Interim Government was in place, Patel and Nehru had a taste of what power felt like. They were not willing to delay Independence, perhaps conscious of their own mortality. So was Jinnah. On the other hand, Gandhi proposed the Confederacy with Jinnah as Prime Minister, which was rejected outright by Nehru. Gandhi’s view was that Jinnah’s extremism would be tempered once he had the reins of administration in his hands. He may well have been right. But he proposed this structure knowing fully well that Partition meant a bloodbath, a sore that would fester for years and years. As it indeed has done, with frequent wars between India and Pakistan, the rise of Islamic terrorism in India, the emergence of a virulent Hindu nationalism in India, the nuclear weapon, and so on.

Gandhi is a cliche in India - however I would recommend very highly Rajmohan Gandhi’s biography of his grandfather to help the modern Indian understand who we are talking about when they see his smiling visage on a 500 Rupee currency note. The book is very honest and it is by no means a hagiography of a famous man. Gandhi's many failings as a human being are faithfully exposed. However, the detailed account of the way the Patition Plan was accepted by Patel and Nehru makes for very sad reading. Rajmohan pieces together events over a couple of days in June 1947, in sequence, from various sources, such as the diaries of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the diaries of Maulana Azad, the memoirs of Leo Amery, etc. In that short period, everything was done and agreed, starting with an encounter in a car at Gol Market reminiscent of a John Le Carre thriller. And then when the Mahatma comes to the Working Committee meeting to talk again about the confederacy idea, he realises that a deal has been done. Azad then asks, “Is it necessary to detain the Mahatma any more?”. No answer from Patel or Nehru. Gandhiji gets up and walks off, knowing that India has been split. An extremely poignant recounting.

Both books moved me. I remember reading the last 100 pages of Wolpert flying from Delhi to Madras in February 2008. And when I put down the book on Gandhi I had tears in my eyes. Now, whenever I listen to “Vaishnav Jan To” – indeed when I write the name of this song – I have strong feelings rise in me. What a great life, what a great soul. With all his imperfections and quirks and idiosyncrasies, he lived a great life of conviction and courage. We as Indians should be doubly proud.

Which brings me back to Jaswant. While I have a lot of appreciation for his formidable strengths as a human being and as a politician, it is a bit rich, for someone who flirted with Hindutva and was silent during the Godhra/Gujarat incidents to now talk about Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru or Patel. He does not have half the courage of a Gandhi or a Nehru. Now that he is in the evening of his political life, may be this is a confession of sorts. I don’t know. Epiphanies are always welcome whenever they arrive. So one should be grateful, I suppose