Jinnah, the maverick autocrat

Book review of Jinnah His Successes, Failures and Role in History

Some wounds never heal. The partition the Indian body politic suffered in 1947 is one such, resulting in bloody displacement of millions and massacres of hundreds of thousands.  The throbbing question of who or what factors caused it, and its corollary, could it have been avoided, has led to numerous emotional and intellectual outpourings in the form of tracts, monographs and scholarly tomes.

Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed, a Swedish political scientist of Pakistani origin, is the latest scholar to address this question in a doorstop of a volume on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its supreme leader  (Qaid-e-Azam) at the inception.

Professor Ahmed analyses Jinnah’s transition from an ardent Indian nationalist to a Muslim communitarian to a powerful proponent of the two-nation theory and ultimately to Pakistan’s founding father over a span of three-and-a-half decades. He relies on archives as well as published sources. He describes at length (almost like a daily log) key events such as meetings with cabinet missions and various conferences.  Long extracts from these accounts add to the volume’s length, but are somewhat redundant to a case that is already self-evident: Jinnah was the principal architect of Pakistan through a partition of India. He did not need any help from the Congress leadership, as we in India are frequently made to believe these days.

The jacket blurb describes the book as “path breaking.”  The author’s industry is obvious, but this reviewer, with no claims of scholarship of Pakistan or Jinnah, gleaned not much of any great significance from long hours of careful reading of the book, that he did not already know from Jinnah’s biographers Stanley Wolpert (of the Nine Hours to Rama notoriety in India) and Akbar Ahmed.  

Jinnah’s conflicted personality deeply impacted his political and personal life. It is now unthinkable that this thoroughly anglicised barrister, dressed impeccably in bespoke suits, chain-smoking English cigarettes, speaking no language other than English, with origins in a western province born a Khoja Ismaeli Shia (now almost an apostate in Pakistan), aspired to and attained paramount leadership of India’s impoverished, largely orthodox Muslims, mostly Urdu, Hindustani, Bengali or Punjabi speakers, not highly or professionally educated. Jinnah married a Parsi lady much to the chagrin of both communities, yet opposed his daughter’s decision to marry a Parsi, insisting that she choose a Muslim.

Jinnah’s espousal of the Muslim communitarian and nationalistic cause could be traced in good measure to his chafing at what he must have considered unbearable slights by the Congress leadership.  His English professional colleagues admired his mastery of logic and dialectics, but despite his being the first Muslim barrister, he was never among the higher echelons of the Congress leadership after the passing of Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Lokmanya Tilak. Gandhi picked up that mantle easily, ably assisted by Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, all of them also legal eagles. In the 1920s, Jinnah became isolated in the Congress, as other Muslim leaders such as Maulana Azad and the Khan brothers from the North-west Frontier gained prominence. His personal experience led to his final conviction that Indian Muslims required a separate homeland, a view was forcefully espoused by the noted poet Muhammad Iqbal, who said in 1938 that “the Muslim League can succeed only on account of Jinnah.”

Jinnah His Successes, Failures and Role in History

Author: Ishtiaq Ahmed

 Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: xxi+808

Price: Rs 999

This also explains Jinnah’s insistence on being the sole representative of the Muslims, even as he shunned grassroots contacts.  When Partition became a certainty in early 1947, he insisted on being the Governor General of Pakistan, to the chagrin of then Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, who had hoped to hold the same position in both states, ostensibly to ensure a smooth transition.  Since Pakistan had no constitution in 1947, almost all the powers of the new state were vested in the Governor General, which suited Jinnah fine. Wolpert observed: “Here indeed is Pakistan’s King Emperor, Archbishop of Canterbury, Speaker and Prime Minister concentrated into one formidable Qaid-e-Azam.” 

An impression exists that Jinnah, given his lifestyle, was a secularist at heart and not a true believer. His speech on August 14, 1947 is cited as evidence: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”  Even the Bharatiya Janata Party stalwarts Lal Krishna Advani and Jaswant Singh were taken in by such utterances and certified Jinnah’s secular credentials.  But the true Jinnah reveals himself in a speech to the Pakistani Constituent Assembly in 1948 “I am sure that [the Constitution of Pakistan] will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principles of Islam.  Today these are as applicable in actual life as these were 1300 years ago.”

Wolpert concluded in 1984: “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history.  Fewer still modify the map of the world.  Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state…. Jinnah did all three.”  A generation later, in view of the constant turmoil in Pakistan, I am not sure whether these would be the last words on Muhammad Ali Jinnah.