Jinnah, Jaswant Singh and Pakistan

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The furor over a book on Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah by former senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh cost him expulsion from the party exposing the BJP and its return to hard line anti-Pakistan Hindu nationalist roots. While banning the book last month, the Gujarat government had said that Mr. Singh’s book ‘Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence’ was “objectionable, misleading and against public tranquility”. But the Gujarat high court lifted the ban saying that the government had not “read the book” before imposing the ban.

The book examines the role of Congress party leader and the country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mr. Patel in the partition of India in 1947. Mr. Singh writes that Mr. Patel was “far off the mark” in many ways with his projections about the division and future of India. The question also arises here that why senior party leader LK Advani was not similarly punished after he openly described Mr. Jinnah as “secular” after a visit to Pakistan in 2005.

Jaswant Singh is also facing furor for being closely associated with Quaid’s daughter Dina Wadia and her son Nusli Wadia. It is an allegation that Nusli Wadia financed the book to glorify his grandfather’s image. Nusli Wadia denies it strongly;

“It is all nonsense. My grandfather is my grandfather; it is not going to change. I don’t need Jaswant Singh to write a certificate for him,” he told CNN-IBN.

Jaswant Singh is prepared for the launch of his book in Pakistan too. The Indian government has allowed Jaswant Singh to visit Pakistan on September 26 to promote his book. He would arrive in Karachi on September 26, before heading to Islamabad the next day to attend a book-launch ceremony at the Islamabad Press Club.

“Sahil pay baiteh baiteh he manjdhar ke batain karthe hain … I can’t be a bystander, I’ve to be in the midstream of that emotion (re-living partition). It’s very difficult and you don’t always succeed, so I suffer that agony”


– Jaswant Singh

Whatever may be his reasons for being a member of the BJP until recently, it has to be said on his behalf that Jaswant Singh did try to build bridges with Pakistan but was tripped up by his own colleagues. In a broader perspective it doesn’t matter how Indians see Jinnah as they only portray Gandhi and Nehru as their heroes criticizing Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is and will remain a fact that he is the founder of Pakistan and every Pakistani has a respect for him and will always respect him. The visit of Jaswant Singh to Pakistan cannot change the mind set of the nation towards the great leader but it could earn some respect for Mr. Singh for at least being rational.

Image: Jaswantsingh-mp.com


25 thoughts on “Jinnah, Jaswant Singh and Pakistan”

  1. Sirs
    Would you please escalate these sporadic exchanges of small arms fire to shelling by heavy artillery followed by full cavalry charge? We have a tradition to keep up.

    @general
    Could you please name the 22 movements mentioned in your post…I want to make sure my clan was included, if not then please accomodate suitably in your list.

    I have a feeling that we have been unfairly ignored at the expense of more influencial and known movements such as Pashtunistan, IEW, JSQM, GBUM, BLA, Blah, Blee, Bloo…total count adding India and Pakistan must be over 200 long ago…every district has a warlord who has problems with his bowel movement.

    May I also draw your attention to the mischievous and malicious information floating around from time to time, past and present:

    “Pakistan has much higher rates of poverty than in neigbouring India and it’s HDI stands lower than that of India’s at 0.609.”

    “According to the Human Development Index (HDI), 73.6% of Pakistan’s population, or 122 million people, live under $2 a day, and some 17% live under $1 a day.”

    You should consider clamping down on such people and crush them under your metal tipped shoes as their sole intention is to portray pakistan in a similarly poor light as india.

    This is most unhelpful when gentlemen like us are trying to assert our superiority over each other by exposing each other’s weak areas.

    @SL
    According to BBC about India “In a country where 800 million earn less than a dollar a day ….”

    According to the Asian Development Bank about India “800 million people earn less than two dollars per day”

    Now aren’t you being a little harsh on us by saying it is just 40 cents per day? Now that is vicious.

    @confused
    Abbasi is uphappy with your history and math (or was it the way you spelt August?) and I unhappy that you ignored Zardari. Getting him back, that too as president, surely ranks a mention before Taliban.

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  2. This indian is even more confused i think. 1949? We got independence on 14 August 1947.

    We were independent country before india was.

    Taleban making progress? In the past 72 hours, 2 of their main leaders were arrested by Pakistan Army. 10 Uzbek militants were killed. And as I type this, Operations are underway to flush Khyber Agency of militant element. Compared to even 6 months ago, taleban are extremely weak and on the run. And we will get the job done soon. It has gotten to the point where Afghan taleban have openly dis-associated themselves with TTP.

    More than i can say about the 13 naxal affected states of india –where socialist naxal farmers are giving the army a real beating. More than I can say about dravidian-tamil element in india who are still giving material support to (what is left of) LTTE — an organization which Pakistan helped Sri Lanka CRUSH like little ants!!!!!

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  3. @ hend, it’s not back on the track!!! but it’s only track they know. pakistan(i) born on 14 augest 1949 and they there for last 62 years. it’s only one section of pakistan called taliban has made any kind of progress.

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