Husain, Hinduism, Hindustan: Testing Tolerance

Jinnah`s statement to the press on October 13 1938 which Wolpert writes about is 6 pages long so I am not posting until someone asks for it.

From `Speechs, Statements and Messages of the Quaid-e-Azam`, it appears Jinnah was on a general Sindh tour addressing public meetings in Karachi, Jacobabad, Larkana during 2-3 weeks of October 1938.

One of his public meetings was at Shikarpur on Oct 17 1938.

``Mr Jinnah was accorded a hearty reception on his visit to Shikarpur. Thousands of people came to receive the party at the station and took the guests in procession proceeded by bands. Mr. Jinnah addressed a public meeting at Jumani Hall attended by over 3000 people.

During his speech he said it is no use complaining about others when we have not brought unity amongst ourselves. Twenty-seven members have joined the Muslim League and seven are still outside. ``It is in your hands to make the Ministry. The Allahbux ministry is reigning with Hindu support but if there is unity among the Muslims they can compel him to resign in case he does not join the League.``

Mr Jinnah in concluding his speech advised the Muslims to join the League.(F.O.C)

The Daily Gazette, October 18 1938 & The Sind Observer, October 19, 1938.

bjkumar:

How does the only person you are answerable to, yourself, think about this statement, after introspection:

``then makes her ``space`` available to this ``gang`` more willingly than the proverbial ladies of the night open up their legs for a few ``bucks````


sadna, manto:

I have since long stopped following Jinnah-Gandhi debates because I do not think that I would learn anything new from these debates. However, I did follow the discussion on Sindh. The Wolpert piece quoted by sadna and the Dawn piece on Soomro quoted by HP, esp. the Dawn piece which I had also pasted last year, show clearly one thing that it is simplisitic to say that Sindh politics have always been only Feudal. They show that there was always a communal element there - people like Soomro tried to bridge the gap while others did not. Read once again this excerpt from the dawn article:

Allah Bux Soomro was chief minister when communal riots broke out in Shikarpur. He intervened to stop the trouble. Extremist forces had gathered in Sukkur on the Masjid Manzil Gah issue. Braving all odds, Mr Soomro delivered a moving speech, appealing to the people to remain calm. He assured the Muslims of the right to pray at Masjid Manzil Gah and at the same time assured the Hindus of safe access to Sadh Belo, the way to which passed close to the mosque. Opportunists had stirred up feelings against Hindu traders and the unrest was used to grab Hindu properties. The incident was exploited by Mr Soomro’s political rivals, and he lost the support of the Hindu members. As a consequence, his government was brought down.

No, I do not know Sindh politics or history. Neither am I a mathematician but it will not stop me from disagreeing with a mathematician who says 2+2=3. Nobody can deny that Sindh escaped the communal holocaust that engulfed East and West Punjab but this does not prove that there were no communal politics in Sindh. Nor does there seem to be a complete communal harmony in Sindh at the present time. I do have an Indian Sindhi friend who had successul Hindu relatives in Sindh; they have all left Pakistan claiming that their daughters and sisters were not safe in Sindh from kidnappings/conversions.

#481
The point remains Sindh was 30% Hindu and yet Jinnah wanted an all-Muslim government there. Because he could not get it Islam was in danger.

BJkumar,

There is no justification for the kind of remarks you made about the author. She has been called names etc... but you are one of those fanatical characters who feel that simply because some one disagrees with your rather blighted world view... the person becomes deserving of your abuse..

Nasah is on the dot about you.. and guess what nasah and I barely agree on anything.

#483 Nasah

I see it - so now it is a ``sexist`` thing - and this comes soon after I am given such ``honors`` as being HER proxy, and another interactor makes rather suggestive comments. All that is fair game but my honest statements are not!

Dear Nasah - the ``respected`` interactor of long - (by the way, I personally never ``respect`` anybody - I am convinced that term is at the root of many problems plaguing the subcontinent - I only respect what people do - each individual act by individual act - and I give clean chit to no one - and I do not have to go around making half-hearted defensive proclamations like ``my opinions are not written in stone``) - you are too smart not to see how the author stopped the discussion and an open examination of her own statements from the rather recent past (which had probably more to do with the topic at hand) than any of this Gandhi-Jinnah discussion did, which she allowed to flow on.

Perhaps because she ``enjoys`` THIS line of argument (don`t tell me she did not see how it was going to evolve - she has only seen it probably a million times before)!

And don`t tell me she has no control over it. She HAS - and she has exercised it again - and again! So this highly dishonest gesture of flailing hands in helplessness - which used to be a trademark of the stereotypical ``begums`` of yore - it does not wash with me.

There is dishonesty at the core - this interactor knows it - and the rest of the world can see it - except those people here who are DETERMINED not to.

Determined to protect those dishonest acts at any cost - these knights of various orders!

``Knights`` or mere ``dalaals``?

I find it quite ironic that individuals who claim to seek equality of men and women sometimes end up asking for ``special`` consideration because the female gender is involved. I consider it rather hypocritical.


#487 Kaal
I said what I genuinely felt. I do not seek your approval - or that of anybody else. You are entitled to your opinions and perhaps you are well-meaning - but I am determined to point out dishonesty wherever I see it - no matter who commits it and under what subterfuge or camouflage.

That is the only camp I belong to - because ultimately that is the only thing I will have to answer for - to myself!

Sincerely,
BJ Kumar

re: Beej # 480

You know that was a bad slip.

Gratuitous, sexist harassment and abuse of female interactors is a totally acceptable form of argumentation on Chowk, but its practice has evolved into an art form.

That whole dirty business is best avoided, IMHO.

Dear Majumdar...

After Independence Mr Jogindranath Mandal became the Law Minister of Pakistan and did some good work ... till 1950 ... when he resigned from the Law Ministry citing the fact that Pakistan had wavered from what Jinnah had promised- a modern democratic liberal state.

He then moved to India in protest. It is quite a sad story- but please see that it does not take away from the point I was making.

Re: #472

Dear Manto,

(Despite this clear policy, the Muslim League appointed Jogindranath Mandal as its Interim Government member... )

What happened to JMandal after Independence. If I am not mistaken he spent his last days in exile in India. Would you say that Mandal`s story is a parable of what happened to minorities in general in Pakistan.

Regards

Every interactor across the divide... be it Sadna or I .. should condemn this abuse by BJKumar. This is disgusting and wrong.

``then makes her ``space`` available to this ``gang`` more willingly than the proverbial ladies of the night open up their legs for a few ``bucks`` - ``(BJK)

is this the way for a goddam educated Indian interactor to address a lady.....when these bazaari subcontinental male chauvinist pigs -- a sorry excuse for being called `men` -- will learn to address and respect their educated women........probably never.....

Indeed -- ``All of them stink terrible (especially the writer of that filthy sentence). I find it all highly disgusting!``

it`s amazing -- the same interactor sounds so fair, balanced and objective in other posts on highly partisan topics with men -- and then suddenly goes berserk vulgar and personal to a woman editor who has no way to shut the goddam circular meaningless meandering `discussion`......except to lock the board

weird people.....

HP-

Sadna`s tactics are well known. She might fool people like BJKumar... but her attempts are too transparent to be taken seriously academically.

Dear BJKumar,

I am afraid HP and I are the only ones concerned about facts. Keep firing from Sadna`s shoulders... Calling us dishonest will not change the facts...


Sadna...

Allah Bux Soomro was a CP Ramaswami like figure with much to admire yet the facts were different.

HP is right when he says that the politics of Sindh, as always, has been one of feudal alliances. Allah Bux Soomro was defeated - that was the extent of the revenge. His son Rahim Bux Soomro was around till 2004 atleast boasting of his family`s friendship with Jinnah... even famously showing off the family pictures with Jinnah-

Defeated and out of politics, Allah Bux ultimately lost his life to the Hurs of Sindh who he had annoyed.

-YLH

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I have Jinnah`s entire statement to the press made on Oct 13 1938 and it is not Stanley Wolpert`s `opinion`. In his statement, Jinnah says exactly what Wolpert says about the incident and quotes Jinnah as saying.

Stanley`s opinion doesn’t constitute the whole truth. There is lot to it then simplistic explanations that Stanley Wolpert provides.

Sindh`s politics was at that time and still to some extend is feudal politics. Ideologies play a very small role. Feudal alliances and behind the scene games were more important than the little ML or Congress tussle in Sindh of that time.

I am not here to teach people Sindh`s history. So keep talking about things that only make you look stupid and ignorant.

Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan

On the morning of October 9, 1938, Karachi`s District Board formally welcomed the Muslim League and its leaders...

...That afternoon Jinnah met with Sikander, Fazlul Haq, and Khan Bahadur Allah Bux, United party premier of Sind, who though a Muslim had earlier refused to join forces with the League. Bux`s coalition government relied mostly upon Congress support. Jinnah was determined to add Sind to the League`s still paltry provincial list, which consisted as yet only of Bengal and the rather anomalous Punjab, both in fact coalitions.

After his arrival in Karachi on October 7, Jinnah had met with no fewer than twenty Muslim members of the multifactional Assembly, convincing them all to join the League and finally persuading-or so he believed-Allah Bux to join his party as well.

``It was agreed that one solid party of Muslim members of the Sind Legislative Assembly should be formed as Muslim League Party,`` Jinnah reported in his irate statement to the Associated Press a few days later. Allah Bux and all his Muslim ministers promised to resign, Jinnah explained, then a provincial League party election was to have been held to choose the new leader by ``unanimous vote,`` or ``in default he should be nominated by Mr. Jinnah and the party would abide by his choice.``

Early the next morning, however, Jinnah learned that Sind`s leader of the Congress party had wired Sardar Vallabhai Patel, president of the All Indian Congress Parliamentary Board, to alert him to the League`s intentions and ``When we met at 11 o`clock on the 12th of October 1938 much to the astonishment of every one Khan Bahadur Allah Bux backed out of the agreement.``. Shocked by such ``gross breach of faith in resiling`` Jinnah still felt it worth fighting for ``unity at any cost`` and sent his closest Sind deputy, Haji Sir Abdullah Haroon, to appeal at night to Allah Bux at hime but concluded next morning that the latter ``was in the hands of the Congress Party``.

It was a most bitter pill for Jinnah to swallow. He had labored long and hard for an independent province of Sind, since well before the first Round Table conference, being convinced that as a Muslim-majority province, it would surely elect a Muslim League government. Now the Sardar, Congress`s strong man, the shrewd organizational hand behind Nehru`s idealistic velvet glove, had snatched this plum from Jinnah`s lips just as he was about to savor its sweetness.

He would never forget, or forgive, Sardar Patel for having ``cheated`` him of Sind, ``robbing`` his home province out from under him at the very meeting of the League. ``You had almos achieved a triumph but the dogs fo the Congress have snatched from you the cup of victory.`` wrote Malid Barkat as soon as he heard the bad news. ``I have not the least doubt that the Mussalmans of Sindh will teach a lesson this traitor Allah Buksh.`` Bux was murdered in the May of 1943 and his assasin never caught.


sadna`s comment: Sind was 30% Hindu in 1946 and presumably also in 1938. From Muslim League point of view, having a Muslim only govt. in Sind was of course just and fair to 30% Hindus. However, having Congress govts. with absolute majority in U.P where Muslims were 16% and C.P where Muslims were in smaller percentage than U.P(unless I am mistaken) was of course outright persecution of Muslims and put Islam in danger.