Advani in Karachi

Re: # 567

Dear Ajeya

I am afraid I can`t say the same about you.

I have discussed the direct action day to death on chowk. This Margaret Bourkewhite article (which insinuates a lot but doesn`t back it up it is pure opinion) has been quoted several times. Let us remember who this lady Ms Bourkwhite was ... she had been a fan of Gandhi since she photographed him in 1939. Being sympathetic of Gandhi`s views, she viewed everything from the Congress` eyes. What you should be looking at through this primary source is the grudging admiration she reluctantly has for Jinnah despite her affiliation with Gandhi. Patrick French, by comparison, has written a whole book on the issue out of ``India Office papers``. You are welcome to read it and see for yourself. French was responding to an interview...

Bourkwhite didn`t have the luxury of the things we do. We have the transfer of power papers, secret correspondence declassifed now, and a detachment from the era to make a historical judgement. Now ... Jinnah did define the Direct Action Day quite clearly. In his statement he defined it as peaceful civil disobedience. It remained so all over India except Calcutta where in the aftermath Jinnah replaced Suhrawardy with Nazimuddin, specifically because there were accusations against Mr Suhrawardy, who otherwise was a fine gentleman. Your claim about who started is ... is a point of view. As early 6 30 AM there were reports of Hindus setting up barricades to stop Muslims from entering the city. And the first attacks were reported on Muslims earlier in the day... so it is all a matter of time and report as to who started it first... it is pure speculation.

I am willing to accept however that the violence resulted because of the Muslim League`s call, but it is quite clear that the league leaders didn`t intend it to be so, nor can it be assumed without basis that only Muslims started it.

The undisputed facts are:

1) 2 to 3 times more Muslims died in the Calcutta Killings .

2) Wavell, who hated Jinnah, absolved the Muslim League of the blame (TOPP VolumeIX page 879).

3) Direct Action Day remained peaceful especially those cities where more political capital could be made and where Muslims were in a majority.

4) Calcutta Killings did not help the League`s cause. League was opposed to Bengal`s partition as well as Punjab`s. Killings in Calcutta made Bengal`s partition inevitable. It also meant that cross-communal ministry of the League had to go. Congress was given power and the league was left out in the lurch.


Also I find your entire style dishonest. For example you attribute in quotes a statement to me that I never made. Secondly you refuse to note that the ``article`` I quoted was an interview ... Patrick French backs up his assertions in his book ``Liberty or Death``. He backs it up with ``Transfer of Power Papers``, unlike Margaret Bourkwhite, who is merely writing about her point of view and has nothing conclusive.

-YLH

Re: miscellaneous by Mantolives

Dear Yasser,

Of all the muslims on chowk, you are one of the very few who are at least trying to reason things out, instead of submitting to blind unquestioning faith, like Romair, for example. Although you have your limitations. I realized that when your response to our discussion about Mohammed on an earlier board ended with you saying something like “okay I’ll stop basing my entire life on the words of a pedophile if you change YOUR religion too”. The rational approach would have been : “Yes, it’s true that he’s a pedophile. Okay, I have NO CHOICE but to quit following him. And by the way, I would like to dissect your religion as well” (although since Hinduism is not trying to convert anybody, the point of dissecting it is lost on me. If Hindus have idiotic beliefs which are harmless, why should you care?).

Let me begin by saying this in response to your ad-hominem accusing me of being a bigot – you may or may not believe this, but I know and genuinely like many, many muslims and Pakistanis. Of course I do not consider Muslims bad as a people at all as compared to Hindus or anybody else. They lead their lives like everybody else – with their share of happiness and sorrow, longings and frustations. And IT IS NATURAL THAT THEY SHOULD LOVE THEIR OWN CULTURE, WHICH BECOMES INTERTWINED WITH RELIGION.

While by nature they are like anyone else, it is their extreme vulnerability to their faith and indoctrination that always makes them more prone to be exploited by religious leaders. Hindus can and often are influenced by religious leaders. But to a FAR lesser extent when compared to Muslims. And this is the central problem, if you will, with muslims.

Of course, you will never accept this. So on this point, we can agree to disagree.

On the issue of partition, you completely DESTROY my arguments with this persuasive argument:

[As a matter of policy I don`t pay much attention to ignorant bigots be they K S Gill (whose article you`ve put several times and who has written an article based on fiction and half truth) you, Nakhok or Maulana Fazlurrahman. You are clearly ignorant of history and I`ll leave it at that. Every now and then ... truth jumps up and bites you in your rearend and then you go, run and hide behind a mountain of lies. So by all means, but your doing so will not make the truth go away.]

Since you did not even take a stab at showing why I am a bigot, or which particular fact of history I am mistaken about, let me dissect the article YOU cited:

[It was, therefore, a profound personal disappointment to me when I began to research his life and activities in more detail, and to discover that the popular version of Gandhi is very far from the truth. If you believe that Gandhi was a blameless saint, try reading what he actually said and did at crucial points in the freedom movement—such as 1921, 1942 or 1946—and you will soon change your mind. He was an extremely wily politician, who failed to listen to the opinions of his opponents.]

The author skates by without mentioning what he actually said. Very convenient.

He makes statements like:

[As for Jinnah, again I should say that my personal opinions on him changed significantly while researching Liberty or Death. Like most people in Britain and in India, I originally saw Jinnah as a bitter fanatic who had broken up the subcontinent. On closer study I came to see that he was a far more complex figure, who remained an Indian nationalist and secularist until his death.]

Where are the FACTS that changed his mind?

The article you cited is VERY SHORT on FACTS but VERY TALL on opinions.

I would have though you would have at least some sense not to cite an article like this.

I was very tempted to just ignore your postings, but couldn’t resist posting the following article by an eyewitness:


[Partition
Direct Action in Calcutta

Excerpted from Margaret Bourke-White`s book, Halfway to Freedom: A Report on the New India, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1949. White was a correspondent and photographer for LIFE magazine during the WW II years. In 1946 she was in India. The following is her account of the Direct Action Day launched by the Muslim League in Calcutta on August 16 of that year. Tens of thousands died from communal riots that started in Calcutta and then spread to other places all over India. This was a prelude to the carnage of partition that followed a year later.

Why had the fearful Great Migration come to pass? Why were millions of people wrenched from their ancestral homes and driven toward an unknown, often unwanted ``Promised Land``? For years Hindus and Muslims had struggled side by side for independence from British rule. With freedom finally on the horizon why should India begin to tear herself in two along religious lines?

The overt act that split India began in the streets of Calcutta. But the decision was made in Bombay. It was a one-man decision, and the man who made it was cool, calculating, unreligious. This determination to establish a separate Islamic state came not -- one might have expected -- from some Muslim divine in archaic robes and flowing beard, but from a thoroughly Westernized, English-educated attorney-at-law with a clean-shaven face and razor-sharp mind. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League and the architect of Pakistan, had for many years worked at the side of Nehru and Gandhi for a free, united India, until in the evening of his life he broke with his past to achieve a separate Pakistan.

Jinnah lived to see himself ruler of the world`s largest Islamic nation before he died in September, 1948, at the age of seventy-two, but I think of him as reaching his pinnacle of power two years before his death, when freedom-with-unity appeared on the verge of becoming a reality and he took the momentous steps that crushed all hopes for a united India.

Jinnah`s press conference at his Bombay home on fashionable Malabar Hill, in late July, 1946, marked the public turning point. It was so unusual for the Quaid-i-Azam, or ``Great Leader,`` to call a press conference that both foreign and Indian reporters rushed eagerly to attend it. Nor were they disappointed. On that mid-summer morning, Jinnah intimated -- rather boldly -- the coming of Direct Action Day. Two and one half weeks later this day touched off a chain of events that led, after twelve explosive months, to a divided India and the violent disruptions of the Great Migration.

Until then most of us had thought the differences between the Congress Party and the Muslim League would somehow be resolved and that freedom would bring a united nation. Jinnah`s arguments for division were all familiar: that the Muslims in India were outnumbered three to one by Hindus and would be crushed under Hindu domination; that Hindus worshiped the cow while Muslims ate the cow; that religion, customs, culture all made Muslims different from Hindus. Opponents of the two-nation theory maintained that Hindus and Muslims could not be so different, since there was no racial difference. Ninety-five per cent of India`s Muslims were just converted Hindus. Even Mr. Jinnah, they were fond of pointing out, had a Hindu grandfather.

For my part, I believe that the tragic weakness of the Indian leaders during this crucial period was their failure to take a firm stand against the forces of Indian feudalism. A spellbinder with slogans found it all too easy to galvanize the pent-up suffering of centuries into one powerful current of religious hatred. That this was done by an ambitious lawyer in Western dress and of unorthodox habits makes it all the clearer that religion was used like a document plucked from a briefcase.

There was a good deal of the successful lawyer about Jinnah that midsummer morning of the press conference, as he stood on the steps of his spacious veranda receiving the reporters. A pencil-thin monochrome in gray and silver, with perfectly tailored suit and tie and socks precisely matching his hair, his manner with us was courteous but formal. As he fitted his monocle to his eye and began to speak, there was something consciously theatrical about Mr. Jinnah -- throwback perhaps to that most un-Islamic chapter of his past when he was a Shakespearean actor in England.

His statement to the press was in the form of a monologue, delivered in an icy voice, which was forecast of fiery events to come. ``We are preparing to launch a struggle. We have chalked a plan.`` We reporters, although we sat around Jinnah in a closed circle, had almost to stop our breathing to hear his curiously hushed words. He had decided to boycott the Constituent Assembly. He was rejecting in its entirety the British plan for transfer of power to an interim government which would combine both the League and the Congress. He lashed out against the ``Hindu-dominated Congress`` in his flat, chilled monotone. It seemed clear, now the bondage to the British was drawing to an end, that he was free to concentrate all his fire against the opposite party.

``We are forced in our own self-protection to abandon constitutional methods.`` His thin lips slit into a frigid smile. ``The decision we have taken is a very grave one.`` If the Muslims were not granted their separate Pakistan they would launch ``direct action.`` The phrase caught all of us. What form would direct action take, we all wanted to know. ``Go to the Congress and ask them their plans,`` Mr. Jinnah snapped. ``When they take you into their confidence I will take you into mine.``

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the cooing of pigeons, hopping over Jinnah`s manicured lawn. Then he added in the same toneless voice, so strangely unmatched to his words: ``Why do you expect me alone to sit with folded hands? I also am going to make trouble.``

Next day the Quaid-i-Azam changed out of his double-breasted suit and put on Muslim dress and fez for the Muslim masses. Standing on a platform liberally decorated with enlargements of his portrait, he announced that the sixteenth of August, two and a half weeks hence, would be ``Direct Action Day.`` His vituperation against the Congress was acidly explicit. ``If you want peace, we do not want war,`` he declared. ``If you want war we accept your offer unhesitatingly. We will either have a divided India or a destroyed India.`` And the Muslim Leaguers jumped up on their seats and tossed their fezzes in the air.

It was a battle between top-flight politicians now. The papers blazed with accusations from both sides -- League and Congress equally intolerant in their attacks. The opposing streams of fiery words had a terrible effect on the emotional Indian people. Passions mounted during the crucial fortnight; Direct Action Day dawned in an atmosphere of dread and foreboding.

Most of what I learned about that day came from a little tea-shop keeper in Calcutta, where the explosion began. As soon as I heard of the incredible events taking place, I had flown from Bombay to Calcutta. The disruption of normal city life was so great that it was some time before I could make my way to the ruined heart of the bazaar district. Hunting for a survivor who had been an eyewitness to the first stroke of direct action, I found Nanda Lal, in the wreckage of his teashop. ........

On the morning of August 16th, Nanda Lal started his oven and set out his tray of sweetmeats as usual. When his little son came out with the jars of mango pickle and chutney, he commented to the child that the streets looked reassuringly quiet. The sacred cows that roam freely through the thoroughfares of Calcutta were sleeping as usual in the middle of the car tracks, and rose to their feet reluctantly, as they always did, when the first streetcar of the day clanged down Harrison Road.

It was the sight of that first tram that confirmed Nanda Lal`s fears that this day was to be unlike all other days. Normally it was so crowded with commuters that they bulged from the platform and clung to the doorsteps and back of the car. Today there was hardly a passenger on board.

Then things began happening so quickly that Nanda Lal could hardly recall them in sequence. But he did remember quite clearly the seven lorries that came thundering down Harrison Road. Men armed with brickbats and bottles began leaping out of the lorries -- Muslim ``goondas,`` or gangsters, Nanda Lal decided, since they immediately fell to tearing up Hindu shops. Some rushed into the furniture store next to the Happy Home and began tossing mattresses and furniture into the street. Others ran toward the Bengal Cabin, but Nanda Lal was fastening up the blinds by now, shouting to his son to run back into the house, straining to bar the windows and close the door. .......

During the terrible days that followed, Nanda Lal huddled with his family and relatives in the upper hallway. Sometimes bricks and stones crashed through the windows of the outside rooms. The children cried a great deal; they were hungry as well as terrified. .......

On the fourth day Nanda Lal noted that the weapons in the street fighting had grown heavier. Soda-water bottles had given way to iron staves, and unfortunately the neighborhood had a plentiful supply of rails from the fence surrounding the near-by Shraddhananda Park. Finally, as the skirmish of the iron pikes reached its fiercest, a convoy of three military tanks rolled through and machine-gunned the mobs, and along with them the police made their belated appearance. ......

When peace returned to Calcutta on the fifth day, the streets were a rubble of broken bricks and bottles, bloated remains of cows, and charred wrecks of automobiles and victorias rising above the strewn figures of the dead. The human toll had reached six thousand according to official count, and sixteen thousand according to unofficial sources. In this great city, as large as Detroit, vast areas were dark with ruin and black with the wings of vultures that hovered impartially over the Hindu and Muslim dead.

Thousands began fleeing Calcutta. For days the bridge over the Hooghly River, one of the longest steel spans in the world, was a one-way current of men, women, children, and domestic animals, headed toward the Howrah railroad station. ......

But fast as the refugees fled, they could not keep ahead of the swiftly spreading tide of disaster. Calcutta was only the beginning of a chain reaction of riot, counter-riot, and reprisal which stormed through India for an entire year.

The next link in the chain was the Noakhali area in southeastern Bengal. Here in the uncharted recesses of swampy lowlands and hyacinth-choked bayous I talked with Hindus who had abandoned their villages en masse and fled to the riverbanks. They had strange tales to tell of forced conversion to Islam, of being compelled to throw the images of their gods into the water and to eat the meat of the sacred cow. ......

Gandhi -- though he was far too old to endure such hardship -- went to Noakhali and tramped on foot through marshes and jungle trying to restore confidence to the villagers. Trade-unions and peasant organizations threw their weight toward unity. It is significant that throughout the worst of the disruption in Bengal, five million Hindu and Muslim sharecroppers campaigned together in the Tebhaga movement for long-overdue land reforms. Wherever there was constructive leadership toward some goal of social betterment, religious strife dwindled to the vanishing point.

But between these small islands of Hindu-Muslim cooperation were the burning villages, the blazing fanaticisms. The sparks of Bengal flew westward to the state of Bihar, where Hindus wreaked merciless vengeance on the Muslim minority. The flames of Bihar fanned out to the Punjab and touched off explosions that dwarfed even the Calcutta riots.

Months of violence sharpened the divisions, highlighted Jinnah`s arguments, achieved partition. On August 15,1947, exactly one day less than a year after Nanda Lal had seen direct action break out on his doorstep, a bleeding Pakistan was carved out of the body of a bleeding India. ]





And another point. Even if more muslims were killed (hindus were the majority in Calcutta), this doesn’t disprove the fact that like most always, the riots were STARTED by the muslims.

Re: # 565

*Working of the constituent assembly*

Re: # 564

Dear Nakhok,

I am afraid I am not going to accept anymore articles from this Waheeduzzaman because he is not an authentic source. His articles are based on fiction and he is overzealously anti-Pakistani. I know you are not very balanced too, because the last time you refused to accept US National archives as evidence for Suhrawardy`s presence in Karachi and Lahore during Sept-December and his travelling back and forth acting as the unofficial messenger between Quaid-e-Azam and Mahatma. You ran ... and you are running again from the question I asked you 2 days ago which you refused to answer.



1) This whole myth of Jinnah concentrating powers in his own hand has deliberately been propagated by Lord Mountbatten, who was upset that Jinnah did not allow him to be the governor general... and by the Congress which felt outsmarted as Jinnah became the first Asian governor general in the history of the world ... and Nehru, the great freedom fighter, was stuck with a British ex-viceroy governor general.

2) Clearly this ``Waheeduzzaman`` is not very educated about history. Jinnah quit the Muslim League leadership at the first post independence convention of the party. The first president of the Pakistan Muslim League was NOT Jinnah but Ch. Khaliquzzaman.

3) Jinnah presided over two Cabinet meetings in the whole year. In his capacity as the president of the constituent assembly he did preside over the working of the constitution.

4) Jinnah`s incorruptibility was legendary. H V Hodson said about him ``Not even his rivals accused him of self seeking. He was a man of scrupulous honour and ideals``. Gandhi said about him ``Jinnah is incorruptible and brave`` (at the height of their rivalry mind you) and Ambedkar said: ``There is no politician to whom the word incorruptible is more fittingly applied.``

Please forgive me if I don`t buy your verbiage of lies... and half truths.

Sincerely

YLH

www.bangladesh-web.com

News From Bangladesh
October 26, 1997

Jinnah: Power Hungry, Corrupt And Hypocritical?
By Ahmed Ziauddin, Brussels, Belgium.
Zia@kubrussel.ac.be

[Prof. Ahmed Ziauddin is with the Faculty of Law, Catholic University, Brussels, Belgium]

..... what Jinnah did after Pakistan`s independence .....

When the time came, Jinnah opted to become the Governor General of Pakistan instead of Prime Minister because, under the Constitution, Governor General could give instructions to the Prime Minister. Jinnah, after becoming Governor General, not only appointed the Prime Minister but himself chose and appointed all the members of the Cabinet.

He was the President of Muslim League, and did not relinquish party presidentship even after becoming the Governor General. Thus, Jinnah accumulated all power in him as the leader of the party, head of the administration and the State, a virtual dictator.

He even assumed authority to take care of the government`s Kashmir and Frontier Departments.

As a Governor General, he caused Legislative Assembly to endorse these additional powers. He even presided over Cabinet meetings, unprecedented in parliamentary democracy. He often, without the knowledge of the Prime Minister, instructed the Provincial Governors, Ministers and Departmental Secretaries. Parliamentary norms were not applicable to Jinnah.

In fact, the way Jinnah ran the administration, though briefly, he established the precedent to concentrate all powers in one hand and hold a number of positions by a single person, the tendency that gave birth to military autocracy in Pakistan.

www.bangladesh-web.com

NEWS FROM BANGLADESH
June 29, 1999

GENESIS OF RUTHLESS AUTHORITARIANISM AND UNDEMOCRATIC MODE OF
GOVERNANCE IN PAKISTAN: AN ASSEESSMENT OF EARLY YEARS (1947-’55)

By M. Waheeduzzaman Manik

[Dr. M. Waheeduzzaman (Manik) writes from Clarksville, Tennessee, USA where he is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Public Management at Austin Peay State University]

..... it was Jinnah who had laid the foundation of ruthless authoritarianism and centralized political structure in Pakistan. It was Jinnah who created the precedents of undemocratic and autocratic modes of governance in Pakistan. He was as much responsible as his successors for the continuation of the undemocratic tradition of authoritarian mode of governance in Pakistan. At the independence of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, Jinnah had both the charisma and authority to introduce democratic norms and institutions in the new nation. Yet, from the beginning, he demonstrated his disdain towards democratic norms and practices. At his behest, an oligarchy was formed for ruling Pakistan with iron fist. The ruling oligarchy was completely divorced from the rudiments of democratic principles and values.

Although Mohammad Ali Jinnah had ruled the nation only for 13 months, his tradition of assumption and exercise of “absolute” state power had dangerous effects on the subsequent rulers of Pakistan. Instead of instituting the ‘institutional rule’, he installed his ‘personal rule’. The way the nation was administered by the founding father and his
chief lieutenant Liaquat Ali Khan had invariably conditioned the behavior of the successive regimes. The main intent of this paper is to examine the genesis of ruthless autocracy and authoritarianism in Pakistan. Once Jinnah’s passion for the use of unlimited power and authoritarian mode of governance is reviewed, the undemocratic and autocratic behavior and actions of Ghulam Mohammad are discussed in detail. Aimed at substantiating my generalizations, several citations from well-recognized works have been quoted. Finally, some concluding observations will be made. (Let me also point out the scope of this commentary: no attempt has been made to cover Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan years. Hopefully, each of these despicable regimes can be the focus of separate articles. The power relationship between the Central Government and the Provinces will be discussed in a separate article).

Jinnah’s Passion for Unlimited Power & Undemocratic Mode of Governance

Jinnah was undoubtedly the most effective and powerful President of All- India Muslim League (AIML). There was a total absence of any leader of Jinnah’s stature in the entire AIML to question or challenge his policies or desires in the mid-forties. His words were like dictates from the absolute monarch. He always encouraged lieutenants or loyalists in the party, not colleagues per se. Thus, at the independence of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, Jinnah was all of the following: Quaid-I-Azam, Governor General of Pakistan, President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (which was also the Central Legislature of Pakistan) and the President of Pakistan Muslim League.

In his seminal book titled Pakistan: A Political Study, Keith Callard, one of the early writers on the government and politics of Pakistan, had succinctly observed that people of Pakistan “looked for guidance to their Great Leader, Quaid-I-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. There was no one else, he was Pakistan; and wherever he went he was received by vast crowds with adulation amounting almost to worship.” Keith Callard also underscored that Jinnah “was by nature a commander and leader of men. He was not to be treated as a colleague or even primus inter pares, for he demanded lieutenants who would serve him rather than partners who would argue with him. In manner he was cold, brilliant and unyielding, a man to inspire either fury or devotion. He organized the campaign for Pakistan as though he were a commander-in-chief issuing orders of the day to encourage the troops and tactical directions to control the provincial commanders” (Keith Callard, Pakistan: A Political Study, (New York, N.Y: The Mcmillan Company, 1957, pp. 19-20. Henceforth this book will be cited as Keith Callard, 1957). .....

Jinnah’s passion for the assumption and consolidation of state powers was evident when the date of partition was nearing. He had selected himself to be the Governor General of Pakistan. According to Ayesha Jalal, “On July 2, 1947, Jinnah formally told Mountbatten that he intended to become Pakistan’s first Governor General. Of course Mountbatten was outraged. It complicated the partition process, as planned by him [Mountbatten], and especially the already odious business of dividing the Indian army. He knew that as Governor-General he would have wide ranging powers over the Muslim areas, powers which he could not possibly afford to let any other individual exercise. Moreover, as the Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah felt he would be better placed to ensure the division of the army, and the army was what he needed most of all to clamp central authority over Pakistan’s provinces. At any rate, the Prime Minister of Pakistan would have to take orders from the Governor-General. ‘In my position’, Jinnah told the bemused Viceroy, ‘it is I who will give the advice and others will act on it.’ Mountbatten concluded that Jinnah had either gone ‘mad’ or was suffering from an acute form of ‘megalomania ” (Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 292).

It is apparent from Ayesha Jalal’s observation that Jinnah made a deliberate choice to assume the position of Governor General of Pakistan. He had planned ahead of time to dictate the terms of reference to the Prime Minister. As the undisputed leader of the All-
India Muslim League (AIML), Mohammad Ali Jinnah had consolidated all organizational authorities and powers in his hands even before Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947. Therefore, he knew it well that there will be no one from his party to oppose him. In fact, he used to act like the Head of the Muslim State before Pakistan was even created. Keith Callard had pointed out long time back in 1957 that as “President of the Muslim League he (Jinnah) felt that he was the effective head of the Muslim nation” (Keith Callard, 1957, p. 20).

The first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (CAP) met on August 10, 1947 (Four days before independence). Jogendra Nath Mondal was made the interim President of CAP. Aimed at controlling both the process and outcome of the Central legislature of Pakistan, Jinnah, the Governor General designate of Pakistan, expressed his desire to be the President of Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The members of the CAP obliged, and on August 11, 1947, they unanimously elected Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the President and Tamijuddin Khan, the Vice President of the CAP. The CAP also passed a resolution conferring on Mohammad Ali Jinnah the title of Quaid-I-Azam (the Great Leader) – a title to be invariably employed in official correspondence of the Government of Pakistan. As
noted by Keth Callard, “When Pakistan was formed the Quaid-I-Azam was recognized to be above the political battle, a figure to whom all might turn for authority and justice and protection. He became Governor-General and President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan; he (Jinnah) was the personification of the state” (Keith Callard, 1957, p. 20).

As the Governor General, Jinnah had handpicked Nwabzada Liaquat Ali Khan to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan. There is no doubt that Quaid-I-Millat Liaquat Ali Khan was capable of running the administration. Yet, Jinnah decided to retain the de-facto authorities of the Head of the Government in his hands. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet had to hold offices at the pleasure of Jinnah, the Governor General of Pakistan. In other words, Jinnah combined the roles of both the Head of the State and Head of the Government. Was it unconstitutional on the part of Governor General to intrude in carrying out of executive functions of the Prime Minister? I don’t think that it was unconstitutional per se because of the existence of contradictory constitutional provisions. Henry Frank Goodnow has summarized the context: “Prior to 1956 [Constitution] the governing constitutional laws were similar, but the relationship between the Governor General and the cabinet ministers was not entirely clear. The Pakistan Provisional Constitutional Order of 1947 had provided that the Governor General and the provincial governors would act on the advice of their ministers. On the other hand, an unrepealed provision of the Government of India Act of 1935 provided that the ministers were to be chosen by the Governor General and would hold office at his pleasure” (Henry Frank Goodnow, The Civil Service of Pakistan: Bureaucracy in a New Nation, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964, p.54).

In view of the above-mentioned provision of 1935 Act, Jinnah had the legal basis to establish the Governor General’s hold on the Cabinet. Yet, it needs to be recognized that he had deliberately ignored the provision in the 1947 Provisional Order in which it was stated that the Governor General would act on the advice of the Cabinet. It is also fair to suggest that it was Jinnah’s responsibility to see to it that the contradictory provision of 1935 was being repealed with the passage of 1947 Provisional order. It is very difficult for me to comprehend after so many years how and why a constitutional lawyer of Jinnah’s stature had used a dead provision of 1935 Act over a provision of 1947 for the purpose of dwarfing the independence of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. At any rate, Jinnah had created a dangerous precedent that directly impacted the relationship between the Governor General and the Prime Minister of Pakistan in the following years.

With assumption of the Presidency of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Governor General Jinnah virtually controlled the functions, the process, and the outcomes of the legislative branch of the central government. Such concentration of both the legislative and executive powers of the State in Jinnah’s office of Governor General was nothing short of nullification of the separation of powers between the legislative and the executive branches of government. It was unfortunate that the legislative branch of the central government was rendered impotent from the very beginning of independent Pakistan. Additionally, Jinnah had retained substantial decision-making powers of the Muslim League even though Chowudhury Khaliquzzaman was chosen to be the Chief organizer of the party (later he became the President of Pakistan Muslim League).

In his assessment of the nature of Jinnah’s power, Keith Callard observed: “No constitutional ruler and few autocrats have possessed such plentitude of power. He had full authority over the civil administration and armed forces. By his own order he could amend the existing constitution and promulgate laws that would be beyond the effective of review of any court. These were not powers which existed only on paper and which in practice were limited by the conventions of constitutional responsibility. On the contrary, cabinet ministers understood clearly that they held office as the agents of the Governor-General, and the [Constituent] Assembly, with its powerless opposition, was in no mood to challenge any action of its own President” (Keith Callard, 1957, p. 20). .....

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=19970806&fname=cover%5Fstory&sid=3&pn=2
`Gandhi Was A Wily Politician, Jinnah Remained A Secularist Till His Death`
Patrick French: Jinnah and the Muslim League were pushed into an extreme political position during the 1930s and `40s, largely through the intransigence of the Congress in meeting justifiable demands by Muslims and by the refusal of Nehru, Gandhi and Patel in particular to accept that Jinnah had the democratic support of a substantial minority of the Indian people.

ANIRUDDHA BAHAL


Patrick French`s fascination with the Indian subcontinent began when he was 12 years old. In those days General Zia-ul-Haq was harbouring plans to assassinate Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Intrigued by the situation, Patrick French wrote letters to newspapers in London arguing that one shouldn’t execute a political opponent. Of course, none of them were printed. The current book itself was sparked off by a quote by Andre Malraux that the British decision to quit India was ``the most significant fact of the century`` and reduced Britain to a ‘third-rate power’.

Q You mix first-person narratives with the telling of history. Many people feel it hasn’t jelled.

I do not believe that it is possible to write scientific history. All historians have subjective views, and it is better to be open about that, which is why I have included my personal journeys. I decided to mix other people’s first-person narratives with pure factual history in order to give some sense of the human impact of the events of 1947. In my opinion, the personal consequences of those events, even today, on individuals and their families are extremely significant and lasting. Take, for instance, the plight of Biharis or stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh, the rise of Hindu nationalism in Indian politics, or the civil war in Karachi between the MQM and the state—not to mention those people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who are still suffering the loss of their friends and families in the violence of 1947 and 1948.

Q You seem to have overplayed the importance of intelligence documentation, given the disproportionate space you have devoted to it?

The newly-released documentation of Indian Political Intelligence (IPI) is crucial to understanding why the British lost control over India during the period 1944-1946. It is probably the most significant historical archive ever released by the British intelligence or security agencies, and therefore I have made full use of it. I have not, however, made a full examination of the entire archive, and there is enough material there—especially from the 1920s— to keep ambitious graduate students occupied for a number of years.

Q You have been very kind to Lord Mountbatten, who many feel was instrumental in the misery of Partition? Was it because his family gave you access to his papers?

I am amazed that you think I have been ‘very kind’ to Lord Mountbatten. Have you read what I have written about him? I may have been fair to him, but that is all. The point I make about him is that although he made mistakes, and was biased against the Muslim League, he did a reasonably good job in very difficult circumstances. However, he was a minor figure—a bit-part player—in the story of Indian independence and the creation of Pakistan. He was Viceroy of India for fewer than five months, and all the crucial decisions relating to the settlement of 1947 were taken by other people before he even reached India.

He does bear some of the responsibility for the misery of 1947 and 1948, but it is a responsibility that has to be shared with the leadership of Congress and the Muslim League, and with the politicians back in London who made so many foolish mistakes during the 1930s and ’40s.

Mountbatten’s family did not provide me with any access to his papers, I used the papers that are already publicly available in the India Office Library in London.

Q There’s a whole Freudian interpretation of Gandhi, linking his personal fads to his public conduct and strategy. A little farfetched?

I do not provide a Freudian interpretation of Gandhi in my book.I do believe, however, that you cannot detach Gandhi’s personal psychological peculiarities from his conduct as a politician.

Q Did you take a revisionist view of Gandhi and Jinnah just to draw attention to your book?

Mahatma Gandhi was always one of my greatest heroes



(2 of 2)
It was, therefore, a profound personal disappointment to me when I began to research his life and activities in more detail, and to discover that the popular version of Gandhi is very far from the truth. If you believe that Gandhi was a blameless saint, try reading what he actually said and did at crucial points in the freedom movement—such as 1921, 1942 or 1946—and you will soon change your mind. He was an extremely wily politician, who failed to listen to the opinions of his opponents.
As for Jinnah, again I should say that my personal opinions on him changed significantly while researching Liberty or Death. Like most people in Britain and in India, I originally saw Jinnah as a bitter fanatic who had broken up the subcontinent. On closer study I came to see that he was a far more complex figure, who remained an Indian nationalist and secularist until his death. Jinnah and the Muslim League were pushed into an extreme political position during the 1930s and ’40s, largely through the intransigence of the Congress in meeting justifiable demands by Muslims and by the refusal of Nehru, Gandhi and Patel in particular to accept that Jinnah had the democratic support of a substantial minority of the Indian people. If my book is revisionist, that is as a direct result of my research in the archives—nothing else.

How did your opinions change?

I had the safe view of Gandhi as the father of the nation, etc. That changed. My new view came essentially from the archives of the IPI and the Transfer of Power documents. You see, British policy was based on complete ignorance and was chaotic. The effect you got was that Pakistan was not inevitable till 1945.

QYou say Jinnah was pushed into a corner and had no choice but to demand Pakistan?

There was so little accommodation of Muslim demands that Partition was inevitable. After the 1940 Lahore resolution Jinnah didn’t really give a vision for Pakistan. Right till 1946 he accepted a position put forward by Cripps, of Pakistan not being an autonomous nation. It’s quite clear that Jinnah was flexible. The Calcutta killings hardened stands on both sides. There’s no book that argues what I have argued here.

Q You have obviously disappointed the older generation.

Yes. But not the younger one, which says that even Gandhi and Nehru were human and had to make mistakes.

Q`You might also have cleared once and for all the doubts about Subhas Bose’s death.

Yes, the book proves the matter conclusively. The IPI investigated the matter and a Captain Turner in Formosa was put on the case. He managed to locate a Captain Taneyashi Yoshimi who was the last person to have seen Bose alive. His statement should resolve the matter.

Q What documents still remain with the India office?

The papers released were screened by the foreign office and the MI 5. They held back details about intelligence methods, for some of them are apparently still in use.


http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=19970806&fname=cover%5Fstory&sid=3&pn=2

On second thought I will make two comments about Mr K P S Gill..

1) He takes one incident of Calcutta Killings (in which double the number of Muslims died according to Wavell Page 879 Transfer of Power Papers Volume 1X and Patel) and tries to make a case for Jinnah being violent ... well regardless of whether it was a mistake, which it was ... four very important things emerged about the direct action day and Bengal riots:

a) Golam Sarwar the individual blamed for being one of the instigators was an anti-Muslim League politician.

b) Inquiry absolved the Muslim League of blame of the killings (Wavell to Pethick Lawrence TOPP Volume 9

c) The Direct Action day was peaceful in all cities of India except Calcutta.

d) More Muslims died as quoted above.


2) He claims that Jinnah didn`t show compassion for Hindus and Sikhs.... just because they didn`t tell you that in your history (Read mythology class) doesn`t mean it didn`t happen.
There are several incidents where Jinnah stopped mobs from killing...


Here is one from a Hindu astrologer now residing in Mumbai:

``... I found Jinnah sahib addressing the crowds. He had passionately spoken for about 10 to 15 minutes. He had his famous ``Jinnah cap`` in his hands upside down, extended towards the crowds imploring them to desist from bloodshed and not to make Hindus the target of their wrath. His unforgettable words spoken in urdu, which ring in my ears even today, were about Pakistan not being created for those the massacre of Hindus who had an equal right to live with Muslims and others in this``Pak`` land not to be made napak by killing them.

He desired the crowds to return and help in returning all the loot to their police stations. He had sternly warned the masses that shoot-at-sight orders were being given to deal with offenders. And that did have a salutary effect as under the direct orders of the then military chief, the military did open fire a few times on the miscreants and riots came to a half much to the relief of everyone including our family. It was a pleasant surprise to find the crowds returning the loot which piled up at the Eidgah maidan to form a mini hillock.

That was the only time I had seen and heard the creator of Pakistan. I owe my life to him and to my Muslim neighbours, the migrants from India.``

Hira Gulrajani
Mumbai



3) What is ironic and sad is that a man who was for 30 years unwaveringly the best ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity and who was held by all as being a man of scrupulous honor and unflinchingly integrity .... is now being accused of being an opportunist. Wow! It is precisely because it was Jinnah and not some Mullah which should tell you something about what the truth is.

-YLH

Dear Ajeya,

As a matter of policy I don`t pay much attention to ignorant bigots be they K S Gill (whose article you`ve put several times and who has written an article based on fiction and half truth) you, Nakhok or Maulana Fazlurrahman. You are clearly ignorant of history and I`ll leave it at that. Every now and then ... truth jumps up and bites you in your rearend and then you go, run and hide behind a mountain of lies. So by all means, but your doing so will not make the truth go away.

yours sincerely,

YLH

Land of religious persecution

by Sandhya Jain


BJP president LK Advani`s startling endorsement of Mohammed Ali Jinnah`s secular credentials is less damaging than his hallucinations about the common civilisational heritage of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - successor states of undivided India.

This politically popular but untrue dogma of `one people` divided by machiavellian politicians needs to be nailed, so that India`s unilateral disarmament vis-à-vis growing fundamentalism in its neighbourhood can be ended before more damage is wrought upon us.

Quoting Quaid-i-Azam`s now immortalised speech of August 11, 1947, Mr Advani said all three countries should adopt the principles enunciated therein, viz., equality of all citizens; freedom of faith; non-discrimination by the State in matters of religion; and non-protection by the State for religious extremism and terrorism. Since Pakistan legally discriminates against non-Muslims and sponsors terrorism against India, and Bangladesh practices ethnic cleansing of its Hindu and Buddhist minorities, it is baffling that the BJP leader should put these countries at par with innocent India.

Far more damaging, however, is the flawed understanding of civilisation and heritage. A common past does not bind a people together if it does not flow perennially into the present. Like most Indians (read Hindus), Mr Advani willfully disregarded the fact that the continuity of the Indic heritage was ruptured when an exclusivist faith shunned its inclusivist embrace. We will continually demean and debilitate ourselves if we do not evolve paradigms to deal with this reality.

We need to dialogue with other nations and civilisations on our own terms. Sadly, the virtues extolled by Mr Advani are rooted in Western political thought rather than the Indic tradition, though they are consistent with it. A common civilisational heritage of the nations of undivided India would necessarily be rooted in sanatana dharma (eternal way), the negation of which is the raison d`etre of the Islamic breakaway States. The driving impulse of the three countries now vests in divergent sources; we need to acknowledge that the deviation impacts upon our internal and external security.

Sanatana dharma is a generic term for the eternal spiritual values Indians have cherished over millennia. Based on the cosmic vision of ancient rishis, it is inspired by the ideal of universal welfare of all beings, both human and other creatures. Though it has a formal structure, it is not limited to form, nor fixed in time or space. It includes a realm of pure Consciousness where knowledge is experienced through intuitive perception. Irreducible to words, this is expressed as `that which is not` or `that which is beyond`.

This rare ability to define itself in terms of what it `is` and what it `is not` distinguishes sanatana dharma from the one-dimensional literalism that bedevils monotheistic faiths. Dharma avoids dogmatism because the sages refused to declare Vedic revelations as final and binding for all times; subsequent generations were invited to discover Truth for themselves. Broadly, the Indic concept of salvation (moksha) rests on experience, not obedience.

Dharma cannot be equated with religion, which denotes belief in a single messiah and a single path to redemption, and dismisses all other paths as false and fit for annihilation. Religion is definitionally dogmatic, and the point of this brief discourse is that Pakistan and Bangladesh (now a Pakistani proxy), having separated by rejecting the common civilisational heritage, are driven by an impulse to destroy what is left of India. It would be irresponsible to overlook the civilisational aspect of this threat, as successive Indian governments have done, most culpable being the NDA.

Quaid-i-Azam`s August 11, 1947 speech needs to be put in perspective. It upset his staff and colleagues and attempts to purge it from official records began within hours of its being delivered! Still, it may be consistent with Islam. Although Jinnah prompted the bloodshed of August 16, 1946, which forced Partition, and several League leaders called for population transfer throughout 1946 and 1947, he probably envisaged that a sizeable Hindu and Sikh population would remain in Pakistan.

It is known that British proved unequal to the task of ensuring safe population transfer, and possibly requested him to try to stem the rioting since he had got the State he wanted. Nehru was also reluctant to handle more refugees, particularly in the east, and West Bengal Congress leaders urged Hindus to trust the Muslim League and remain in East Pakistan. The consequences of this betrayal are still with us.

Anyway, Jinnah wrested Pakistan because he did not want Muslims to live under a Hindu majority, as was inevitable in a democracy. Pakistani writer Javaid Iqbal confirms this: ``Since Muslims constitute a large majority, they have the right to demand that constitutionally the head of the state of Pakistan must belong to the majority community...`` Similarly, IH Qureshi argues: ``Quaid-i-Azam`s only argument was that the Muslims were different because they were Muslims, not because they were Bengalis or Sindhis, or Punjabis or Pathans, but simply because they were Muslims. And what in his view made the Muslim different? The basis of the difference was the fact that their entire way of life is founded in the truth, the doctrine and the teachings of Islam.`` Jinnah could accept Hindus living as a minority in Pakistan. His August 11, speech only indicated a willingness to let them live subordinated to the Islamic state.

Jinnah`s Pakistan had necessarily to define itself in non-Indic terms, intensify its Islamic identity and seek closer embrace with the Islamic world. This trend developed in the decades after independence. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto cultivated Islamic sentiments by wooing the clergy and declaring Ahmadiyas non-Muslims. Gen Zia went further and created separate electorates for non-Muslims; imposed zakat and ushr (agriculture tax); and Hudood ordinances (laws of Islamic punishment). Zia set up the Shariat Appeal Bench, and passed the Ahtram-i-Ramazan ordinance which prohibits eating and drinking in public during fasting time. He made Pakistan studies and Islamiyat compulsory subjects at all educational levels, including professional courses. To this, Mr Nawaz Sharif added the Blasphemy Law, which is handy for persecuting minorities.

Most importantly, successive regimes since ZA Bhutto strove to make Pakistan a power centre in the Islamic world. It has the nuclear bomb and has emerged, as Mr KPS Gill points out, as the hub of international Islamic terrorism, mentor of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. At bottom, however, is a feudal society and bankrupt economy needing bankrolling by Saudi Arabia, America, China, all of whom have separate interests. Instability is built into such a situation.

Pakistan`s real problem is Islam, which has taken it away from Mother India, but has not been able to weld the Mohajirs, Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, Pakhtuns and Frontier tribes (much less the distant Bengalis) into a nation. Unlike the Jews and Israel, being Muslim does not make a nation; Pakistani provinces are bursting with the quest for cultural and regional identity.

Yet even territorial nationalism is no answer, as Islam does not recognise boundaries, though it does seek territorial expansion. Pakistan is in a pincer; formed by rejecting dharma, its recourse to religion only intensifies sectarian feuds. Since Sindh was burning while Mr Advani was there, one is at a loss to understand where he found evidence of the common civilisational heritage of the two countries. Even the Ashram of the guru who inspired him was burnt down in 1948. It never reopened.

Re: #557 by Mantolives


Reading Kuldip Nayar’s article one feels the following:


1) Hindus and Muslims are equally secular/communal.
2) Partition can rightly be blamed on Jawaharlal Nehru.
3) RSS is built up on prejudiced anti-Muslim ideology, obviously based on falsehood.
4) Jinnah was an innocent and secular guy, and cannot be blamed for anything (Mr. Nayar he did not apportion ANY blame to Jinnah in his article).
5) Hindus and Muslims have lived in peace for millenia, it’s only people like the RSS that have recently started creating trouble.
6) Hindus have always lived securely in what is now Pakistan before the partition happened.


ALL these statements are, of course, demonstrably false.

The problem with lefty types is that they try to fit facts into their ideology.

Let’s take the above points one by one and destroy them:

1) Hindus and Muslims are equally secular/communal.

ALL OVER THE WORLD, and especially in India, there are militant islamic groups bent on murder and mayhem. The RSS and the VHP has not created jehadis in its century of existence. This is why they are not listed as terrorist groups anywhere in the world.

2) Partition can rightly be blamed on Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nehru would not have to agree or disagree to the Cabinet Mission Plan if there HAD BEEN NO Cabinet Mission Plan.

The Cabinet Mission Plan was based on assumptions, and pre-emptive in nature, like Bush’s pre-emptive war on Iraq was based on assumptions that Iraq could be dangerous to United States security.

Jinnah’s assumption was WRONG.

History has shown which country minorities have thrived in, and which country is a cesspool of violence and religious bigotry.

3) RSS is built up on prejudiced anti-Muslim ideology, obviously based on falsehood.

RSS is built on the ACTUAL history of communal suppression and persecution practiced by the Muslims who were in power before the British came, and even during British rule.
There is so much hard evidence for this, it would take a big book to write it all down.


4) Jinnah was an innocent and secular guy, and cannot be blamed for anything (Mr. Nayar he did not apportion ANY blame to Jinnah in his article) .


Jinnah may have been a secular guy in his personal life, and in his politics while is suited him, but the basis of his Cabinet Mission Plan was definitely NOT SECULAR.

5) Hindus and Muslims have lived in peace for millenia, it’s only people like the RSS that have recently started creating trouble.

Just study the history books about the persecution of Hindus over the hundreds of years. And it’s not only hindus that have been persecuted by Muslims. Look at the Zoroastrians, for example. Were they persecuted making them flee their homeland because they, like hindus, were intolerant?

6) Hindus have always lived securely in what is now Pakistan before the partition happened.

I will be obliged to quote chapter and verse on the persecution of hindus in what is now Pakistan for many HUNDREDS of years. Even in an intolerant society, minorities like Mr. Nayar’s family can SOMETIMES live peacefully. Until things come to a head.



And here’s an article in return:

Jinnah`s Harvest Of Hatred

That Jinnah was neglected or marginalised in the Congress, and this `forced` him to an extreme position is no more a justification than is claimed by other groups that commit communal carnage in the name of present `neglect` or past wrongs.

K.P.S. GILL


The opportunistic falsification of history has been one of the gravest and most persistent follies of the Indian political leadership and intellectual elite. We demonise and iconise at will, with no concern for facts or for reality, yielding to expediency or the fashions of the moment. So it is, now, in the current controversy over Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan and, overwhelmingly, of the carnages of partition.

We may quibble over Mahatma Gandhi`s eccentricities and Jawaharlal Nehru`s `intransigence`, in apportioning `blame` for partition, but it must be clear that Jinnah, and Jinnah alone among the prominent leaders of undivided India, sought this `solution`, passionately and often violently--witness the call for `direct action` in August 1946, which resulted in thousands of innocent deaths--advocating his disgraceful `two-nation theory` of communal ghettoisation.

The argument that he was neglected or marginalised in the Congress, and this `forced` him to an extreme position is no more a justification than is claimed by other groups that commit communal carnage in the name of present `neglect` or past wrongs.

It is useful, here, to reiterate that Gandhi is, today, recognised as one of the most visionary leaders of the 20th century, and though he now appears to inspire few among India`s own leadership, his ideas and example have catalysed--and continue to impact on--some of the great transformations of history across the world. Nehru, too, despite his many failings and notable errors of judgment, was immensely influential, both within India and internationally. We may dispute elements of his legacy--but we cannot deny its enormity.

But Jinnah, today, is historically dead; utterly irrelevant. His vision and his legacy are fractious icons of failure, lawlessness and discord. Outside the sub-continent, few have even heard of him; within it, he is reviled everywhere but in the fractured land of his creation--and even there, more and more are questioning his bequest with the passage of time.

Did Jinnah make a grand speech on his great vision for a `secular Pakistan` where he declaimed, ``You may belong to any religion or caste or creed-that has nothing to do with the business of the state``? Did he speak of a Pakistan where, ``in the course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state``? Of course he did. But that was because he could not see the malignant aberration his vision and murderous actions had shaped; or because, in his dying days, he sought to confine or moderate the monster he had created.

Did Jinnah eat pork, drink whiskey and violate other Islamic commandments? Again, of course, he did. But he systematically used and abused the Islamic identity and the idea of jihad to secure his short-term political ends. British administrators recorded the use of the idea of jihad during the `Direct Action` movement, and the fact that much of the inflammation occurred in mosques, with active participation of extremist mullahs.

It is on record that Jinnah exhorted and funded Iskandar Mirza, a civil servant who resigned to foment disorders in the NWFP in 1947 on his direct command, to start a jihad in the frontier province, which was dominated by Badshah Khan`s committed and secular `Red Shirts`. The secular forces that existed in the Punjab at that time, moreover, found it impossible to stand up to the militant Islamist forces of the Muslim League, and to prevent or mitigate the great slaughter of Partition.

There are vivid accounts of Nehru`s acute and manifest distress at the sight of Muslim bodies after riots in Old Delhi.

Indeed, Nehru`s anguish at the massacres of Partition even led him, however briefly, to consider the possibility of asking the British to resume control of affairs in the country, so that the slaughters could be brought to an end. But no such act of regret, compassion or contrition has ever been attributed to Jinnah at any point of time during the massacres of Sikhs and Hindus in then newly formed Pakistan.

The consequences are unsurprising, and a nation born out of an ideology of hatred has become the fountainhead of a universal ideology and movement of terrorism--the current and international Islamist jihad. It is useful, in this context, to notice that, despite its prominence in Islamist rhetoric, it was not Palestine that gave birth to the current movement of global terrorism.

Indeed, the many other movements of `Islamic jihad`--Chechnya, Algeria, the Kurds, Uighur and Uzbek--are essentially sub-national movements, articulating local ethnic rivalries and targeting their own governments under the guise of a jihad. It is Pakistan that brought together forces from across the Arab and Muslim world into its terror camps in Afghanistan and on its own soil, to fashion this global movement of terror; it is Pakistan that created the Taliban, the Al Qaeda and the myriad groups that have ranged out across the world to commit appalling and unforgivable acts of terror.

Notice, also, that non-Muslims, who formed 23 per cent of the population of West Pakistan at the time of Partition, had been reduced to three per cent by 1991-- the last census in which minority population data was given--and are believed to have fallen well below two per cent now. This is the Pakistan Jinnah created, his occasional and wavering statements of commitment to opportunistic secularism notwithstanding.

There are very grave lessons to be drawn from this. In the delusional euphoria that `peace processes` generate, it is easy to lose sight of reality; to the extent that this is happening--and it seems to be the pervasive trend in Indian politics across party lines today--we will be condemned to pay for our folly in a manner that is too horrifying to contemplate.

General Pervez Musharraf has skilfully manipulated our perceptions, our hopes and our vulnerabilities to secure the most unlikely endorsements for Pakistan`s `change of heart`. But thousands still fall to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism each year; dozens of ISI-backed terrorist modules are identified and disrupted every year, across India, outside Jammu & Kashmir; the infrastructure of terrorism remains intact in Pakistan; and, worst of all, the ideology of communal hatred continues to be taught in extremist madarsas and state run public school alike, and to be advocated from the mosque and political pulpit without restraint.

Some of the methods are changing -- adapting to transformations in the international context -- but the ends remain constant, unwavering. It is, consequently, imperative that we do not allow the militant minority in Kashmir--concentrated in just part of the Valley, which, in turn, is just a small fraction of the total area of the State--openly backed by Pakistan, to dictate and jeopardise the future of the whole region. We are, today, listening to Islamist fundamentalists and terrorists in Kashmir because they use extreme and indiscriminate force--not because they have reason or popular will or right on their side.

That, precisely, is the weakness Jinnah exploited, using random and excessive violence to make the unreasonable and iniquitous seem acceptable and necessary; that is the failure that led to Partition; that, again, is the strategy, and the characteristic myopia of the Indian response that the Pakistani establishment is capitalising on today; and that is the blindness that is building up to another potentially dire crisis in South Asia.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun152005/nayar.asp

BETWEEN THE LINES
Advani`s finest hour

By Kuldip Nayar



THIS was his finest hour. BJP chief Lal Krishna Advani wanted to turn a new leaf in the history of relations between Hindus and Muslims in the subcontinent,different from the past frozen in animosities and bitterness. He hailed Qaide Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah as ``secular.`` Advani even ``regretted`` the demolition of the Babri masjid which he watched going down brick by brick.

Advani, a hardliner, probably thought that he and his party could alone initiate a new process of understanding between the two communities, nay between the two countries, to usher in an era of peace. He courageously enunciated his views, knowing well that in the process he might destroy himself. Yet, this was the way he felt, not emotionally but thoughtfully. But
he should have known the RSS he is its product. It has only anti-Muslim as its ideology. It cannot change because it has lived since 1925, the year it was born,within the walls of bias and prejudice that it has built.

When Advani said, ``Jinnah was a great man who had espoused the cause of secular Pakistan,`` the BJP chief tried to remind the Islamic state that its founder wanted secularism to be its ethos. For Advani, who had plugged a communal line all his life, it was a big departure. In a way, he raised the perennial question:

Why religion and politics were mixed in Pakistan or,for that matter, in India?
I expected a discussion on those lines. But the RSS parivar, dyed deep in saffron, does not want such a debate which would challenge its raison d`tre.
Instead, it has made Advani resign from the BJP presidentship after futile efforts to make him withdraw what he said in Pakistan. Two points have
been proved once again. One, the BJP continues to be under strict discipline of RSS. Two, it does not want to dilute its ideology of Hindutva.

Avani is not a novice in politics. Nor is he given to histrionics. His praise for Jinnah in Pakistan was not an off-the-cuff remark. What he said was measured and discussed before he left New Delhi. The furore in the
Sangh parivar was more than he expected. That explains why he wrote his resignation letter at Karachi itself.

But there was no doubting about his genuineness in saying what he did.
Probably, Advani, who built up the BJP after the erstwhile Jan Sangh members parted company with the Janata in 1980, felt that his party could not make a headway with the anti-Pakistan posture which took the shape of anti-Muslim sentiment. (Muslims in India constitute the 15 per cent of the electorate and they,probably to the last person, shun the BJP.) A party
that wants to rule India one day could not afford to run down the founder of the second largest Muslim country in the world. Yet, the BJP`s anti-Jinnah
posture is the grist to its propaganda mill.

Historically also, the BJP is wrong. Jinnah advocated the two-nation theory till he secured an independent country comprising the states where the Muslims were in a majority. He accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan which gave autonomy to the Muslim majority areas but kept India together through with a weak centre. In his personal report No. 41, Mountbatten recorded on April 24, 1947: ``I am still doing everything in my power to
get the Cabinet Mission Plan accepted. But Jinnah and the Muslim league leaders are convinced that Congress have no intention whatever of complying with the spirit of the Plan.``

Jawaharlal Nehru sabotaged the plan when he said that Assam could opt out from the group to which it was allotted in the three-group federal structure which Cabinet Mission Plan had proposed. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad wrote in his book, India Wins Freedom, ``I warned Jawaharlal that history would never forgive us if we agreed to partition (instead of the Cabinet Mission Plan). The verdict would then be that India was divided as much by the Muslim League as by the Congress.``

That Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be secular was also clear from the name he gave to the country. He called it Pakistan. The word, `Islamic,` was added after his death. After the acceptance of Pakistan Jinnah said:

``You are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the state. You will find that in course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense,because that is the personal faith of each individual,but in the political sense as citizens of the state.``

I know from experience that our family felt secure in Sialkot city once the statement was made. We decided to stay back. But when the Muslims ousted from India began to pour in to the city, our living became impossible. During partition, the two communities rendered 20 million homeless and murdered one million in cold blood.

At a time when India and Pakistan are in the midst of the biggest exercise to normalise relations,questioning the credentials of Jinnah, as the RSS
parivar is doing, is like renewing the age-old debate whether Pakistan should have been there. This is one way of sabotaging the peace efforts. I think the matter was settled once and for all, if there was any doubt, when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee traveled by a bus to Lahore and wrote in the visitors` book at the Minar-e-Pakistan that the integrity and prosperity of India depended on the integrity and prosperity of Pakistan. (The minaret is located at the place where the Pakistan Resolution was passed in 1940).

Advani is lonely today. Even the best of his supporters, the younger lot whom he groomed, are quiet. This should awaken Advani to the realities of today`s politics in the country. Power is with the chair. Once you lose it, even the best of friends shun you. However, his acceptance in the country has increased. He should be satisfied that he has won hearts in Pakistan where he was demonized. In the process, he has made even the hardliners in that country think that if Advani can change, the entire edifice built on differences between India and Pakistan, between Hindus and Muslims, can be pulled down so that two communities live in harmony. After all, they have lived together for centuries.

It would be a pity if hardliners in India were allowed to have their way at a time when the desire for peace with Pakistan is strengthening. All that the BJP leaders have to realise is that India`s ethos is secularism, not Hindutva. In the same way, the Muslim leaders in Pakistan have to recall that Jinnah did not want religion to be mixed with politics.

Re: # 555

Dear Nakhok,

We`ve had this discussion and I have raised my objections against this article you periodically post. Look I am not going to go into the details... last time you rejected the US national archives as being a biased source. So I am not even going to bother...

However in ``India wins freedom`` Abul Kalam Azad accuses Jinnah of supporting Suhrawardy over Nazimuddin who Azad considers a man of integrity and someone who was not a Jinnah loyalist.

Now ... this article by the professor ... says the exact opposite: That Jinnah chose Nazimuddin over Suhrawardy because Nazimuddin was a loyalist. Now... it is ironic .... that both men are being described as loyalists by different writers. So please tell me.. should I believe Maulana Azad or should I believe the respected professor. It is common wisdom that when such an accusation is hurled both contending sides, that both are wrong.

Sincerely

YLH

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Unrelated to the discussion above...


Muhammad Ali Jinnah is an enigma of modern history. His aristocratic English lifestyle, Victorian manners, and secular outlook rendered him a most unlikely leader of India’s Muslims. Yet, he led them to separate statehood, creating history and, in Saad R. Khairi’s apt phrase, ‘altering geography’.
Several scholars, among them H.M. Seervai, Aisha Jalal and Saad R. Khairi, help explain his shift from Indian nationalism to Muslim separatism but the mystery of Jinnah’s appeal remains. After all, neither Muslim nationalism nor the idea of Pakistan originated with him; he embraced them somewhat reluctantly.
There is another way of viewing the matter. In the twentieth century, two extraordinary personalities competed for the leadership of Indian Muslims. They were Abul Kalam Azad and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. As a point of departure in comprehending the aspirations of Muslims in India, we might review their biographical profiles.
The contrasts in their family background, education, culture, and styles of leadership were remarkable. Azad’s ancestors belonged since Emperor Babar’s time to the Persian and Urdu-speaking Muslim aristocracy of India. His great-grandfather was one of the last Ruknul Mudarrasin, a position roughly analogous to today’s ‘minister of education’, in Mughal India. After the War of 1857 his family migrated to Madina where it intermingled with the Sharifain aristocracy. Azad’s mother was a daughter of Sheikh Muhammed Zaher Watri, in his time Madina’s best known ‘Alim’. His father Maulana Khair al-Din gained much fame in the Muslim world for his ten-volume work on Islam, and for his central role in the restoration of Nahr Zubeida, Makkah’s main source of water. Among Indian Muslims who were still wistful over a lost empire, and reeling from the excesses of British colonisation, it is hard to envision a family with better credentials than Abul Kalam Azad’s.
Abul Kalam was a most worthy scion of an extraordinary family with roots deep in the duality—Indian and pan-Islamic—to which South Asia’s Muslims have been historically linked both psychologically and culturally. Born in Makkah, he was fluent in Arabic, at ease in Persian, and a gifted writer of Urdu prose. He was deeply immersed in the mystical tradition of Islam. As early as 1919 he wrote on Sarmad Shaheed and the grand dichotomy between state and civil society in Islam. His later commentaries on the Holy Qura’an are still regarded as among one of the best in the world.
“Who is your master among the mufassareen?” I asked the late Maulana Kausar Niazi some years ago. “Abul Kalam” he replied reflexively. Al-Hilal, the magazine Azad founded in 1912, at age 22, marked the beginning of serious, mass circulation Urdu journalism. With its successor al-Balgah, it remains a milestone in the development of Urdu as a popular vehicle of political and social discourse. Azad was a spellbinding speaker and, like Jinnah, an ardent nationalist. In 1923, at age 35, he was the youngest man to be elected president of the Indian National Congress, a record Nehru will break later. An overwhelming majority of India’s Ulema supported him.
The man we shall later revere as the Quaid-i-Azam was a contemporary of Azad, and a most unlikely contender for Muslim leadership. He was born in 1876; Azad in 1890. But beyond the proximity of age, the two stood in sharp contrast to each other. While Azad’s aristocratic roots lay in the Muslim heartland of UP and Bengal, Jinnah was born to a middle class business family in the port town of Hindu-dominated Karachi. At age 21 he moved to England, thence to Bombay, the modern gateway to British India. Unlike Azad who belonged to the majority Sunni denomination of Islam, Jinnah came from the minority Shi’a community. He was the prototypical westernized Indian, tutored at Lincoln’s Inn, tailored at Saville Row, in his youth a Shakepearian actor, a constitutionalist barrister in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, married to a Parsi woman. More at home in English than his native Gujrati, Jinnah spoke little Urdu which he would later designate as Pakistan’s official language, knew neither Persian nor Arabic, and had only the rudimentary knowledge of Islam which is common to western educated Muslims. He was anathema to an overwhelming majority of the Ulema of the subcontinent, including so grand a figure as Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani and such ideologue as Abul Ala Maudoodi.
Mr. Jinnah made little effort to overcome his obvious handicaps. Unlike Barrister M.K. Gandhi with whom Jinnah shared similarities of language, class, and education, and who donned the Mahatma’s home spun dhoti, Jinnah stuck to his western ways and pin-stripe suits. He bowed but rarely to populist symbols, appearing only occasionally at political ralies, and shunning the display of emotion in public.
Reasoned arguments and cold logic were the hallmark of Jinnah’s discourse. He spoke at political rallies as though he were addressing a courtroom, or a conference of lawyers. This is not the populist style anywhere, least of all in South Asia. Yet, in less that a decade of his return from London in 1935, he had eclipsed his political foes no less than colleagues in the Muslim League, and successfully established himself and the League as the sole spokesman of India’s Muslims. In the elections of 1937 the Muslim League barely survived as a minor political party; in 1940 it set Pakistan as its goal. Barely seven years later the new state was born.
In the Introduction to this first volume of Jinnah papers Professor Zaidi has asked this central question: “What then turned Jinnah into the embodiment of Muslim hopes and aspirations?” One answer, admirably documented by Saad Khairi and H.M. Seervai, is that the leadership of the Indian National Congress allowed Jinnah no alternative even though he constantly probed for one. But a deeper explanation offered in Professor Zaidi’s Introduction worth quoting: “What distinguished Jinnah from his great contemporaries is that he was quite self-consciously a modern man – one who valued, above all, reason, discipline, organisation, and economy. Jinnah differed from other Muslim Leaders in so far as he was uncompromisingly committed to substance rather than symbol, reason rather than emotion, modernity rather than tradition.”
But how could this apparently modern figure so powerfully appeal to a people laden with tradition and religious inertia? I should summarise Professor Zaidi’s answer to this question: Jinnah’s peculiar appeal worked because collectively Indian Muslims had an instinctive if inarticulate grasp of recent history. “It was a community conscious of its declining condition, and it had experienced the ineffectiveness of old remedies. After all, neither the revivalist prescriptions of Shah Waliullah, nor the fiery war cries of Syed Ahmed Shahid, nor the flamboyant, though confused, demarche of the Khilafat movement – with which Abdul Kalam Azad had become associated and from which Jinnah kept a pronounced distance – provided relief from the ills which afflicted Muslim society in India. Restorationist alternatives had nearly exhausted when Jinnah re-entered the second act of contemporary Muslim tragedy in India. On their part, leaders of the Indian National Congress were so overcome with hubris that they refused to open viable political doors to this wounded and bewildered people.
Significantly, by then the modernist view of the causes of Muslim decline and of the remedies it required, especially as articulated by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his ideological successors, including Iqbal, had seeped into the consciousness of the Muslim intelligentsia. There was to this phenomenon also a pan-Islamic context: In the 1930s the Muslim world as a whole had entered what Albert Hourani has described as the Liberal Age when Muslim nationalism grew exponentially on the
premises of modernism and reform. Mr Jinnah returned from England in 1935 to find himself swept to the crest of this wave.
In the four decades that have followed his passing, Pakistan has moved precipitously away from the country its founding father had envisioned, and the people had created at costs beyond counting. The two volumes of Jinnah Papers and the archives from which they are drawn do not tell the story of the cowardice and betrayals, which followed the Quaid-i-Azam. What they do tell us is who he was, how he waged a difficult and deeply painful struggle for statehood, the vision he nourished, and the hopes he had for this country. I would like to recall him and remind us in passing of what we have done with his legacy. I am sorry if in the process I cause some discomfort to some of you readers.

http://www.virtualbangladesh.com/commentary/jinnah.html

THE IMPACT OF JINNAH`S ANTI-BANGALEE DESIGN ON THE POLITICAL SCENE OF BANGLADESH IN THE EARLY YEARS OF PAKISTAN: AN ASSESSMENT
By M. Waheeduzzaman Manik

[Dr. M. Waheeduzzaman (Manik) writes from Clarksville, Tennessee, USA where he is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Public Management at Austin Peay State University]

..... Although the overwhelming number of Muslim population in Bengal had supported the Muslim League`s demand for Pakistan, the central leadership of All-India Muslim League (AIML) was disproportionately skewed in favor of non-Bengali leaders of different provinces. Jinnah had effectively used most of the popular leaders of Bengal for the purpose mobilizing support in favor of his ``Two-Nation Theory`` and the demand for separate homeland for the Muslims of India.

Yet, Jinnah had preferred to promote and project the non-Bengali loyalists, rightists and collaborationists in the leadership roles at both AIML and Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML). It was by his deliberate anti-Bengali design that most of the celebrated and popular Muslim League leaders of Bengal were either banished or marginalized immediately before or after the creation of Pakistan. Instead of fostering and nurturing charismatic and independent-minded Bengali leaders, Jinnah handpicked those leaders of Bengal to assume the leadership roles in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) who were certified as anti-Bangalee and spineless loyalists or collaborationists. Thus the dice of Pakistan`s anti-Bengali design was cast even before Pakistan`s independence was achieved.

The seed of colonial mode of governance in East Bengal (East Pakistan) was planted by Jinnah, the Founder of Pakistan. The genesis of the disintegration of Pakistan and Bangalees` relentless struggle first for maximum autonomy and later for complete independence were, to a great extent, conditioned by Jinnah`s quest for installing anti-Bangalee collaborationist and rightist Muslim Leaguers in both the party apparatus and Governmental structure of East Bengal (throughout this commentary, I have used East Pakistan and East Bengal interchangeably or synonymously with reference to the geographic area that emerged as Bangladesh on December 16, 1971).

Lest it be thought that this writer is overstating the fact! Yet, the following verifiable facts will lend credence to my generalizations on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Founding Father of Pakistan.

After the passage of the Lahore Resolution (known as Pakistan Resolution) on March 23, 1940, the moribund Bengal Provincial Muslim League (BPML) started emerging as the mass organization for the first time. With the popularity of Pakistan Movement, Jinnah`s grip over AIML and BPML was also getting tighter. There are some scholars who have attributed the popularity of Pakistan movement in Bengal to Jinnah`s ``personal popularity`` and ``organization skills.`` There are observers who have asserted that ``religious zeal`` had prompted the millions of people to support Pakistan Movement. There are also writers who have singled out the alleged or perceived ``Congress mis-rule`` to be the determining factor that forced the Bengali Muslims to support the demand for Pakistan. There is no doubt that these explanations might sound intuitively pleasing or plausible. However, such claims might sound fantastic but not realistic at all.

Yet, these superfluous claims or assertions lack credibility. Although there was religious fervor in Pakistan movement from the beginning to the end, the magnitude and extent of ``Islamic solidarity`` of Bengali Muslims differed substantially from the Muslims of North and North-Western provinces of India. There is no doubt that religion had played a clear role in the process of creating or developing a sense of ``Islamic Creed`` or ``Muslim Solidarity`` among the Bangalee Muslims during the movement for Pakistan. However, there is no reason to subscribe to the idea that ``Islam`` was the ``only`` factor or consideration that united the Muslims in Bengal behind Pakistan movement. In fact, there were dominant factors other than ``religion`` that motivated the Bangalee Muslims to lend their overwhelming support to Muslim League`s demand for Pakistan. The Muslims in Bengal were more pragmatists or a rationalists than religionists. The truth of the matter is that after the adoption of Lahore Resolution on March 23, 1940, the Muslim masses started to believe genuinely that they might achieve an independent Muslim nation-state provided they vigorously support the movement for the establishment of Pakistan. The rising Muslim middle class found the demand for Pakistan more attractive or prospective option for their own personal and professional growth. Their dreams of securing jobs in both public and private sectors, and their strong desires for succeeding in business enterprises in an independent Muslim State, were more relevant to them than religious consideration. The Muslim masses in Bengal had found the demand for Pakistan to be a pragmatic way to rid themselves of the bondage of socio-economic stagnation. For common Bengali Muslims, the establishment of Pakistan would create limitless opportunities for their own social mobility.

Khalid Bin Syeed, one of the most distinguished scholars on Pakistan Movement, succinctly refuted the myth about Jinnah`s organizational capabilities and perceptions of alleged mal-administration of congress: ``It was only after the Lahore Resolution was passed and the demand for a Muslim state came to the forefront that Muslims in their thousands flocked to the Muslim League. Thus, neither Jinnah`s organizing ability nor the alleged Congress misrule by themselves could have transformed the [Muslim] League into a mighty force. The demand for Pakistan…., this stimulant which put life and vigor into the Muslim League`` Khalid Bin Syeed, Pakistan: The Formative Years, London: Oxford University press, 1968, p. 179).

The most relevant question that needs to be raised is this: who were the chief messengers of Muslim League`s demand for Pakistan in Bengal? The messengers of Pakistan movement to Bengali middle classes and masses in 1940s were A.K. Fazlul Huq, Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim, the most celebrated and trusted Bengali leaders of that era. Although they had championed the cause of Pakistan movement, they were not willing to be anti-Bangalee collaborationists or die-hard Jinnah loyalists. Doubtless, they might have sincerely believed that the establishment of Pakistan would emancipate the Bengali Muslims from the economic and social miseries. Yet, they were not willing to compromise the interests of Bangalees. Jinnah had used them to popularize his Two-Nation Theory and Demand for Pakistan. Yet, he had neutralized or banished these doyens of Bengal politics at an appropriate time so that no one from East Bengal (East Pakistan) could effectively challenge his authoritarian mode of governance.

Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Hoque, the mover of 1940 Lahore Resolution for Muslim homeland, was expelled from the All-India Muslim League in 1941. It needs to be noted that Fazlul Huq, the most charismatic leader of Bengal, with more popularity and name recognition throughout India than M.A. Jinnah at least till mid-`30s, had joined the Muslim League in 1937 after forming the Krishak Praja Party (KPP)- Muslim League coalition Government in Bengal. He held leadership roles in both All-India Congress and All-India Muslim League. Fazlul Huq was also involved in the formation of Muslim League in 1906 (he was 33 years old in 1906! Nawab Salimullah had personally commended his extraordinary brilliance and talent). He was the chief of Krishak Praja Party, the party that won more Muslim seats in Bengal Provincial Legislature in 1937 election than Muslim League. He was already a legendary figure in Bengal politics before he formally joined the Muslim League in 1937. His role as the Premier of Bengal was a catalyst in attracting the Muslim middle class and peasantry to the Muslim League. His accomplishments as the Premier of Bengal were beneficial and relevant to Bengali Muslim middle class and peasantry. Doubtless, the rising tide of Muslim nationalism and demand for Pakistan had gained an impetus with Sher-e- Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq`s joing the Muslim League.

Although his support for Pakistan Movement was genuine, Fazlul Huq did not tolerate Jinnah`s unfair interference in Bengal politics. Instead of taking dictates from Jinnah or Liaquat Ali Khan, Fazlul Huq had resigned from the Muslim League for which he had to be in political exile for more than 10 years. Aimed at the collapse of Huq`s Ministry in Bengal, Jinnah, with his ruthless brilliance, personally saw to it that Muslim League support is withdrawn from KPP-Muslim League coalition Government. The collapse of KPP-ML coalition Ministry had devastating effect on the Bengali Muslims. Fazlul Huq was forced to form a coalition Government with Shyma Prashad Mukherji (known as Shayma-Huq Ministry). Yet, M.A. Jinnah could care less. His sole goal was to send Fazlul Huq to political wilderness in an era when the demand for Pakistan caught up the imagination of 33 million Bengali Muslims. Jinnah was personally involved in spreading blatant falsehoods and inaccuracies about Fazlul Huq throughout Bengal. He was called ``traitor.`` It is interesting to note that Fazlul Huq had been vilified by both progressive faction (led by Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim) and rightist faction (led by Maulana Akram Khan and Nazimuddin) of Bengal Provincial Muslim League! Aimed at demeaning and discrediting Fazlul Huq, the leaders of Bengal Muslim League had addressed several hundred public meetings in most of the districts in Bengal. Nothwithstanding his enormous popularity, Sher-e-Bangla was not invincible. Muslim League`s defamatory propaganda had worked. Fazlul Huq`s Ministry had collapsed in 1943.

With Jinnah`s blessing, Nazimuddim had formed the Ministry in Bengal in 1943. For all practical purposes, Jinnah, indeed, had succeeded in dismantling Sher-e-Bangla`s stronghold in Bengal politics. (I have a plan to elaborate on Jinnah`s anti-Huq crusade in a separate article. Therefore, suffice it at this time to point out that Fazlul Huq did not regain his popularity among the Bangalee masses till he formed the United Front with Maulana Bhasani and Suhrawardy during the historic election in 1954. He felt elated and to some extent vindicated when he found out that the United Front literally routed out the ruling Muslim League from East Pakistan).

It was Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy who had emerged as the most dynamic leader of Bengal Muslim League. His role as the General Secretary of BPML till 1943 was crucial in the process of recruiting dedicated and capable party workers. He was personally instrumental in the formation of Muslim National Guards. He was the most energetic Minister in Fazlul Huq`s cabinet in charge of Labor Ministry. He personally cultivated support from industrial workers in favor of Pakistan movement. He was also the most active member in Nazimuddin Cabinet that was formed after the collapse of Shayma-Huq cabinet in 1943. His popularity among the students had motivated many from younger generation to be the most vocal supporters of Pakistan movement. As the Chief Minister of Bengal in 1946, he shouldered the responsibility of lending logistic support to Pakistan Movement. His role during Direct Action Day in 1946 was pivotal towards hastening the achievement of Pakistan (even though his action or inaction on that fateful day in the history of Bengal had tarnished his image among Hindu community). Suhrawardy had also moved the amendment to the original 1940 Lahore Resolution in the Delhi convention of Muslim League Legislators in 1946 even though he himself was a staunch supporter of an independent United Bengal.

Abul Hashim, another progressive leader with tremendous organizational skills, had succeeded Suhrawardy as the General Secretary of BPML in 1943. Thousands of people had joined Muslim League in most of Bengal districts during his tenure as the General Secretary of the party. With the help of dedicated Muslim students, Hashim could bring Bangalee Muslims en masse under the fold of the Muslim League. The numerical and organizational strength of the party in Bengal was reflected in the landslide victory of Muslim League candidates in 1945-`46 elections. Yet, Abul Hashim`s wings of power or influence in East Bengal political scene were clipped by Jinnah and his sycophants both before and after Pakistan was achieved.

Both Suhrawardy and Hashim tremendously contributed in the process of transforming the Bengal Provincial Muslim League into a viable mass organization that was capable of leading Pakistan Movement. Their dynamic leadership had liberated BPML from the domination of the non-Bengali Nawabs of Dacca and the upper-class leadership. For the first time, pro-Bengali, progressive and middle class leaders dominated the leadership of Bengal Muslim League. However, Muslim League in Bengal was divided into two distinct factions: the progressive group was led by Suhrawardy and Hashim whereas the rightwing conservative faction was affiliated to Khawaja Nazimuddin and Maulana Akram Khan.

The most relevant fact is that M. A. Jinnah had decided to nurture and sponsor the conservative elements in the party. Aimed at packing the East Pakistan Muslim League with Jinnah loyalists, it was the deliberate policy of Jinnah to either ignore or malign the progressive members of the Bengal Muslim League. For example, the followers of both Suhrawardy and Hashim were taunted or humiliated by Jinnah loyalists and collaborationists even before the establishment of Pakistan. Instead of recognizing Shaheed Suhrawardhy`s popularity, organizational skills and crucial contribution to Pakistan movement at a critical juncture, the centralized All-India Muslim League leadership had consciously lent its support to Khawaja Nazimuddin`s bid to become the leader of Muslim League legislators in Bengal on August 5, 1947 (only 9 days before Pakistan was born!). With the selection of a reactionary, conservative and discredited leader of BPML for assuming the role of Chief Minister of East Bengal (East Pakistan) over a progressive and dynamic leader of Suhrawardy`s caliber and stature, M.A. Jinnah had in effect sealed off the political fate of H.S. Suhrawardy and his followers in East Bengal (East Pakistan).

While Suhrawardy and Hashim were stalwarts in pre-partition Bengal Muslim League, Maulana Bhasani was the legendary figure in Assam Muslim League. As the President of Assam Provincial Muslim League, he had spearheaded the Pakistan movement in Assam. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani was discredited and maligned immediately after his return to East Bengal from Assam. Nazimuddin-Akram Khan clique quickly forgot his crucial contribution in favor of Pakistan during referendum in Sylhet. Maulana Bhasani had won a seat in East Bengal Provincial Legislative Assembly (EBLA) from South Tangail constituency. However, the Muslim League clique against Maulana Bhasani with an aim to dislodge him from the Provincial Assembly hatched a conspiracy out. His election to the Assembly was declared null and void on flimsy ground. Above all, he was declared disqualified by the provincial Governor to run for election for holding any public office!

Once the establishment of Pakistan became a reality on August 14, 1947, the Punjabi and other non-Bengali Muslim League leaders started consolidating their positions in the Governments of both at the Center and provinces. Choudhury Khaliquzzaman was elected as the Chief Organizer of the Muslim League when Jinnah had assumed the office of Governor General of Pakistan. Jinnah also became the President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. The self-appointed Governor General and President of the Constituent Assembly had handpicked Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The actual decision-making authority of Pakistan in the initial year after independence was centralized in the offices of the Governor General and Prime Minister. Both Jinnah ana Liaquat Ali Khan decided to employ Muslim League under the leadership of Choudhury Khaliquzzaman as an instrument of subjugating and controlling the East Bengal political scene.

The ruling coterie of Pakistan had realized it quite early that the die-hard loyalists needed to be promoted and installed in East Bengal Muslim League establishment. Aimed at humiliating and demonizing the most popular and celebrated Muslim League leaders of East Bengal (East Pakistan), the ruling coterie of Pakistan adopted a deliberate policy of filling the East Bengal (East Pakistan) Branch of Muslim League with the collaborationist, reactionary and anti-Bangalee leaders. At the behest of both Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, Choudury Khaliquzzaman, the Chief of Organizer of the All-Pakistan Muslim League, had literally leased the party in East Bengal to Khawaja Nazimuddin and Maulana Akram Khan. They, in turn, sponsored those Bengali leaders who were loyal to them. Neither Nazimuddin nor Akram Khan had any mass support or charisma. Nor did they have any extraordinary organizational capabilities.

As the Chief Minister of East Bengal, Khwaja Nazimuddin also saw to it that neither Suhrwardy nor his followers have any prominent role in East Bengal politics. He lost no time to characterize Suhrawardy as the ``Indian agent`` and an ``enemy of Pakistan.`` Nazimuddin had misused his official position for the purpose of relieving H.S. Suhrawardy from the membership of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. As if that was not enough of an insult for the one of the most dynamic contributors to Pakistan Movement in Bengal! It is a fact that the East Bengal Government of Khawaja Nazimuddin prohibited Suhrawardy from entering or addressing public meetings in any place of East Bengal. It was on July 13, 1948 when Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah`s handpicked Prime Minister of Pakistan, informed Suhrawardy that the action of expulsion from East Bengal taken against him was a ``matter entirely for the Provincial Government and he (Liaquat Ali Khan) can`t interfere in their administration.``

One of the professed goals of Nazimuddin and Akram Khan coterie was to keep the doors of the Muslim League closed to the most progressive and dynamic members of Bengal Provincial Muslim League. The progressive forces were systematically eliminated from positions of importance by the right wing forces of the party. The followers of both Suhrawardy and Hashim were specifically singled out to be excluded even from the primary membership of the Muslim League. Both Maulana Bhasani and Suhrawardy protested this exclusionary policy of the East Bengal Muslim League. A deputation of dissatisfied East Bengal Muslim Leaguers under the leadership of Ataur Rahman Khan had visited Choudhury Khaliquzzaman, the Chief Organizer of the Pakistan Muslim League. The East Bengal delegates requested that Maulana Akram Khan ``be immediately directed to make the membership of the party available to the dissident groups.`` However, neither representation nor pressure from the dissidents did open the door of the Muslim League for those whose views were at variance with the ruling coterie.

The policy of exclusion had devastating effect on the efficacy of the Muslim League in the changing political climate of East Bengal. Notwithstanding the many limitations of Muslim League, over the years since 1937 this party had become inclusive of the mainstream linguistic, souci-economic and regional groups of people. Yet, the rightwing grip over both the party and the Government of East Bengal seriously eroded the mass support for Muslim League. The ruling Muslim League regime in East Bengal had miserably failed to redress the genuine grievances of East Bengal. The governmental policies and procedures of suppression and persecution of the dissident groups in East Bengal had effectively alienated the mainstream Banglee population of East Bengal.

Both Jinnah and Liaquat totally ignored the fact that fifty six percent of the total population of Pakistan were from East Bengal. The discriminatory policy of the Central Government of Pakistan against East Bengal started manifesting only after few months of independence. To the chagrin of East Bengal, the Central Government of Pakistan had become the exclusive domain of West Pakistanis. The representation of Bangalees in various services including Military and Civil Service under the Central Government was negligible. West Pakistanis deputed from the Central Government had filled most of the crucial administrative positions including the position of Chief Secretary in the Government of East Bengal. The exports and imports were central subjects to be dominated by West Pakistanis. The trade, commerce, banking, industries and other public or private sector enterprises were totally controlled by West Pakistanis. The allocation of annual expenditures for development of East Bengal was negligible in comparison with West Pakistan even though East Bengal was assessed for greater amount of revenues. Most of the foreign earnings were generated from East Pakistan exports. Yet, foreign exchange allocation for East Bengal government was almost nil. Since the Federal capital was located in Karachi, the federal expenditures had no beneficial effects on the economy of East Bengal.

The Bengalis started resenting the discriminatory policies of the Central Government. The progressive Bengali leaders (in some instances even conservative Muslim Leaguers) had started protesting this kind of blatant and unfair policies and programs of the ruling elite of Pakistan Government. For example, one Bangalee member of Pakistan`s Constituent Assembly pointed out as early as February, 1948 that a ``feeling is growing among the East Pakistanis that Eastern Pakistan is being neglected and treated nearly as a `colony` of West Pakistan.`` It was obvious that the Central Government was not willing to redress the genuine grievances of Bangalees. Instead of redressing pressing problems of East Bengal, Pakistan`s ruling elite kept on sermonizing Bangalees to be more of Pakistanis. The typical anti-Bangalee attitude of Jinnah and Liaquat Government was manifested in Prime Minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan`s arrogant response to a Bangalee leader`s question on Provincial autonomy for East Bengal (at the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on March 2, 1948): ``Today in Pakistan there is no difference between the Central Government and Provincial Government. The central Government is composed of the provinces. …. We must kill this provincialism for all times.``

The beginning of the end of Pakistan in East Bengal had started as early as in 1948 when the Muslim League Government at both the Center and East Bengal were pushing for Urdu to be the ``only`` State Language of Pakistan.. The language issue started mobilizing the people of East Bengal even before the year 1947 was out. Neither Jinnah nor Liaquat Ali Khan was willing to recognize that Urdu, an alien language to Bangalees, could never be imposed on East Bengal. They never recognized the fact that the then Chief Minister of East Bengal, Khawaza Nazimuddin, was aggravating and alienating the Bangalee population when he started aggressive campaign in favor of Urdu to be the State language of Pakistan. Jinnah`s ``Urdu, and Urdu alone shall be the State Language of Pakistan`` speeches in Dacca (on March 21, 1948 at Race Course Maidan, and on March 24, 1948 at the Special Convocation Ceremony of Dacca University) had been instantly criticized by the most articulate segments of Bangalees.

In a Radio Address to East Pakistanis before his departure from East Pakistan on March 28, 1948, Jinnah had harshly rebuked the critics of his language policy. He characterized the opponents of Urdu language as the ``opponents`` of Pakistan. He said that the supporters of Bengali as a state language are nothing but the ``paid agents`` of foreign countries. Aimed at castigating those who had the guts to demand Bengali to be one of the State languages of Pakistan, an imbecile Jinnah had labeled the champions of Bengali language as ``communists,`` ``enemies of Pakistan,`` ``breakers of integrity of Pakistan,`` ``defeated and frustrated hate-mongers,`` ``champions of provincialism,`` `` breakers of peace and tranquility,`` ``political assassins and political opportunists,`` ``traitors,`` `` inhabitants of fools` paradise,`` and ``self-serving, fifth columnists`` etc. He commended the Chief Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin for using various forms of repressive and aggressive measures against the supporters of Bengali language. Jinnah had repeatedly reminded the proponents of Bangla language that the Central Government of Pakistan ``is determined to take appropriate stern actions`` against these evil forces.

Jinnah`s shameless advocacy for Urdu to be the only State language of Pakistan clearly demonstrated his contempt for Bangalees and utter disregard for democratic principle of majority rule. In fact, his outlandish anti-Bengali language speeches in Dacca had sparked the first phase of language movement in 1948. Following his footprints, Liaquat Ali Khan, Nazimuddin and Nurul Amin made concerted efforts to impose Urdu as the only State language of Pakistan. The historic 1952 Language Movement withstood the naked and brute aggression against Bengali, the mother tongue of Bangalees. Instead of being silenced or browbeaten by the renegades, reactionary, rightist and collaborationist forces of Pakistan, Bangalees had continued their fight for establishing Bengali as one of the State languages of Pakistan.

The ruling Muslim League coterie took it for granted that East Bengal would forever remain subservient to the Central Government of Pakistan. Although the Muslim League started loosing public support in East Bengal even within the first year after independence, Jinnah`s personal charisma and his authoritarian style of leadership kept the party together. Obviously, the Muslim League had remained relatively a viable political party as long as Jinnah was alive. The ruling coterie also took it for granted that public support will remain constant for the party that ``fought for and achieved Pakistan.`` The real crack in the popularity of the party started manifesting after Jinnah`s sudden death on September 11, 1948. (Khawaja Nazimuddin`s anti-Bangalee policies and programs had accrued handsome dividends for him. The ruling coterie of Pakistan under Liaquat Ali Khan`s leadership had chosen him to succeed Jinnah as the Governor General of Pakistan. Nurul Amin, another Jinnah loyalist, had succeeded Khawaja Nazimuddin as the Chief Minister of East Bengal).

It is obvious that the political development in East Bengal (East Pakistan) was very much conditioned by the policies of both the Central and provincial Governments. The main intent of the Central ruling elite was to perpetuate their colonial policy in East Pakistan through the use of the loyalist and collaborationist Muslim League Government. Both Nazimuddin and Nurul Amin regimes in East Bengal had implemented various repressive and discretionary measures. Instead of remaining subjugated by the ruling elite of Pakistan, the dissident Muslim Leaguers (mainly from Suhrawardy-Hashim faction of pre-independent Bengal Muslim League) had joined hands with other progressive forces of East Bengal (East Pakistan) to mobilize and organize themselves. Their sole objective was to oppose the oppressive, repressive and discriminatory policies and programs of both the Central Government of Pakistan and the Government of East Pakistan (East Bengal). They also felt the acute need for a political party to ventilate and articulate the genuine grievances of East Bengal.

The emergence of East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (EPAML) on June 23, 1949 as the first opposition party in East Bengal filled such a need. The student community and intelligentsia of East Bengal were also the vanguards in building resistance movements in the early years of Pakistan. The students had provided the leadership of the language movements both in 1948 and 1952. The relentless struggle of Bangalees for freedom and self-determination continued till they achieved complete independence through a liberation war in 1971.