Stop blaming Jinnah for partition

The onus falls on Nehru and Gandhi

Emotions about Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah still run high! Such is the intensity of these emotions that even six decades after his demise, a comment about him from LK Advani cost him the presidency of his party — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He being the top leader of the Hindu nationalists, it is important to understand his assessment of Jinnah’s role in the partition of the Indian subcontinent. The crux of Advani’s evaluation of Jinnah can be found on page 818 of his autobiography, “My country, my life”: “Amongst all the leaders involved in India’s freedom struggle, Jinnah must bear the largest share of blame for the tragedy of partition.” These words represent the thinking of the Hindu nationalists, who rule India, today.

To the Hindu nationalists, partition was and remains a tragedy: an act that should not have happened whereas for the Muslims partition is synonymous with liberation. Advani’s autobiography was published in 2008, exactly sixty years since Jinnah breathed his last yet there is no change in the Hindu mindset about Jinnah. In fact, what the Hindu nationalists think about Jinnah today is exactly what the secular Congressmen felt about him before partition. The pre-partition Congress leadership didn’t have the advantage of historical hindsight but Advani had, yet his judgment on Jinnah’s role in partition is not different from the Congressmen. Why? Jinnah’s recently observed birth anniversary provides an opportunity to revisit this debate.

No doubt Jinnah was an important character behind the transfer of power in India but the onus of partition falls squarely on the Congress party led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru because it was they who did not want the division of India and if the subcontinent got partitioned, it was because they failed to keep it united.

The Indian narrative that blames Jinnah for partition is full of historical distortions. Who can deny the fact that Jinnah started as an “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”? Who can refute that not only was he willing to give up the Muslims’ cherished right of separate electorate that was the basis of separate Muslim nationhood but also wholeheartedly cooperated with the Congress in boycotting the all-White Simon Constitutional Commission? He was even willing to accept the Congress sponsored Motilal Nehru Report if his amendments were incorporated but the Congress brushed him aside. That was the time to engage Jinnah and the Muslim League to finalise the constitutional proposals for united India but no one listened to the lonely voice of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, when he warned, “Give Jinnah what he wants and be finished with it, even if he is a spoilt child; the first and the last question should be to bring about unity.” Despite “the parting of the ways”, Jinnah still desired Hindu-Muslim unity; on the contrary, the Indian narrative dub him a “communalist” and a “separatist”. If this was the case then, first, why was the League’s election manifesto for the 1936 provincial elections in broad accord with that of the Congress; and two, why did Jinnah desire for coalition governments with the Congress in the Hindu-majority provinces after the elections? These were the opportunities to politically engage Jinnah but the success in the elections went to the heads of the Congressmen and in the process they lost the sense of balance. Flushed with the arrogance of electoral success, they went for the overkill. The Leaguers were told that they could be offered the crumbs of power in the Congress governments only if they would repudiate the League and submerge their identity in the Congress. It was a clear signal that only Muslim stooges of Congress were welcomed whereas there was no future for the independent minded Muslim politicians.

While Nehru vehemently criticised Jinnah for using the Islamic religion in politics, he turned a blind eye to the use of Hindu religion from the platform of Congress by his own Mahatma. Was Jinnah wrong in complaining that Gandhi “had destroyed the very ideals with which the Congress started its career and converted it into a communal Hindu body”?

This hubris provided the very fuel that Jinnah needed to turn the tables on the Congress. He was successful in portraying the Congress rule as the “Hindu Raj.” Instead of the British imperialists, the “fascist” Congress was presented as the principal enemy of the Muslims. The success of Jinnah’s strategy became visible when within a year of the elections; the premiers of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam joined the League along with their supporters and accepted Jinnah as their undisputed leader.

The top Congress leadership underestimated Jinnah. His assertion that the League was the representative organisation of the Muslims and him as their sole spokesman was rejected by Nehru as an “absurd and preposterous” claim. Nehru personally led the “mass contact” campaign to wean the Muslims away from the influence of Jinnah but had to lick the dust. When pushed to the wall, Jinnah hit back with the demand of a separate Muslim homeland; for Nehru, it was nothing more than a “fantastic idea”. Jinnah’s argument for a separate Muslim homeland based on distinct religion, culture, history, etc, just didn’t make any sense to Nehru, who thought if the devout and learned Muslims like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad could be in his pocket then how could the westernised Jinnah stake claim as the sole guardian of the Muslims’ interests. With this thinking, Nehru could not empathise with the fears and frustrations of the Muslims and the talk of a distinct Muslim identity based on religion seemed nothing more than a dubious strategy of Jinnah and Co to secure their vested political interests.

While Nehru vehemently criticised Jinnah for using the Islamic religion in politics, he turned a blind eye to the use of Hindu religion from the platform of Congress by his own Mahatma. Was Jinnah wrong in complaining that Gandhi “had destroyed the very ideals with which the Congress started its career and converted it into a communal Hindu body”? Not really because under Gandhi’s leadership, the Indian nationalism was Hinduised as “his basic concepts, his moral values and ideals, even his fads and foibles, were of Hindu origin; in his writings and speeches he constantly employed language, imagery and symbolism undisguisedly derived from the Hindu sources …” All this alienated the Muslims from the Congress yet regrettably Gandhi insisted that only the Congress represented the Muslims. The Muslims suspected that the Congress was primarily a Hindu body and Jinnah used their suspicions to the maximum effect, still the Congress made no serious effort to allay their fears.

Jinnah knew that Gandhi was the key to the Congress and that is why he said, “We could settle the Indian problem in ten minutes if Mr Gandhi would say, ‘I agree that there should be Pakistan…’” Gandhi did show his inclination to consider the division but insisted that it must be by mutual agreement of both the communities

Instead of engaging Jinnah and the League to find out what was irking the Muslims to demand a separate state, the Congress adopted the uncompromising policy of outright condemnation. Gandhi made a tactless attack on Jinnah’s thesis of Muslim nationhood in his journal “Harijan”: “The ‘two nation’ theory is an untruth…. Those whom God has made one, man will never be able to divide…. My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assert such a doctrine is for me the denial of God…” The Congress wasted precious years by not bringing on the negotiating table any concrete alternative to the demand of Pakistan. The World War Two years and the imprisonment of the Congress leadership in the botched “Quit India” Movement provided time and space for Jinnah to strengthen his position which became invincible after the results of the 1945-46 general elections. The very League which could not back up its claim of being the true representative party of the Muslims due to its weak performance in the 1936 elections, won all the Muslim seats in the Central Assembly in the 1945-46 elections. The Muslim apologists of the Congress were wiped out and electorally the Muslim community stood solidly right behind Jinnah. For Congress, now, the most crucial question was not to win independence from the British but to save India from disintegration.

Jinnah knew that Gandhi was the key to the Congress and that is why he said, “We could settle the Indian problem in ten minutes if Mr Gandhi would say, ‘I agree that there should be Pakistan…’” Gandhi did show his inclination to consider the division but insisted that it must be by mutual agreement of both the communities and first the two should join hands to evict the British. This was a trap because had the British left without partition, the Muslims might have to fight a civil war to wrestle Pakistan from the Hindus and Jinnah could see through this trap. That is why he told Gandhi, “The question of the division of India, as Pakistan and Hindustan is only on your lips and does not come from your heart.” And again he was not entirely wrong because though Gandhi was willing to consider partition; he was unwilling to permit a sovereign Pakistan. In unambiguous words, Gandhi clarified to Jinnah, “If it means utterly independent sovereignty, I hold it as an impossible proposition. That means war to the knife. The separation should be within ourselves and not separation in face of the whole world.” Jinnah would not take such Gandhian philosophical fallacies. Gandhi may have been a visionary, a saint or an idealist but Congress needed more of an adept political negotiator, who could indulge in hard political bargaining to hammer out some rational compromises to wean Jinnah and the League away from the demand of Pakistan to their full satisfaction. Gandhi and the Congress failed and thus had to pay the price. Those interested in studying an alternative thesis to the historical narrative built by the Congress and endorsed by the Hindu nationalists such as Advani may read the Oxford scholar Penderel Moon’s work, “Gandhi and modern India,” which concludes: “But the largest share of responsibility for the failure to reach an agreement that could have preserved Indian unity appears to fall on Gandhi and the Congress — though it was they who most desired to preserve it.”