After stating what very well could be a fact while on a trip to Pakistan, BJP leader LK Advani has asked his party to “relieve” him of his duties. Or, to put it bluntly, he’s resigned after much drama.
A chief architect of the political ascendancy of Hindu nationalism in India in the 1990’s and the current opposition leader in Parliament, L. K. Advani, resigned today as head of his party, amid a storm of criticism from within his own ranks over remarks he made while in Pakistan.
Last weekend, on a visit to Karachi, where he was born, Mr. Advani stood at the tomb of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and praised him as a “secular” leader.
Now I was raised to hate on Jinnah like most good, slightly perplexed toddlers were; my father vividly remembered an “India” that still contained an unbroken Punjab and like many of his generation, he bitterly resented Jinnah for “what he did to us”.
I never really thought of or questioned this until today, when I started to see these stories on NYT and the Beeb. I went to trusty Wikipedia to see about Jinnah. What if Advani was right, and gasp he WAS secular?
A common view, especially in India, is that it was Jinnah who was responsible for “the division of India”, creating Pakistan. The portrayal is that of a religious leader completely committed to his community having a country of its own. Jinnah himself, however, was a very secular person. Most of his career till about 1930 was spent trying either to bring the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League to work together or getting mainstream parties like the Congress (of which he was a member much longer than the League) to be sensitive to minority priorities. When the League was founded in 1905, he was probably the only major Muslim personality to refuse to join.
Hmmm. So Advani was telling the truth, he just probably shouldn’t have told it. I get it. As a dilettante political consultant, even I could’ve told the BJP’s leader to, oh, not stand on the tomb of an “enemy” of India and exalt someone we’re supposed to loathe by gracing him with verbal love like “secular“. I mean, come on. Advani practically canonized him with that comment. Anyone could’ve predicted the backlash that went a little something like this:
Hindu nationalist groups like the Rashtriya Shyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanded to know why Mr Advani had “heaped praise” on Mr Jinnah.
The RSS, the ideological fountainhead of various Hindu groups including the BJP, also protested against Mr Advani’s statement that the day when the Babri mosque was destroyed in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya was the “saddest” in his life.
Mr Advani furthered angered the hardline Hindu groups when he told a meeting in Pakistan that the emergence of India and Pakistan as “two separate, sovereign and independent nations is an unalterable reality of history”. Many Hindu groups like RSS are still opposed to the idea of partition and talk about a “united India” comprising Pakistan and Bangladesh” in their maps and literature.
Sigh. It’s all well and good to molt those hawk feathers and become a moderate so that you no longer have to head the opposition party…but this ain’t the way to do it. Yes, relieve Mr. Advani. Not because he lied about Jinnah and secularism: rather because it seems like he’s done playing the game.
some religious muslism get angry when people point out jinnah’s supposed fondness for scotch and deny that he had to be fed lines from the koran by advisors before speeches because he didn’t know jack about that sort of stuff. it seems plausible that jinnah’s islamic nationalism was as religiously motivated as theodore herzl’s jewish nationalism-that is, not much. the creation of pakistan guaranteed that the muslim political elite, which in jinnah’s life time still mourned the passing of their power with the rise of the british, a base from which to lord it over the small folk. a lot of these decisions are motivated by self-interest, united bengal province was partitioned partly because of the agitation of the hindu political class of the west while the muslim league wanted to take the whole province into pakistan. of course, pro-partition and anti-partition sentiment was contingent up the calculation of political power bases….
uh-oh.
Jinnah was a secular person, in that he was a non-believer and he drank whiskey and ate pork. But he did demand a separate homeland for Indian muslims (never mind that the origin of his claim was due to ego-clashed within Congress) and that makes him communal in my book. Going by the strict definition of secularism – separation of religion and state- he was secular when he advocated for a Pakistani constitution without Islamic overtones and he was communal when he intended the state itself to be the homeland of Muslims.
Bottomline is, he was a politician and he didn’t see himself as either secular or communal, terms invented by the Congress and the Left in India after Independence.
There seems to be some strategy in what Advani did in Pakistan, only that I fail to see what it is.
A day before declaring that he and his Muslim League would settle for nothing less than “a divided India or a destroyed India”, he had railed against the “Hindu-dominated Congress”.
Today, much is made of Jinnah’s partiality towards constitutionalism. On that July day, he had set aside all such partialities and declared: “We are forced in our own self-protection to abandon constitutional methods… The decision we have taken is a very grave one.” If India’s Muslims, Jinnah added, were not granted their separate Pakistan, they would launch “direct action”.
Any doubts that may have lingered about the true intentions of the Muslim League under Jinnah’s leadership, any uncertainties that may have remained about what exactly he meant by “direct action”, were washed away by the blood-letting that began on August 16, 1946, in Calcutta when Muslim League activists, observing “Direct Action Day”, butchered men, women and children with chilling cruelty. – The Pioneer
Now I was raised to hate on Jinnah like most good, slightly perplexed toddlers were
Hate the Qaid-e-Azam? I was raised on the Islamic Republic’s only official idolotry. Two solitudes, I suppose.
Jinnah was a Secular Muslim nationalist. Once he joined the League, he was totally committed to his nationality (Muslim Indians), though he was not set on a separate state till quite late in the game (mid forties) and even at the time of independence, had not quite reconciled to his ‘moth-eaten pakistan’.
Advani knows all this. He actually remember’s Jinnah, for god sakes. He’s a Karachiwalla. Once that last generation dies off, both PK and IN will be able to re-imagine Jinnah as some sort of Godly man, distorting history to fit their own nationalist prejudices.
(Here is the famus para from jinnah’s 1947 presidential address:
We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community – because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalees, Madrasis, and so on – will vanish. Indeed if you ask me this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free peoples long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; 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. … We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State
Was Jinnah secular? An enormous amount of ink has gone into repairing Jinnah’s image. But I invite you to read some of the original material that has been posted on the web at http://www.sulekha.com/weblogs/weblogdesc.asp?cid=29119
Anyone who knows the facts will hoot & holler at the notion that Jinnah was secular.
From what I’ve heard from that generation, Jinnah was a pretty secular person and a very forward thinking liberal. However, he was also a politician, and being the head of state was very much on his mind. He didn’t forsee his political career rising very much as long as Nehru was there, so he cast his luck with the Muslim League and the formation of Pakistan. Of course when a country is formed for religious reasons there is no way it can be created with a secular constitution, but the possibility that Jinnah himself was secular is a very real one.
It is funny but this statement that Jinnah was a secularist is equally annoying for religious extremists on both sides for very different reasons …
“Jinnah himself, however, was a very secular person. Most of his career till about 1930 was spent trying either to bring the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League to work together or getting mainstream parties like the Congress (of which he was a member much longer than the League) to be sensitive to minority priorities.”
== Why do I say this is rubbish?
Because “being sensitive to minority priorities” for instance, included the ideas that 25% Muslims and 75% non-Muslims of India should have the same electoral weight.
All I can say to you is – don’t read Wikipedia or Ayesha Jalal or whomever. The original papers, speeches, and British government documents are all available. If it matters to you, go and look at them. If it does not matter to you, then why swallow lies anyway, take no position on the issue.
Ah the word secular – it can mean so many different things to different people. I’ve seen and ‘read’ some desi people of a religious bent fling it around as if it were a curse word or something….
Jinnah was secular in the context of his personal life. He also held secular views in matters of nation-building and governance – as he says in that “famous para” of his speech.
He was the polar opposite of secular (read communal, muslim nationalist, heroic leader, traitor – whatever word satisifies your personal bias) as far as achieving his objectives of a separate nation for Indian muslims (with himself at the helm).
I am no fan of Advani, but to me, it seems like he was referring to Jinnah’s secularism in reference to Pakistan’s continuing identity crisis as a nation and government. He was probably trying to encourage his Pakistani audience to move towards secular governance of the type envisioned in that “famous para”.
I agree with Arun — this Jinnah being secular is not completely backed up by the evidence.
Jinnah may have loved his pork and whisky but he didn’t hesitate to use the Muslim “card” for political purposes — if that isn’t communal, then not sure what is.
So when non-Muslims in India suggest that maybe Muslims should live under the same civil laws as other Indians, that is a sign of India’s intolerance and tendency towards communalism. But a guy carving up a nation on the basis of religion is a secularist?
Keep in mind, before he died, Jinnah was pushing hard for Urdu to be the national language of Pakistan, despite the fact that Bengalis were far more numerous. Jinnah did not hesitate to grab onto any difference and play it up for personal advantage. That makes him just like any other South Asian politician – only on a grander scale.
I think most people dont know that Jinnah’s daughter married Nuslia wadia (against the wishes of Jinnah) who was from a prominenent Parsee family in Bombay. (This family owns majority stake in Bombay Dyeing Co. one of the biggest textile Co. in India before Reliance of Ambanis came to the scene) As a result Jinnah cut all relations with his daughter and disowned her. If that is a definition of a liberal person than I am frighten to think about what a conservative is …
Anna, a small nitpick. Advani didn’t quit BJP, but just gave up the leadership of BJP.
Just like Bill Frist’s future presidency bid took a serious blows because of the responsibilities that come with party chairmanship, Advani could have been in deep sh*t if he had not gotten out of the leadership role within BJP.
IMHO, this whole episode is funny. Nothing more, nothing less.
My grandpa who, like everyone of his age, was very politically conscious, bemoans the fact that it was the leaders could not keep theirs ego in check and this led to the division. Ofcourse, the British made sure they added fuel in the fire, as and when required.
Jinnah got to be the Quaid-e-Aazm of Pakistan then, and he cleaved Pakistan not to “save” the muslims but to ensure that the elite muslims had a place to call their own and didn’t have to share it with any one else. Many other sensible devoutly islamic but sensible politicians like Azad etc were always vociferously against the division.
Now Advani is playing games using media sources as his bitch, and is manipulating masses. This is not for Hinduism, not for Sindh, not for peace, but for power.
I can’t believe that there are already reputable journals that think that Advani is changing from a hawk into a dove. The last few moves of his have been his best politically hawkish moves in years.
Just think about what he has achieved in one masterful stroke:
He has (possibly) lost support of a small faction of fanatic hindus. Even the majority of them would keep a soft spot for him because of his Babri Masjid “heroics”. Come time to vote, they may go for Advani over the other candidate anyway.
He has Pakistan eating out of his hand !!! Did you guys even read what the Pakistanis are saying? They are all mushy because Advani flattered them generously by speaking good words about Jinnah and shedding crocodile tears over his involvement with BM episode. (He should be thrown into jail for whatever he did during that time, but its another discussion)
Even Vajpayee seems to have forgiven Advani for his previous antics. Getting Vajpayee on his side ensures a big (sensible) faction of BJP on Advani’s side.
Obviously the majority of moderate hindus voters (who by and large are moderate) love this soft side. The muslims obviously love any love they can get from a more moderate BJP.
Other largely undecided voters think that Advani is going to be good for Indo-Pak peace and start to think of him as the next Vajpayee.
BJP itself, is separating itself from the political bane of RSS and VHP. Good news from a long term prospects. With Vajpayee gone, BJP really had no other option.
And just like that we have a renewed campaign from BJP with the moderate and sensible Advani as the PM candidate.
Hats off to you Mr Advani. You have been absolutely brilliant.
The only losers in this who equation – Congress and IMHO, India.
It will be really tragic, if after all that Mano-Mano’s team is doing for India, they lose out on a second term because of our Machiavelli. Anyone who has fed on steady stream of religious extremism for 77 years, cannot change over a long weekend. Hopefully, his efforts will not bear fruits in near future and this Bollywood-esque story will have a better end.
Beautiful structure of the post…. I started wondering about the last sentence “rather because it seems like he’s done playing the game” or is it possible that he just started playing another game.. (I mean game not necessarily meaning manipulation of emotions in the political context) ?
Sepia Mutiny commentors aren’t very Pak-postive, eh?
Secular means different things in different contexts. By modern Pakistani standards, Jinnah was a secularist. He did not beleive that Pakistan should be built on Islamic law.
But by some Indan meanings of the word secular (and the Turkish and French versions) Jinnah is not a secularist. To them, the word means acting as if (or pretending as if) religion does not matter, because it ought not matter.
I think we should call Jinnah a secular leader if he was one by the standards of the day, the way we call Jefferson a democrat even didn’ advocate women or blacks voting
By the standards of the 30s and 40s, in comparison to other Indian Muslim politicians (like the Ali brothers or Maududi), Jinnah was secular. Not the most secular — that award goes to Maulana Azad, but definitely on the Secular end.
Anyway, this is all good for Advani. The BJP is in some ways a lot like the Parti Quebecois, riven betwen hard line militants who value principle and pragmatists than wish to gain power. Advani, like Bernard Landry, has switched sides, and the militants are punishing him.
Jinnah called Pakistan ‘moth-eaten’ because he wanted the whole of Punjab and Bengal, and the Hindus and Sikhs of those lands to live as third class people therein. It came as quite a shock to him when the Hindus and Sikhs of those lands decided that they did not want to live under what in effect would be an Islamic tyranny and voted to partition their lands. One of the ironic things was the spluttering speeches Jinnah made afterwards saying ‘A Punjabi is a Punjabi, A Bengali is a Bengali, they are the same, you cannot partition people who speak the same etc etc ….’ when he realised what was on offer to him. He was hoist by his own communalist petard. Jinnah wanted everything up to (and probably including) Delhi.
Just because you want to re-evaluate Jinnah from an Indian perspective there is no need to go overboard. He was a hypocrite and he was no saint. Lets give him credit where its due, but still remember that from its very inception Pakistan was meant as a Land of the Pure where all the ‘impurities’ ie, Hindus and Sikhs, had no place.
This rage for purity lasted twenty four years until the genocidal fury of the Pakistani army in Bengal brought Jinnah’s moth-eaten land to an even more ragged and moth-eaten state. Pakistani has been licking its wounds ever since.
Ikram,
would Jinnah be considered a “secular” leader by the standards of present-day Pakistan?
Actually Jinnah’s daughter, Dina, married Neville Wadia – Nusli Wadia is their son. It is ironic that Jinnah was married to a Parsi but was opposed to his daughter marrying one.
Btw aren’t Jinnah’s descendants Indian citizens? If true that would be yet another irony.
Oh, and I bet Nehru was truly a saint right? Some, methinks he was involved in the Cabinet Mission too — what’s this rumour I remember about Lady Edwina Mountbatten being quite smitten with him and influencing Nehru’s ultimate decision to not bargain any more?
Point being, the Hindu Muslim antipathy has roots that go FAR back into history – we could bounce back to 1905 and the Partition of Bengal, or we could jump back further to 1857 and 1858, the mutiny and the subsequent “divide and rule” policies of the British? Or we could go back to 1757 with the Britishers “interest” in the anthropomorphic differences between the ‘Hindoos and the Mohammadans’.
I’m sooo sure that if Monster Ali Jinnah hadn’t stuck a spoon in the pot and started stirring, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs would all be holding hands, sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya or the desi equivalent thereof. That’s exactly what happened with the Sikhs in 1984, right?
Jinnah was a politician first before anythin else, his reasons behind creating Pakistan were for power even though he played the muslim minority card. How can anyone be offended or not see that he wasnt a some sort of religious fanatic or even a religious person at that. Even though he created Pakistan based on religion he still wanted to it to be Democratic state rather than a Theocratic one.
cssw, Thanks for correcting. I didnt know about his own wife being Parsee.
The reason why Jinnah was opposed to the marraige was due to Neville not being a Muslim. (I read it somewhere long time back) What hypocracy !!!
As a matter of fact, yes, the Cabinet Mission had a great many interviews with Indian leaders of all types before holding talks with the Congress and the Muslim League. The Viceroy’s report back to London was that only the Muslim League wanted Partition, nobody else was in favor of it. There were non-Congressi Muslims who told Cripps & the Viceroy that obviously they wanted the best deal possible for Muslims, but they didn’t want a divided India. And so on. I really think anyone who can should examine the massive “Transfer of Power” papers and find out exactly what happened.
In my opinion, after 1947, Nehru permitted calumny to be heaped on the Congress regarding Partition, because perhaps he felt that it was a diversion from the very strong anti-Muslim feelings that had arisen all over India because of the events leading upto Partition. In a way, allowing the blackening of his reputation was the ultimate act of patriotism on his part. But reading through the events makes it very clear.
One more thing, the Congress was willing to accept Congress-Muslim League parity for the sake of unity of the country, but not Hindu-Muslim parity. Paraphrasing Mahatma Gandhi, accepting equal electoral weight of l9 crore Hindus and 9 crore Muslims was unworkable and an injustice, and this demand was worse than conceding Pakistan.
If you want a third party point of view, neither Congress nor Muslim League, read Dr. Ambedkar on the issue of Pakistan. http://www.ambedkar.org/pakistan/. An extremely clear exposition of the choices in front of the country, and equally hard on Hindu faults and Muslim faults.
here is a copy of an article about jinnah’s grandson. born a christian (his father was a christian of part-parsi origin), reconverted to zoroastrianism.
oh, and the hypocrisy is not jinnah’s, but islam’s, muslim men can marry non-muslim women, it is the reverse that is forbidden. in any case, jinnah’s wife converted to islam. he himself had a muddled background (i have read he was born ismaili but converted to sunnism for his political career).
One long last, from Ambedkar and I’ll leave you all alone thereafter.
“Have the Muslims thought of this method of avoiding Hindu Raj. Have they considered how easy it is to avoid it ? Have they considered how futile and harmful the present policy of the League is ? The Muslims are howling against the Hindu Maha Sabha and its slogan of Hindudom and Hindu Raj. But who is responsible for this ? Hindu Maha Sabha and Hindu Raj are the inescapable nemesis which the Musalmans have brought upon themselves by having a Muslim League. It is action and counter-action. One gives rise to the other.
Not partition, but the abolition, of the Muslim League and the formation of a mixed party of Hindus and Muslims is the only effective way of burying the ghost of Hindu Raj. It is, of course, not possible for Muslims and other minority parties to join the Congress or the Hindu Maha Sabha so long as the disagreement on the question of constitutional safeguards continues. But this question will be settled, is bound to be settled and there is every hope that the settlement will result in securing to the Muslims and other minorities the safeguards they need.
Once this consummation, which we so devoutly wish, takes place nothing can stand in the way of a party re-alignment, of the Congress and the Maha Sabha breaking up and of Hindus and Musalmans forming mixed political parties based on an agreed programme of social and economic regeneration, and thereby avoid the danger of both Hindu Raj or Muslim Raj becoming a fact.
Nor should the formation of a mixed party of Hindus and Muslims be difficult in India. There are many lower orders in the Hindu society whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of the majority of the Muslims and they would be far more ready to make a common cause with the Muslims for achieving common ends than they would with the high caste of Hindus who have denied and deprived them of ordinary human rights for centuries. To pursue such a course cannot be called an adventure. The path along that line is a well trodden path. Is it not a fact that under the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms in most Provinces, if not in all, the Muslims, the Non-Brahmins and the Depressed Classes united together and worked the reforms as members of one team from 1920 to 1937 ? Herein lay the most fruitful method of achieving communal harmony among Hindus and Muslims and of destroying the danger of a Hindu Raj.
Mr. Jinnah could have easily pursued this line. Nor was it difficult for Mr. Jinnah to succeed in it. Indeed Mr. Jinnah is the one person who had all the chances of success on his side if he had tried to form such a united non-communal party. He has the ability to organize. He had the reputation of a nationalist. Even many Hindus who were opposed to the Congress would have flocked to him if he had only sent out a call for a united party of like-minded Hindus and Muslims.
What did Mr. Jinnah do ? In 1937 Mr. Jinnah made his entry into Muslim politics and strangely enough he regenerated the Muslim League which was dying and decaying and of which only a few years ago he would have been glad to witness the funeral. However regrettable the starting of such a communal political party may have been, there was in it one relieving feature. That was the leadership of Mr. Jinnah. Everybody felt that with the leadership of Mr. Jinnah the League could never become a merely communal party. The resolutions passed by the League during the first two years of its new career indicated that it would develop into a mixed political party of Hindus and Muslims.
At the annual session of the Muslim League held at Lucknow in October 1937 altogether 15 resolutions were passed. The following two are of special interest in this connection.
Resolution 9[f.9]Â No. 7:
” This meeting of the All India Muslim League deprecates and protests against the formation of Ministries in certain Provinces by the Congress parties in flagrant violation of the letter and the spirit of the Government of India Act, 1935, and Instrument of Instructions and condemns the Governors for their failure to enforce the special powers entrusted to them for the safeguards of the interest of the Musalmans and other important minorities”
Resolution* No. 8:
” Resolved that the object of the All India Muslim League shall be the establishment in India of Full Independence in the form of federation of free democratic states in which the rights and interests of the Musalmans and other minorities are adequately and effectively safeguarded in the constitution.”
Equal number of resolutions were passed at the next annual session of the League held at Patna in December 1938. Resolution* No. 10 is noteworthy. It reads as follows :—
“The All India Muslim League reiterates its view that the scheme of Federation embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935, is not acceptable, but in view of the further developments that have taken place or may take place from time to time it hereby authorises the President of the All India Muslim League to adopt such course as may be necessary with a view to explore the possibility of a suitable alternative which will safeguard the interests of the Musalmans and other minorities in India.”
By these resolutions Mr. Jinnah showed that he was for a common front between the Muslims and other non-Muslim minorities. Unfortunately the catholicity and statesmanship that underlies these resolutions did not last long. In 1939 Mr. Jinnah took a somersault and outlined the dangerous and disastrous policy of isolation of the Musalmans by passing that notorious resolution in favour of Pakistan.
What is the reason for this isolation ? Nothing but the change of view that the Musalmans were a nation and not a community ! ! One need not quarrel over the question whether the Muslims are a nation or a community. But one finds it extremely difficult to understand how the mere fact that the Muslims are a nation makes political isolation a safe and sound policy ?
Unfortunately Muslims do not realize what disservice Mr. Jinnah has done to them by this policy. But let Muslims consider what Mr. Jinnah has achieved by making the Muslim League the only organization for the Musalmans. It may be that it has helped him to avoid the possibility of having to play the second fiddle. For inside the Muslim camp he can always be sure of the first place for himself.
But how does the League hope to save by this plan of isolation the Muslims from Hindu Raj ? Will Pakistan obviate the establishment of Hindu Raj in Provinces in which the Musalmans are in a minority ? Obviously it cannot. This is what would happen in the Muslim minority Provinces if Pakistan came. Take an all-India view. Can Pakistan prevent the establishment of Hindu Raj at the centre over Muslim minorities that will remain Hindustan? It is plain that it cannot. What good is Pakistan then ? Only to prevent Hindu Raj in Provinces in which the Muslims are in a majority and in which there could never be Hindu Raj ! ! To put it differently Pakistan is unnecessary to Muslims where they are in a majority because there, there is no fear of Hindu Raj. It is worse than useless to Muslims where they are in a minority, because Pakistan or no Pakistan they will have to face a Hindu Raj. Can politics be more futile than the politics of the Muslim League ?
Your welcome!
Also, the Wadias were into the ship-building business and the H.M.S. Minden – the ship aboard which Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled banner – was supposedly built by them at Mumbai. Anyways…
don’t take it personally but who really gives a rat’s ass about Jinnah today? I doubt if hes even relevant in Pakistan other than the usual lip service. He was a politician and all politicians are hypocrites why waste so much time and may i add space on this.
don’t you think it’s odd to pose the question “who cares about Jinnah?” when there are over twenty comments dissecting the man’s life, decisions and motivations? 🙂
i think that even though you don’t, people care. 😉
I believe what advani did was truly rite.Jinnah is truly seculkar .Secular means not following any religion.Here in india it is the congress party that issues this certificate of secularism(respecting all religions except majority accor to congress).Jinnah was never a religious man he used to have pork,didn’t have namaaz,had wine and whisky all the things forbidden in islam and just for political ambitions he took up to islam.These politicians r just hypocrits not if all 99% are. Jai Hind
Ikram writes “Sepia Mutiny commentors aren’t very Pak-postive, eh?”
It’s a question of facts, Ikram. No question of being Pak-positive or otherwise..
“By modern Pakistani standards(emphasis mine), Jinnah was a secularist.”
That’s a pretty high bar there, Ikram 🙂
I can’t believe that with all this talk about Jinnah’s secularism or lack thereof, no has thought to note the controversy over Gandhi’s use of religious imagery and other things to move the masses. Or Aurobindho Ghosh or Bankim or many, many others. Or that Congress was unreceptive to the demands of minority groups like Muslims, Dalits, etc.
Also, the 2nd Partition was two partitions–the one in the Northwest and the one in Bengal–I’ve seen the latter attributed to Hindu elites in West Bengal being too parochial.
In other words, it makes more sense to try to understand the partition and other results of communalism were really complex, rather than just something to pin on “evil Jinnah” just because Indians and Indian Americans (including me) are often indoctrinated to believe that.
Also, paranoid android, I totally agree with you that this was f#@king brilliant. Either that, or the man’s getting old and is about to retire and wants to ease his conscience before he goes. Despite the cynicism of someone like Advani saying that Babri Masjid demolition was the “saddest day of [his] life”, it seems like there are pretty clear potential political benefits behind all this that you laid out.
“Compassionate Hindutvaism” ? 🙂
Saurav, just wanted to say, that the Hindutva that the BJP espouses ON PAPER is meant to be just that – “compassionate”. Their past actions have not matched up to this, but the idea of Hindutva that they espouse in theory is just what Advani has actually followed, for probably the first time in his life… so need to add an extra compassionate!
It is widely believed by scholars and common folk that the creation of Pakistan was more of a lobbying effort by the elite and rich muslims with not much of grassroots support.
I have also read that this is still a fact in Pakistan. One economic statistic I remember reading in some fairly reliable source(dont remember for sure which one now)is that in Pakistan today 98% of wealth is owned by around 100 families!
I find this really interesting. Can someone from Pakistan or someone who has knowledge about this confirm if this is true,false or an exxageration?
“don’t you think it’s odd to pose the question “who cares about Jinnah?” when there are over twenty comments dissecting the man’s life, decisions and motivations? 🙂
i think that even though you don’t, people care. ;)”
Maybe i didn’t put it correctly, i am not asking who cares, i am saying why even care. What difference does it make whether he was secular or not, won’t change what he did or his legacy. Hes not really relevant anymore and i honestly don’t believe ppl in India would care whether he was secular or not, he would still be disliked. Advani’s change of heart is more relevant here.
Ikram Sez : “Jinnah was a Secular Muslim Nationalist”. This is the most interesting use of words I have seen. Secular and Muslim do not go together, they contradict each other.
Jinnah may have been non-religious in his private life, but this is of no real importance. He forced a partition along religious lines by threatening violence and civil war, and he backed this threat by his “direct action”. In my eyes, such a person is a rabble rousing murderer, not a great man. And words are very cheap especially when the actions of the state under him give them the lie.
I think the passages of Ambedkar quoted above get things exactly right. The muslim league was itself a communal concept.
Secular and Muslim do not go together, they contradict each other.
If you see ‘indian muslim’ as a nationality, not a religion, then they certainly go together, the same way ‘secular’ and ‘German’ go together. Non-religious Indians would then be categorized as Secular Hindus, Secular Muslims, etc, each with their own cultural (national) background. It’s a coherent theory.
But re-arguing partition, the favorite parlour game of old brown men in my childhood, is, as Jatin says, less interesting than examining the reasons for Advanis change of heart. Is it political? To place himself in a good position to beceom PM. At his age, that seems unlikely. Could it realy be an honest change of heart from an old man who regrets the decisions made in his life. Was it brought on my a wave of nostalgia of seeing his childhood home? It seems so unbelievable.
(BTW: Jinnah’s descends from Bohras, not Ismailis. His own sectarian affiliation is unclear (probably some sort of Shia, to the extent he cared) and has been the subject to two court cases in PK.)
Looks like everybody here has misinterpreted Advani’s comments just like the lame media in India.
Advani never said that Jinnah was secular per say. He noted that another person – Sarojini Naidu had said that in his EARLY YEARS Jinnah was secular and that he had displayed that in his speech to the constituent assembly of Pakistan. So Advani did not actually say that Jinnah was ipso facto secular but he was just stating facts for many purposes – a masterstroke as someone described above. He perhaps said for number of reasons including to benefit himself and his party – not to get the muslim vote which BJP perhaps will not get for a long time but to get the middle class hindu vote which they lost in last elections. The new middle class in India wants a governing party which will deliver them economic security and higher standard of living. Both BJP and Congress are in position to do that but BJP has had an image problem for both real actions (Gujrat riots) and imagined paroanoia by the hyper pseudo secular variety parties and elite media.
Secondly and more importantly in my opinion, only a couragrous foriegn politician could tell Pakistan on Pakistani soil that they were not living up to the standards set up by their own founding father. This backhanded slap has been missed by most analysts.
Love him or hate him, Advani is one of the most consistent and principled politicians in India. He was never really communal nor is he now secular. All in all both the right and the left are hyper ventilating.
(Note to Sepia – as someone already pointed out the introductary note is wrong – he has not quit the BJP. Also as other media outlets, Sepia to makes a mistake by saying that Advani has called Jinnah secular.)
Update: NDTV reports that Advani has accepted the resolution by the party urging him to take back the resignation and will formally address the party tomorrow.
Will he retract his resignation? Was all this similar to what Sonia did when Pawar et al questioned her leadership and credentials to lead the party and the country?
Was it to send a message to the party, to support its leader, to the parivar that BJP is not necessarily in Parivar’s hand and to voters suggesting a shift in the stated ideology of BJP (mind you not NDA, but BJP) ?
All this is to be seen, and ofcourse taking a cue from President Bush, I am just preempting.
Internation Herald Tribue has the best headline
Jinnah Partitions BJP
It is a paradox how Jinnah seemed to feel the need for a Muslim-majority Pakistan and yet wanted to set it up as a secular democracy. The only thing I can make out of it is that he wanted to be the political leader of a country, so he went along with all the factors which wanted to create Pakistan (British, imams, etc.).
Deepa, here are some links to abstracts and papers that provide a little more complexity. One alternative analysis to the “Jinnah made Partition! He was so evil!” idea that Anna referenced in the post I’ve read before is from Ayesha Jalal in “Exploding Communalism” (pdf) (these quotes are somewhat out of context here but it’s the best I could do with limited time):
and
Ikram Sez: “if you see Indian muslim as a nationality”. In other words, if one buys into Jinnah’s two-nation sectarian rubbish, “secular” and “muslim” go together. Sure they do in this case, as in Pakistan, because there is no one else (i.e non-muslims) left.
Ayesha Jalal is dissembling in those statements of hers. The logical consequence of recognizing muslims as a “nation” is the validation of national soverignity along religious lines. Sure Jinnah and the League were opposed to the Partition of Bengal and Punjab-they would have more territory to control in their “Secular Islamic Nation”. Things don’t get much more Orwellian than this.
I quoted Jalal just to point out that it’s a little more complicated than a simple analysis that blames the Muslim League and Jinnah for Partition as you’re inclined to do, ckl. And again, the Partition of Bengal had different politics than the one in the west and the overall national one. Joya Chatterji’s book apparently makes the argument that elite Hindus, fearing continued loss of their own power, played a significant role in supporting Partition in Bengal.
Looks like I am falling behind… Can someone point out to me when in his speech did Advani say “Jinnah was secular”. I can’t even deduce even an indirect conclusion.
Another media screwup, it seems.
“What has been stated in this speech — namely, equality of all citizens in the eyes of the State and freedom of faith for all citizens — is what we in India call a Secular or a Non-Theocratic State.”
-Advani in reference to a Jinnah speech, from the article you linked.
Also, not from his speech, but cited in this article:
“He even went so far as to lay a wreath at Jinnah’s, paying what he called his ‘respectful homage’ to Jinnah. In his comments in the visitors’ book at the mausoleum he described Jinnah as the ‘Qaid-e Azam’ or ‘great leader’, a ‘great man’, an ardent ‘secularist’, and as one of those rare men who ‘actually create history.'”
Saurav,
The article you point to is no doubt a stretch about what happened.
Jinnah was always called a “Qaid-e Azam”. Advani didnt add anything new.
The constitution of Pakistan presented by Jinnah is of course secular. If Advani is just referring to that… I dont how one can deduce “Advani says Jinnah was secular”.
I feel pity for UPA who cant make any news (good or bad) and the media is forced to pick on the opposition.
He wrote it in a book!!! Is there nothing short of showing you the book that would convince you that perhaps scores of media reports might have an element of truth to them??? Here’s another example:
Hmm… All it proves is that you have not read Advani’s speech.
Considering the media statement about the book in which Advani has written “There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. But there are a few who actually create history. Quaid-E-Azam Jinnah was one such rare individual”. Once again, how do you conclude that Adavni meant Jinnah was secular? Not all great men are secular. (e.g. MK Gandhi).
Dispecable media. When will they stop BSing?
hammer_sickel, you’re hilarious. I have no choice but to conclude that you’re a man, because no woman, trans person, or otherwise sentient human being could possibly be this stubborn. What do you do when you get lost while driving? Just keeping going straight until you hit a natural obstruction like an ocean?
I find here that hammer sickel may be right here are the two statements given by advani that we are fighting on 1.”There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. But there are a few who actually create history. Qaed-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual,” wrote Opposition leader and Bharatiya Janata Party president Lal Krishna Advani in the visitors’ book at the Jinnah mausoleum. 2.A PTI report said Mr. Advani described Jinnah as
a great man'' who had espoused the cause of secular Pakistan in an <strong>address to his country's Constitutent Assembly</strong>. Jinnah's August 11, 1947 address was reallya classic, a forceful espousal of a secular state in which while every citizen would be free to pursue his own religion, the state should make no distinction between one citizen and another on grounds of faith. My respectful homage to this great man.” Now the second one i feel quotes mr.jinnah’s speech when he was speaking at constituent assembly in 1947. He never said jinnah was secular.Really we can’t interpret it.Actually i feel i am or some are made to see this way that advani said jinnah was secular. Thanks to ndtv,aajtak,starnews,etc.etc.They never showed these 2 statements .They only said advani siad jinnah was secular and that has created undue nuisance.Sad that even bjp congress leaders can’t find the original statement Jai HindSaurav, I may be hilarious from your point of view but you seem to be childish. You are not able to prove me wrong and instead resort to calling names.
But then, you have freedom to take a biased stand – just be honest about it.