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Two years ago L K Advani created a great controversy by declaring and affirming that Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was "secular" and that his main objective was the establishment of Pakistan as a "secular State." Perhaps, he came to this positively wrong if not perverted and one-sided conclusion based on only one statement in Jinnah's entire career which he made on 11 August, 1947 (just three days prior to the birth of Pakistan!) to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in which he declared that Pakistan would function as a "secular" State. Let me quote from his famous speech on that occasion: "You are free, you are free to go to your temple, you are free to go to your mosque or to any other place of worship in the 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 caste or creed. We are starting with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. ... In 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."

No doubt it seems to be an unambiguous statement to establish Pakistan as a secular State. But what has been the track record of Pakistan during the last 60 years as an independent State? Hindus as a race and as a minority have been eliminated in Pakistan to the extent of 99 per cent. Hindus in minority who constituted more than 10 per cent of the population in Pakistan on 15 August, 1947 have now been reduced to the level of less than 0.05 per cent. This has been brought about by forced conversion of Hindus into Muslims through the known terrorist methods of Islam. Hindu temples have been destroyed without any mercy or compunction with unprecedented Islamic fervor reminiscent of the brutal atrocities of Chengiz Khan, Mohammed of Gazni, Mohamed of Gori, etc.

Until 1920 Jinnah's loyalty was with the Congress party and India, the great undivided India of the time. Thereafter his loyalty shifted, until it was all devoted, so he claims, to the cause of the Muslims in India. To quote the brilliant words of Proful Goradia: "Islam was in danger and he was seen as going to defend it in the shining armor in the form of a Sherwani, the sword of his brilliant mind and riding a rabid steed called the "Muslim League." The Seville Row Suit, the faith in constitutional weaponry and membership of the Congress Party all disappeared. It is difficult to think of another leader whose career is so sharply split into two absolutely opposite directions. It was, as it were, schizophrenia albeit of career and not of mind. The best way to go about understanding the paradox is to trace Jinnah's life with the help of his well known biographies."

Mohammed Ali Jinnah went to England in 1892 at the age of 16. There he studied Law and qualified himself as a Barrister from Lincoln"' Inn. Jinnah was never shy of declaring that he was thrilled by the liberalism of Lord Morley. During his stay in England, he came into personal touch with Dadabhai Naoroji who was the first Indian to be elected to the House of Commons. No wonder, 14 years later Jinnah became Secretary to Dadabhai Naoroji.

Jinnah returned to India in 1896 as a qualified Barrister. English became his chief language and it remained so for the rest of his life, for he never mastered Urdu. Even when he was leading the Muslims into freedom in the late 1930s based on his two nation theory, he had to define the terms of Muslim emancipation in an alien tongue. His clothes also remained English, until his last years of his life, when he adopted the sherwani and shalwar of the Muslim gentlemen. He was fond of pork, which is taboo to Muslims. He never offered the Namas, Muslim prayer. And his manner of address was always English.

Jinnah married Ruttenbai Petit, daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, one of the distinguished Parsee aristocrats of Bombay in 1918. She was 18 years old and Jinnah was 42 years old at that time. Jinnah had then become the leader of the Bar and had amassed his fortune. Till 1919, Jinnah was a staunch supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity. In those days, Jinnah gave several speeches in the hope of awakening India to the virtues of Hindu-Muslim unity. With the coming of Mahatma Gandhi in 1919, everything changed.

In 1920, Jinnah resigned from the Home Rule League. Annie Besant, the creator of the Home Rule League, had also resigned earlier. Gandhi was elected in her place and he cleverly changed the title of Home Rule League to "Swaraj Sabha." So long as Annie Besant was the President of the Home Rule League, their demand was "self-government within the British Empire." When Gandhi became the President of Swaraj Sabha, their demand changed to complete Swaraj or freedom from all ties with Briton. Jinnah"s reaction was quick and typical. Jinnah did not subscribe to Gandhiji's view that India should cut off all connections with Great Briton. No wonder he resigned from "Swaraj Sabha." This episode demonstrated not only Jinnah"s independence, and stubborn devotion to constitutional methods, but also revealed his deep instinctive dislike of Gandhiji's mind and approach.

Mahatma Gandhi was upset and he sent a letter to Jinnah requesting him to return to the Home Rule League to participate in the new opportunities that had opened up before the country. Jinnah refused. He gave a clear and categorical reply to Mahatma Gandhi: "I thank you for your kind suggestion offering me to take my share in the new life that has opened up before the country. If by "new life" you mean your methods and your program, I am afraid I cannot accept them, for I am fully convinced that it must lead to disaster. ... Your methods have already caused split and division in almost every institution that you have approached hitherto. People generally are desperate all over the country and your extreme program has for the moment struck the imagination mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means disorganization and chaos. What the consequences of this may be I shudder to contemplate."

The split between Mahatma Gandhi and Jinnah became total and final at the Nagpur session of the Congress held in December 1920. At that session Jinnah protested against Gandhi"s extreme measures. Jinnah told Gandhi: "Your way is a wrong way: mine is the right way - the constitutional way is the right way." When Jinnah could not have his way, he decided to say good bye to the Congress Party.

By 1928, Jinnah was disgusted with Indian Politics and left for London. He was disheartened because neither the Muslims nor the Hindu members of the Congress and the Muslim League had much time for what he contended. He was invited to the first Round Table Conference held in London in January 1931. Again he was invited as a delegate to the second Round Table Conference held towards the end of 1931. However, he was not invited to the third Round Table Conference. The British had rightly assessed that Jinnah had little support of his own people at that time. It was at this point of time, a frustrated and dejected Jinnah, disowned by the Muslims, distrusted by the Hindus and discarded by the British, decided to reassert himself by changing his ways and methods. He threw away the baggage of his past. And with his own hands started digging the grave of Hindu-Muslim unity, to which he had devoted his years till 1918. This was brought about by a combination of unforeseen fortuitous circumstances.

Liaquat Ali Khan went to England in 1933 and persuaded Jinnah to return to India to work for the emancipation of Muslims. Jinnah returned to India in January 1935. He soon got in touch with all the Muslim leaders and quickly reorganized the Muslim League. In short, Jinnah politically converted himself into a 100 per cent rabid Muslim Communalist in order to become the Sultan of at least a part of India. In a matter of 12 years he created the new State of Pakistan in 1947. He had laid the foundation for this by his famous speech at the Lahore session of the Muslim League held on 23 March, 1940 when the Muslim League passed the "Pakistan Resolution." Jinnah declared on that occasion: "It has always been taken for granted that Musalmans are a minority. The Musalmans are a nation by definition. ... The Hindus and Musalmans belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. To yoke together two such nations under a single State, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the Government of such a State." Thus with great conceptual clarity and conviction Jinnah succeeded in creating a non-secular Islamic State. Alas! Gandhi and Nehru steeped in mutual conceptual confusion and total want of clarity, created a quasi-fraudulent, purposeless, aimless, directionless pseudo-secular non-State!!


V Sundaram, IAS, Retd.

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