Jinnah and Advani
By Bapsi Sidhwa
Houston, TX

If Prime Minister Vajpayee was welcomed with great fervor during his last trip to Pakistan it was not only because of the chance for peace he represented, but also because his alleged successor, Mr. Advani, was so eminently terrifying. Mr. Advani’s rhetoric on TV screens and in the media came off as viscerally anti-Pakistan, and threatening to all non-Hindus.
I think the Pakistanis are as stunned by Mr. Advani’s sudden about-face as the Indians are, albeit to more exultant effect. It is astounding to see this menacing tiger morphed into a neighborly lamb who not only calls Jinnah a ‘great secular leader’ and the creation of Pakistan an ‘unalterable reality of history,’ but also suggests a joint celebration of the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Indian Mutiny.
As can be expected his utterances are already being looked upon with suspicion in both India and Pakistan and speculation about ‘ulterior motives’ abound: ‘Is it merely real-politick, or is something more devious, even sinister afoot?’ One of the kinder theories propounded by the Sangh parivar lays the blame for his softening stance on his emotional reaction to Karachi, the city of his birth. Whatever the cause of his mellowing, his new approach is to be welcomed – if it does nothing more than change the way in which Jinnah is perceived in India it will have gone a long way to correcting an injustice to his memory, and in creating a friendlier atmosphere between the two nuclear armed and hostile countries.
No doubt hardliners and religious extremists on both sides will be dismayed. In Pakistan Islamic nationalists have long denied Jinnah’s secularism. In fact they are as determined to portray him as the man who pushed relentlessly for the creation of Pakistan as are the extremists in India eager to blame the partition on Jinnah. Whereas the truth, now acknowledged even by Indian historians, is that right up to 1946 Jinnah envisaged a united India. His acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan establishes this clearly.
I saw Attenborough’s film Gandhi in Boston with my daughter and her friend. They were both around fifteen-years-old. I was deeply moved. When the lights came on the girls were surprised to see my tear-ravaged countenance.
“Mum, you liked the film?” my daughter asked, incredulous.
“Of course,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
“But didn’t you see what they did to Jinnah?” My daughter protested. “They turned him into a villain.’
Both girls were dry-eyed. Furious.
I tried to explain the requirements of dramatic necessity. Gandhi was the hero of the film. As the hero he had to have a villain to heighten the drama. The girls shouldn’t take it personally – after all it was a film, and it catered to fiction.
But the girls were having none of that.
It dawned on me that I had been brought up with a different perception of Gandhji, and of course Jinnah was their idol, the Father of their Nation; to see him vilified hurt them deeply. I tried to correct this impression in a small way in my novel about partition, Ice-Candy-Man by quoting Sarojini Naidu, a leading figure in India’s freedom struggle and a contemporary of Jinnah. She writes: ‘… his reserve masks, for those who know him, a naïve and eager humanity, an intuition quick and tender as a woman’s, a humor gay and winning as a child’s … His worldly wisdom effectually disguises a shy and splendid idealism which is of the very essence of the man.”
Mr. Advani is quoting her when he refers to Jinnah as ‘Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity’. And it is remarkable that he has drawn attention to Jinnah’s address to the new Nation on August 11, 1947 in which he proclaimed: ‘You are free. You are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or 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 State.’
Sadly, close to a decade after his death, the Republic of Pakistan became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Jinnah’s vision of a secular Pakistan was dissipated.
What a relief it would be to shed communal distrust and fears and be at peace with our neighbors. As it is in Europe, where countries maintain their full sovereignty, and yet their citizens can drive from one country to another without giving borders a second thought as they explore and enjoy each other’s cultural diversity.
It is not an easy task, but pragmatists on both sides know we have no option other than friendship. After all we belong to ancient cultures, rooted in wisdom. People in the Subcontinent have seldom fought wars except to defend themselves. They have depended on negotiation. What Western Civilization calls the medieval and dark ages were dark and medieval only for them. Arabian and Indian civilizations flourished. They contributed in every field, mathematics, astronomy, science, medicine and the arts and provided the foundations of philosophy and science the West then built upon. The Europeans have only recently emerged from the dark ages. After two huge world wars they have come to better terms with history and have learnt lessons from the past. Lessons we learnt long ago, but have forgotten. Once we learn the wisdom of friendship with our neighbors we will reclaim the future for our children.
It sounds like a cliché but we are, first of all human beings and religions, nationalities etc. come next. And it is possible for people to connect, to cross boundaries and all the false barriers created by politicians for purposes of their own.
Thankfully many young people in India and Pakistan are refusing to carry the baggage of past hatreds and prejudices. They tell us: ‘Those were your quarrel and your sacrifices, our world and our interests are different.’ The hatred seeded by the Partition is not a part of their memory. That is as it should be, because they are creating their own history, a new history not affected by the distortions and anomalies of the past.
Standing before Jinnah’s tomb Mr. Advani described the founder of Pakistan as an ‘Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity’. And, in writing in the mausoleum’s register, ‘There are very few people who actually create history. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual,’ perhaps Mr. Advani, too, has perhaps created history.

 

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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