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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