Jinnah re-assessed

The Concept of Enlightened Moderation

Madan Lal Kapoor
The Statesman, 27 February

In an attempt to reassess Partition, Pakistani intellectuals, historians and educationists have recently presented their theory of Enlightened Moderation which states that the momentous event of 1947 was not the outcome of Hindu-Muslim dichotomy and animosity on the basis of religion. On the contrary, it was the result of economic disparities and inequalities prevalent between the two communities. MA Jinnah realised that economic salvation of Muslims lay in partition. This view runs counter to the claim of the religious fundamentalists in Pakistan that their country was created to promote the glory of Islam and enforce its laws in its territory. In their reckoning, Islam was in danger in united India. Did Jinnah want to create a Muslim state or an Islamic state? How far were his views similar to the theory of Enlightened Moderation or to the ideology of Islam as mentioned in the Preamble to Pakistan’s constitution? His political career from 1906 to 1948 throws sufficient light on it. He joined the Indian National Congress in 1906 and held responsible posts in the party. He was a staunch nationalist. In 1925 on the floor of Central Legislative Assembly he declared, “I am a nationalist first, a nationalist second and nationalist last”.

Non-religious person

He refused to join the Muslim League founded by the Agha Khan in 1904. There was pressure on him to lead the Muslim League but he preferred to be a nationalist. He opposed separate electorates offered to the Muslims in Minto-Morley reforms. His stand shocked the leaders of the Muslim League who tried to get separate electorates incorporated in the proposals for constitutional reforms. Jinnah warned that a separate electorate would destroy the unity of India and alienate Hindus and Muslims from each other. He was never impressed by the Muslim clergy and he did not patronise madrasas and seminaries. He did not accept Gandhi’s style of blending spirituality with politics. Far from knowing Arabic, he could not speak Urdu. He was not a religious person. He never glorified Islam and reviled Hinduism. He was a Muslim by accident but non-religious person by choice. Jinnah had a long association with Gopal Krishan Gokhale. He supported his Elementary Education Bill by telling the House. “Find money! Find money! I ask, is it such an insurmountable difficulty to get three crores of rupees?” There was a dramatic change from the ideology of nationalism to communal politics. What were the factors that made him Qaid-e-Azam, a great leader of the Muslim community only. Through the Delhi proposals the Muslim leadership tried to assert its political identity. They wanted 33 per cent reservation of seats in the Central Assembly. They also demanded the separation of Sind from Mumbai and creation of North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan as new states with a Muslim majority. The Motilal Nehru report rejected their demand and agreed to offer 25 per cent of seats. It agreed to the creation of three new states with Muslim majority, but recommended a strong Centre. Muslim leaders opposed it. The Nehru report made Jinnah feel that the Hindus and Muslims cannot make one nation. Many Muslim religious scholars ridiculed Jinnah’s idea of nationhood based on religion. Jinnah was worried about the rights of Muslims in free India. For him, “majorities are apt to be oppressive and tyrannical, and minority always dread and fear that their interests and rights, unless clearly safeguarded by statutory provisions, would suffer.” (Quoted by Rajmohan Gandhi in Understanding the Muslim Mind). He was worried too that the Congress viewed his attempts to forge Hindu-Muslim unity with suspicion. His proposal for giving one-third reservation of seats to Muslims was rejected. After the elections in 1937, Jinnah proposed that the Congress and the Muslim League should form a coalition government in the states where the Congress had won the absolute mandate of the people. Muslims became non-entities with virtually no say in the legislatures. A coalition might have given the given Muslims a feeling of participation in the democratic set-up. This proposal was also turned down. Jinnah lost all hope of forging Hindu-Muslim unity. He was disillusioned with the Congress and he concluded that its concern for communal unity and harmony was a mere charade. He started thinking in terms of Partition. MRA Baig, Jinnah’s advisor who parted company with him as a protest against the resolution of Pakistan passed by the Muslim League in 1940, wrote in his book On Different Saddles! : “Pakistan, in fact, never came to Jinnah’s mind till about 1939. I think he was perfectly sincere round about 1934 when he described Hindus and Muslims to me as two arms of the Indian body. When the Congress formed the provincial government in 1936, he expected them to form Congress-League coalitions, which was his concept of Hindu-Muslim unity. It was only when the Congress, wedded to political theories perfectly applicable to Britain, such as majority party government, and not recognising that in the context of Indian conditions a numerical majority could be synonymous with a communal majority, formed purely Congress governments in the provinces, that he turned to Pakistan.” The last chapter of the narrative of the Indian’s fate was written with a tragic note when the Cabinet Mission visited India and negotiated with the leaders of the Congress and the League. The plan of keeping India united was finalised. A lot of hard work was put in by the members of the mission and Maulana Azad the then Congress president to make the plan acceptable. It was accepted but soon rejected by both the parties on flimsy grounds. It is the irony of fate that the leaders of the Congress and the League did not show political maturity at that critical juncture. Posterity will never forgive them for their political short-sightedness. The issue of the supremacy of the proposed constituent assembly and the nature of three groupings of states created some misunderstanding which was used by both the parties to back out of the agreement. This created confusion and uncertainty. With Jinnah’s call to Muslims for direct action to get Pakistan, India’s future was doomed. Communal riots broke out in Bengal, Bihar and Punjab. Jinnah and his colleagues did not take any step to stop the bloodshed and massacre of Hindus and Muslims. His silence over the tragic events seemed deliberate and intriguing. Gandhi undertook two fasts to death, first in Calcutta and then in Delhi to counter communal violence with non-violence.

Indifference to riots

Despite negotiations to keep India united, the country was divided. Pakistan came into being. Who is responsible for not preventing the bloodshed in the subcontinent? Gandhi and his followers rose to the occasion to stop it. Jinnah remained silent and inactive. He never chided the leaders of the League for being callous and indifferent to the massacre of the Hindus. Had he pulled up his colleagues and followers by threatening them that he would resign from the Muslim League if the riot did not stop, the situation would have certainly improved. The only blemish on his political profile is his indifference to the holocaust of communal riots and his mysterious silence about the tragic bloody drama enacted by the fanatics and lumpens of both the communities. Gandhi faced their bullets and died a martyr. Jinnah became the Governor-General of Pakistan and died a natural death. The stock-taking of Jinnah’s political activities may show that he never harboured any ill will against the Hindu community. His creation of a Muslim dominated country was not to eliminate the Hindus in its territory or to force them to leave it. Though he could not do much to contain the communal holocaust, he never preached communal hatred in his speeches or writings. He simply wanted a political set-up where the economic and political rights of the Muslim community would be safe.