Jinnah the Nationalist, Jinnah the Secularist: @ Kuldeep Kumar: I venture to suggest that Jinnah was one of the great Indian nationalists since he had joined the Indian National Congress in 1906 and remained with it till his parting of ways according to his own reckoning. He was one who had opposed the formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906 and advised the Muslims to join the Congress. He was the moving force behind the signing of the historic National Pact signed in 1916 between the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League. He along with the League had joined the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement launched by the Indian National Congress in 1920. At the same time, he was a secularized and a secularist Indian liberal of the variety of the first generation of the Indian Babus. He was an Indian nationalist till 1946 when he had accepted the Cabinet Missions Unity Plan but backtracked when it was wrecked by the Congress. He was secularist till his end because he had advised the Pakistan Constituent Assembly to create a non-sectarian, secular state. Jinnahs transformation may be traced to his humiliation at the All Parties Conference held under the auspices of the Congress to approve the Nehru Report of 1928 (His demand of inclusion of four Muslim demands were rejected outright). He left India to live in exile in England but was persuaded to come back in 1935 to lead the Muslim League. The rest is history. Anybody who looks impartially at Congresss refusal to accommodate the League in its ministries, later declaring it as an anti-national body and launching a campaign to finish it politically, the exclusion of the League from the Quit-India Movement, and Nehrus treacherous torpedoing of the Cabinet Mission Plan, among other developments, could very well understand the transformation of Jinnah from a pro-Congress leader to a formidable anti-Congress force. To me, the power struggle during 1937-1947 had its roots not in race, religion or ideology but in the sheer lust of parties and personalities for undivided power. In this game the majority party is to be blamed more than the minority party.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 11:51:14 +0000