The partition of India has been discussed, debated, researched and written about so much that one may look at another book on the subject with the accumulated perceived and projected thoughts drilled for the last 62 years in paper after paper and book after book, providing almost the same reasons for the vivisection. Another book on the subject that has recently been published, is Jaswant Singh's 659-page work “Jinnah: India-Partition, Independence” published by Rupa & Co., New Delhi. Whereas all the books so far have been in the spirit of “Sahil pay baiteh baiteh he manjdhar ke batain karthe hain,” (sitting on the shores, these people talk of midstream), Singh takes “a journey of such fascinating dimensions.” He found it “incredible that this awesome event of the mid-20th century has not received sufficient attention on both sides. It's a great poverty … sometimes I feel it's an utter poverty of our sensibility.” Singh was unable to convince himself that Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a demon in this episode of Indo-Pak history. “I was also unable to convince myself of the ideography of Jinnah as some in Pakistan believe. He was neither. He was a man of flesh and blood,” he writes. According to him, neither “one individual, nor just any single factor can be identified as solely accountable for this awful division.” Halfway through the book, Singh writes “From a negative construct one can scarcely extract a positive product.” The seeds of vivisection were sown, ceaselessly, year after year as much by Hindus and Muslims as by the post Second World War enfeebled British, who “did of course, divide to rule, but we also divided ourselves …” Nobody in public life, in both India and Pakistan, has ever endeavored to dissect the reasons for partition and no Indian has ever devoted himself to the study or writing of a political biography of Jinnah. Singh takes his own journey in the “discovery of Jinnah.” It may be recalled that in 2005, BJP stalwart and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani triggered a controversy when he described Jinnah as “secular.” Various friends, well-wishers and acquaintances also asked Singh as to why he was going on “this path of guaranteed controversy?” Indeed, the BJP expelled Singh from the primary membership of the party on Aug. 19 last year, two days after the release of his book for praising Jinnah. Singh writes, “Within a month of Lord Mountbatten's arrival in India, on 20 March 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, until then a vocal opponent of partition had become a committed advocate of it.” He mentions Mangat Ram's (formerly of the ICS) assessment: “…that the product-mix of British, Muslim and non-Muslim Indians (both Hindu and others), and not Jinnah alone, created Pakistan.” Singh also quotes Sir Chimanlal Setalvad as saying, “All the parties concerned were to blame for this.” In the book, he tries to demolish the “great many myths surrounding partition in both India and Pakistan.” Singh, who has visited the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan in Pakistan, is still at a great loss (as he was at the time of partition) to understand the reason for separation when he found “such unity socially and culturally” between the two countries even today. Writing that Pakistan started ‘life' with great administrative disadvantages, Singh explains “After all, Pakistan had been no more than a ‘negotiating idea,' a tactical ploy to obtain greater political role for the Muslims of India so that they could become arbiters of their own political and social destiny, instead of leaving it in the unreliable political hands of a Hindu Congress. Besides, no one, not even Jinnah knew, or had even defined, Pakistan; the cry was always in the name of Islam. That is why when this dream of Pakistan finally became a reality, no one was prepared for it. There existed no prior assessment of problems or priorities, for no one had known what the final shape of Pakistan was going to be. Yet 14 August could not wait, and Jinnah dare not ask for a deferment.” According to Singh, from Jinnah's point of view, the ‘Pakistan resolution' was part of his carefully planned strategy. “He knew that the idea of a Muslim state, in or out of India, would prove to be a catch-all. He refused to spell the details of this ‘Pakistan,' principally because he had none and his followers were thus left to picture a Pakistan as their fancy led them to,” he adds. The book is a labor of love and a sincere quest at understanding the ‘whys' and ‘whos' of partition, though there is no definite answer and Singh never claims to have one, or to have found one. The book needs to be read because of its wealth of detail and documentation. Even though such treatment can be dry and dull, and keep the common man from reading it, the characters, leaders involved are so infused with life that one feels like stopping them in the track and questioning them. They are not just historical names. There is a human touch, which one does not find in many other books on partition. The leaders stand out with all their frailties and achievements that rocketed them to fame. However, there is a feeling that there was too much chess and less of cricket. Too much mind and less soul. There are no heroes, no villains. Only failures. Singh writes that despite early indications to the contrary, the leaders of the Indian National Congress, in the period between the outbreak of war in 1939 and the country's partition in 1947, showed in general, a sad lack of realism, or foresight, of purpose and will. Ultimately, both the Congress, the League and the departing British tried so much, so assiduously, so continuously, so hard and for so long to break India, that India had finally to divide. And in the end the physical act of separation became just a shabby, graceless and an indefensibly cruel give and take of numbers: “You take this and I'll take this.” On Feb. 20, 1947, the British government announced their intention to transfer power not later than June 1948, despite Opposition's criticism in both Houses of Parliament that the date selected was far too early, it smacked of “haste and panic” he writes. “Assuming that partition had become inevitable and had been accepted by the Congress and the Muslim League, was there any justification whatsoever, for the destructive haste with which the date of transfer of power was brought forward from June 1948, first to October 1947, and then to 15 August 1947?” According to a book on Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy and governor-general of India, the date he chose came out of the blue. He said he hadn't worked it out exactly then. “I thought it had to be about August or September and then I went to the 15th of August. Why? Because it was the second anniversary of Japan's surrender.” When he was exposed to criticism, however, he did not include this among any of the five reasons he mentioned in the Official Report that he made in September 1948. There is, of course, no questioning in any form the reality of India's neighbor, Pakistan. Singh writes “The searing agony of it torments still, the whys and what-fors of it too. We relive the partition because we persist without attempts to find answers to the great errors of those years so that we may never, never repeat them. Also, perhaps by recounting them we attempt to assuage some of our pain.” The book also contains some minor bits of information, which, though cannot be said to have contributed to the final outcome, do deserve some thought and attention. For example, when Gandhi reached India in January 1915, an association of Gurjar community arranged a garden party, which was presided over by Jinnah, who welcomed Gandhi and his wife in warm and glowing terms. In response, inter alia, Gandhi thanked Jinnah for presiding over a Hindu gathering, which Singh comments “was an ungracious and discouraging response to Jinnah's warm welcome and had a dampening effect.” When in November 1931, the Aga Khan told Gandhi that if he were to show himself to be a real father to India's Muslims, they would respond by helping him to the utmost of their ability in his struggle for India's freedom, Gandhi's response was, “I cannot in truth say that I have any feelings of paternal love for Muslims. But if you put the matter on grounds of political necessity, I am ready to discuss it in a co-operative spirit. I cannot indulge in any form of sentiment.” The Aga Khan wrote “our attempts to reach a Muslim-Hindu entente were purely political and without the stabilizing emotional ties of long fellow citizenship and admiration for one another's civilization and culture.”
