This is the second installment in Kapil Komireddi’s series on Pakistan. Click here to read the rest of the series.
On a momentous March afternoon in 1940, Muhammad Ali Jinnah irrevocably ended the idea of a united India: he proclaimed the idea of Pakistan. In a rousing speech to a gathering of over 100,000 Muslims in central Lahore, Jinnah raised the spectre of Hindu domination that a united India was bound to yield. This, he claimed, would result in nothing less than the “complete destruction of what is most precious in Islam.” Muslim emancipation was possible only though the division of India along communal lines, and he – the scotch-swigging, pork-scoffing Jinnah, who had barely read the Koran – was going to lead them to their destined land. At about this point, something happened then that should have alarmed Jinnah. A young woman who had been listening intently from a curtained-off enclosure for female attendees felt so thoroughly infected by the message of liberation all around her that she decided to announce her participation in the struggle for Pakistan. She tore off her veil, ran out of the enclosure, and climbed on to the speakers’ platform. The pandal fell silent. Guards plunged on to her. She was escorted back to her place.
This suppression of free female expression in a gathering deliberating the liberation of an allegedly oppressed people exposed Pakistan’s fatal flaw: it was, to use Salman Rushdie’s words, an “insufficiently imagined” idea. Was the land of the pure going to offer its women the kind of liberties its proponents claimed Muslims would be denied in India? Would the source of its constitution be religion? If yes, then who was going to prevail, the moderates or the bigots? In any event, hadn’t Jinnah identified the preservation of “what is most precious in Islam” as one of the principal reasons for Pakistan’s foundation? And how do you determine what is most precious in Islam? For sixty years, Pakistan has been at war with itself to answer that question; none is forthcoming.
What is often ignored in analyses of Jinnah’s motivations is the cancer that was eating away his lungs. Jinnah was a man aware of his imminent mortality. He was so blindingly thrilled by his ability to exercise power in the present that his actions’ implications for the future never really mattered – or even occurred – to him.
Jinnah’s willingness in these circumstances to uncork the genie of hatred which he knew he would not be around to force back into the bottle rather takes the blush off what his defenders posthumously claim was the purpose of his agitation: to secure a better future for India’s Muslims. Hate and mistrust had penetrated the bones of his cadres. The senior Muslim League leader Abdul Khaliq had bellowed at a meeting that “The real Jews of the West were the British, and those of the East were the Hindus, and both were sons of Shylock.” Even Muslim kids who had been brought up in cosmopolitan Bombay were infected. A young Zulfi Bhutto, who was later to play a major role in sovereign Pakistan’s politics, sent an enthusiastic note to Jinnah from the Himalayan town of Mussoorie. “Hindus,” it read, “are the deadliest enemies of our Koran and our Prophet.”
By 1946, Jinnah himself was issuing calls of “India divided, or India destroyed.” Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, who was active in the freedom movement, went along to one of Jinnah’s meetings in Bombay. He was shocked by the “venom” in the speeches, which “aggravated the hostilities between the two communities as never before.”
In the months leading up to the partition of India, Jinnah was so erratic and vague that no one quite knew what he wanted, or indeed how to respond to him. Lord Mountbatten, Britain’s last viceroy to India, considered Jinnah a “psychopathic case,” finding him impossible to deal with. Charged with dissolving the Empire, Mountbatten was keen to keep India united. He tried to explain the impossibility of Pakistan to Jinnah. Muslim majorities in India lay in the west and east of the country, in Punjab and Bengal, respectively. How could a state divided by over a thousand miles of hostile territory be practicable? Besides, if majorities were the guiding factor, the Bengalis outnumbered the Punjabis. But was it not obvious that, in Jinnah’s Pakistan, Punjabi chauvinists of the west were going to lord over the Bengalis of the east? Now Mountbatten played his trump card: What about the sizeable non-Muslim populations in both states? Didn’t the very logic of Pakistan – bluntly put, majorities cannot be trusted – dictate that these minorities could not be left to Pakistan’s mercy? Jinnah froze: he knew Pakistan would be worthless if Punjab and Bengal were partitioned. He immediately offered safeguards to minorities in both states; Mountbatten offered safeguards to Muslims within a united India. Where was the need for Pakistan? Jinnah had no card up his sleeve. He had been hoisted with his own petard. His Pakistan was going to be “moth-eaten,” with Calcutta prised out of Bengal and vast tracts of fertile farmland in Punjab transferred to India. If he really sought the welfare of the people he claimed to represent, this was the point at which he should have dropped, or significantly modified, the claim for Pakistan. Instead, Jinnah called for partition. “Until I had met [Jinnah],” Mountbatten later wrote, “I would not have thought it possible that a man with such a complete lack of… sense of responsibility could… hold down so powerful a position.”
Jinnah’s conduct certainly bore out this observation. To the very eve of Partition, he was busy acquiring prime property in Bombay and Karachi. And as blood-smeared refugees arrived in the Promised Land, their Qaid, ever the hater of mass contact with the unwashed, did not even pay them an open visit, preferring instead to tour the areas in the dead of night, ‘in purdah.’ This was in cutting contrast to Nehru, who, as India’s first prime minister, raced to the scene of communal clashes on his own, often chasing Hindu thugs without regard for his personal safety, and at least once threatening to blow up with bombs anyone who so much as touched India’s Muslims.
11 responses so far
1 DFL // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Excellent essay. I would add three items. First, the massive bloodletting after partition in 1947 was almost entirely at the hands of Muslims. Second, Mountbatten was an incompetent himself notably his failures at Dieppe and the 1947 partition. Nehru’s socialism kept India back for about three decades. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, was as bad.
2 ottovbvs // Nov 18, 2009 at 4:17 pm
DFL // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:08 pm
“First, the massive bloodletting after partition in 1947 was almost entirely at the hands of Muslims.”
…….Are you kidding……….there were huge massacres of muslims by hindus…… I’m not a great fan of Mountbatten’s but he was in an impossible position since he was under a deadline from the British govt to hand over India to it’s people and once Jinnah and the muslim league had insisted on partition there wasn’t much he could do other than try to draw a line which was actually drawn by an eminent British judge and not him personally……what happened was basically inevitable once partition was insisted upon by Jinnah……..based on the accuracy of your comments about these matters I’ll treat the subseqent ones about Nehru and Mrs Ghandi with the seriousness they deserve since you clearly don’t know a heck of a lot about India and Pakistan
3 DFL // Nov 18, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I base my information on the book “Freedom at Midnight” by Dominque Lapierre and Larry Collins, published in 1975. They interviewed Mountbatten extensively for the book which, of course, whitewashed him to a great degree.
“Freedom at Midnight” criticizes Mountbatten only in the speed of transition, which the authors indicate was made at Mountbatten’s personal insistance and not at the Attlee government’s insistence. If memory serves, the Attlee government did not expect the transition to independence to occur until 1948 and was surprised with Mountbatten’s more hurried approach. The rush to independence without thorough security safeguards seems to have been a major cause for the violence. The flight of peoples, Hindu and Muslim, to the country they felt more comfortable living in was done in a rushed, chaotic manner and Mountbatten’s rash decision caused that to happen. As it happened, the Hindus and Muslims soldiers in the Indian Army performed professionally and without regard to religion but they were overwhelmed by the multitude of local conflicts.
4 imranpakistan // Nov 18, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Hi everyone,
Before you even start to read this article, u must pay attention to the reporter. He is indian. He will be bias. I have read his previous articles and he has nothing positive to say about Pakistan. He is looking for anything negative to score points in the west and preach people in the west on how peace loving country india is or has been through out the history. I wonder why this hindu reporter has not written about India as a failed state.
“India marketing itself as a democracy is one of the biggest public relation scam.”
Please watch this 10 minute video
India a failed state
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuUiWDUBAZw
Also,
” DFL // Nov 18, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Excellent essay. I would add three items. First, the massive bloodletting after partition in 1947 was almost entirely at the hands of Muslims.”
So what you are saying is that during the partition, hindus of india were angels and but these monsters muslims killed them all? what is your nationality anyway? because i just dont want to waste my time explaining something to someone who is indian….if you are not indian but American or british Then i suggest, you study the history, and use some common sense. its common sense that both sides were involved in the killings.
Also, All you readers, please type Kashmir killing in youtube. There is a documentary done on kashmir and the brutal killings of kashmiri people by indian army. This has hardly been discussed in the media. As i have said already, Kapil Komireddi the reporter will not discuss the killing of innocent kashmiris because he is indian. He will only do this propaganda against Pakistan. The reporter is bias. I have written a letter to authorities to ban such people from entry into the country. The fact is that this is not reporting. Indian people are at cyber war against Pakistan. Due to the large population of indian people abroad, they have started working for large news media where they can just concentrate on defaming Pakistan. On other hand, very few people from pakistan are reporters in the west and even if there are, they tend to concentrate on internal matters instead of propaganada against india.
People like me are outrage at hindus reporters and suspicious. Any negative news on pakistan you see in the news, majority of it is written by hindus from india.
I trust neutral media people such and American/british.
5 netizen // Nov 18, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Excellent Analysis Mr.Komireddy. Good follow-up to your earlier article in the Guardian.
Imranpakistan:
You wrote “The reporter is bias.People like me are outrage at hindus”.
First of all you expose your illiteracy by writing English liks this. 62 years you have spent in terrorism, hate-mongering and have produced a failed state, variously described as “terrorism central” and “international migraine”. We cannot expect you to be literate!
In your long rant you haven’t convinced anyone why people should not believe Komireddy but believe your propaganda i mean hate-filled terrorist lies.
About your grievance on Indian bloggers’ warfare:
LOL!!
What were you thinking when you send terrorists to shoot at unarmed civilians at train stations and hotels???
Yes,there are lot more of us. Immediate retaliatory strikes may not be the right way for us to respond. Although that option is not off the table entirely if you try such terrorism again. We have made you pay for your terrorism and continue to work on that.
6 imranpakistan // Nov 18, 2009 at 8:42 pm
netizen,
dont worry, people like you make me wana say okay to sending more people to india to ensure you people are ruined as well. If we go down…i promise,,,we will take u with us…if we can make nuclear weapons then we know how to use it.
7 imranpakistan // Nov 18, 2009 at 8:47 pm
netizen,
i wish for more mumbai attacks in the future…
8 ottovbvs // Nov 19, 2009 at 8:58 am
DFL // Nov 18, 2009 at 5:03 pm
“I base my information on the book “Freedom at Midnight” by Dominque Lapierre and Larry Collins, published in 1975.”
……..I read this book a very long time ago and to be honest I can’t remember it’s conclusions although there have since been many other books on this subject……Mountbatten had a deadline from the Attlee govt and was under enormous pressure from Nehru to bring matters to a conclusion……six months or even a year wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to the eventual outcome…..India and Pakistan are conducting an undeclared war over Kashmir sixty years later so you think they were going to amicably agree boundaries in another six months…..the population transfers totalled about 14 million people and large numbers of fatalities……at one time this was claimed to be over a million but much doubt has been thrown on this number and personally I believe it was probably around the lower 300,000 many of whom were muslims contrary to your original claim……this was much bigger than anything Mountbatten could handle…..once Lord Radcliffe had drawn the borders that were a by product of Jinnah’s insistence on a separate state all he could do was get out of the way and let events take their course
9 harkol // Nov 19, 2009 at 12:55 pm
imranpakistan: Just read your comments again and try and ask this question – Does India need any PR of its own at all to show the world a contrast between Pakistan and India?
No PR ever works, unless the underlying product is sell-able.
As for your comments that Pakistan will sink by taking India along with it. I can believe that. That is why we don’t want it to sink. You see Indians don’t have a death wish.
10 netizen // Nov 20, 2009 at 4:50 pm
imranpakistan wrote:
“i wish for more mumbai attacks in the future…”
IS THAT supposed to intimidate me or upset me?!! which one!
Don’t know where you are. It looks like tracking your IP address and
monitoring you may be useful for FBI. You sound like yet another
terrorist.
Begging and terrorism are the only things you seem to know.
11 Carney // Nov 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Pakistan is a stapled-together artificial state, with no unifying factor other than Islam, not language, religion, or ethnicity. Thus, if piety = patriotism, there is no grounds on which one can oppose religious extremism.
Worst of all today is the Durand line, which, typically of colonial boundaries, slices right through the Pushtun heartland, allowing the people there to slip over the border to evade authorities from Kabul or Islamabad. This fosters a culture of banditry and lawlessness, and smuggling and extremism are rife.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan should be split up along ethnic lines. I doubt Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc. will object to annexing the relevant areas of Afghanistan. Pushtunistan needs to be formed from the Pushtun areas of AfPak, as does Balochistan. The latter will help put pressure on Iran by agitating for annexation of Iran’s Baloch province. The former, being a cohesive nation-state, will be a much more viable way of reining in the Pushtun, with a government and army that can be held accountable, and with a legitimacy that Kabul and Islamabad cannot enjoy. With a national identity based on kinship, language, land, and local commerce and culture, Pushtunistan need not be defined by Islam nor must its government buy legitimacy with religion.
Naturally Pakistan will object to this. If the Pentagon lacks plans to seize its nukes its planning staff should be fired. I suspect that a deal can be made with India wherein the Punjab, etc. can each be given independence and unified with the relevant Indian province in exchange for a non nuclear guarantee enforceable by India. If not, force it on them. It’s important.
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