The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : A peep into the mind of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 11, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

A peep into the mind of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

Shankar Bajpai

"Mr. Jinnah said that no solution of the Hindu-Muslim problem could be entirely free from risks."

IN VIEW of the recent controversy over Mohammed Ali Jinnah's beliefs and motives in the creation of Pakistan, the following documentary record of what he said to an objective observer in April 1940, hardly two weeks after the passing of the Lahore Resolution, may be of public interest.

Girja Shankar Bajpai is not a name many will know today, but his remarkable career made him a prominent figure once. A civil servant by profession, setting several records, he was as skilled in debates in the legislature as he was in diplomacy. He was the first Secretary-General in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prime Minister Nehru retained him as long as health permitted as his principal foreign affairs adviser, although his clear-eyed realism led to strong disagreements.

What Bajpai did is relevant here in that he had a rare rapport with the leaders of the nationalist movements. His affinities and associations were closest with the likes of Sapru, Jayakar, Setalvad, Chintamani — the so-called Liberals who, alas, could not bring themselves to indulge in the rough and tumble of politics — but he was equally at home with Bhulabhai Desai, K.M. Munshi, Satyamurti, and Bidhan Roy. In 1940, Bajpai was one of the six Members of the Viceroy's Executive Council, the colonial version of a Cabinet.

The Viceroy was Linlithgow, whose main interest, agriculture, reinforced a bovine indifference to political climates. In a rare moment of initiative, he thought he would bring in some additional members from public life. In the spring of 1940, the disasters of war had not yet overtaken Britain, and Linglithgow's inadequacies had added to the confusion about what the nationalists could expect by way of progress towards self-government. Bajpai suggested some steps, and was asked to sound out the opinion among his contacts. The meeting with Jinnah happened in that context.

Jinnah's masterly ambiguity about the nature and make-up of Pakistan has led some analysts, including some observers at the time, to argue it was a bargaining chip. His famous remark about getting a "moth-eaten, truncated Pakistan" no less than the "secularism" of his Pakistan Constituent Assembly speech about Hindus and Muslims ceasing to be Hindus and Muslims in the state's eyes (which is deleted in official Pakistani versions) would indicate that he had wanted something different from what emerged. However, that will always be debatable. That he was ready for the Balkanisation of India is the main point of the conversation reproduced here.

Jinnah had made himself a skilful politician — and politics is about power. The whole thrust of his efforts was to secure equal power for unequal groups, and he used religion for that purpose. Would a different result have been obtained had he been handled differently? We can keep speculating on that too. All that is certain is that neither side got what it strove for, and we are all still coping with the consequences. The following is a reproduction of what Girija Shankar Bajpai wrote after one of his meetings with Jinnah:

"Note of a conversation with Mr. Jinnah — 18-4-1940:

"Yesterday I made a friendly call on Mr. M. A. Jinnah whom I have known since my student days in England. He had come to know the previous day of my impending visit to Bombay and had extended an invitation to tea which I promptly accepted.

"2. I was with him for an hour and three quarters, practically all the time in the role of a listener. I have never known Mr. Jinnah suffer from diffidence. The impression he gave me yesterday was that he felt himself to be on the "top of the world." Doubtless the volume and unanimity of applause that he received during the recent session of the Muslim League at Lahore had contributed to this sense of exaltation.

"3. Mr. Jinnah's main topic was the proposal to Balkanise India which the League, under his leadership, has now publicly adopted as its goal. He began by emphasising his initial prejudice to the idea of breaking up India into separate Sovereign States, a prejudice which, he added, had lasted for many years and which had only been overcome finally, during the last few weeks, as the result of concentrated and detached thinking. What he had looked upon as a day-dream when the late Sir Mohd. Iqbal commended it to Indian Muslims was now, of course with the improvements that he had introduced, the only logical and practical solution of the Indian problem. Muslims, he claimed, represented a distinct religious and social entity and could never tolerate the idea of Hindu domination. Such domination, he continued, must be an essential feature of an All-India Federation.

"India was more comparable to Europe than to any other political unit. If the political unity of Europe was a mere dream, how could it be anything else in the case of India? A unity inspired by sincere allegiance to common ideals was quite out of the question for a sub-continent with so many heterogeneous nationalities as Muslims, Hindus of Aryan origin and Hindus of Dravidian stock. The Muslim claim for separate States was similar to that of the Telugus in South India, who want a separate linguistic province of their own; if the latter was legitimate, why should the former be looked upon as inimical to Indian interests? In fact, he said that as early as 1917, the late Mr. C. R. Das had put forward the idea of a separate Dominion of Bengal.

"4.It is not a feature of the scheme of separate States as expounded by Mr. Jinnah that the Muslim minorities such as those which exist in Bihar and the United Provinces should migrate to those provinces where Muslims are in a majority. He concedes that, in the proposed separate Sovereign States, there would be Hindu and Muslim minorities. But he has persuaded himself that, so long as there are certain States where the Muslims control not merely internal administration but such matters as Defence, Communications and Commerce, in brief all those subjects which would otherwise be federal, Muslims will have a consciousness of political power, independent and complete, without which their aspirations and historical sentiments would never be satisfied. Mr. Jinnah also argued that the idea of a separate Sovereign State would also simplify the problem of fitting Indian States into the fragmented India of his conception. Mr. Jinnah has, however, the following "concessions" in mind vis-à-vis His Majesty's Government:

"(a) That the conglomeration of Sovereign States which India, if divided, would constitute, should remain within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

"(b) That the transfer of Defence should be a slow process, extending, possibly, over 40 or 50 years.

"(c) That this transfer should be effected, not to the legislature of any of the proposed Sovereign States, but to their Executives.

"5. Mr. Jinnah's attitude towards the Congress may be summed up as follows:

"(i) A profound distrust of Mr. Gandhi. With bitter but vivid reminiscence he described how, on several occasions in the past, Mr. Gandhi had frustrated all of Mr. Jinnah's constructive efforts to advance India on the path of Dominion Status. Mr. Jinnah could no longer treat the Mahatma as a sane leader.

"(ii) An arrogant contempt for the Congress High Command. He described the majority of them as a collection of "crooks."

"6. Mr. Jinnah averred a ready desire to come to an arrangement with non-Congress Hindus, but pointed out the impossibility of doing so while these elements lacked both cohesion and effective leadership.

"7. The arguments against Mr. Jinnah's scheme of dismembering India are both numerous and conclusive. The most important of these, that is, that if Muslim sentiment was as vitally and fiercely opposed to Hindu hegemony as he contended, the creation of separate States, in some of which, on his own admission, Muslims would be in a minority, would only inaugurate a series of wars between predominantly Hindu and Muhammadan States, I casually mentioned to him. Mr. Jinnah admitted the danger but said that no solution of the Hindu-Muslim problem could be entirely free from risks. The other arguments I did not attempt to formulate, as I thought it more prudent to listen than to discuss.

"8. It remains to be seen how Mr. Jinnah will react to the declarations made in Parliament yesterday by the spokesmen of almost all parties against the League's demand for separate Muslim States. To a man in whom pride takes the form of a greater and greater persistence in error, the more the error of a course chosen and commended by him is exposed, the declarations will probably serve as an affront and, consequently, a stimulus, at least to an even more ardent public advocacy of his plan. I learnt from other quarters, however, that Mr. Jinnah's newly born fervour for a Muslim Pakistan is no more than a rejoinder to extreme Congress claims and that, if some method could be devised to secure, both in the provinces and at the Centre, an effective infusion of true representatives of Muslim opinion a Balkanised India may lose most of its present attraction, even for him."

Sd. By G. S. Bajpai

Member, Viceroy's Executive Council & sent to Viceroy

19-4-1940"

(Shanker Bajpai, Girija Shankar Bajpai's son, was India's Ambassador to the United States, China, and Pakistan. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

The road to the 2012 Olympics

Putting FM on the right frequency

A peep into the mind of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

Power grids and the new Silk Road in Asia

Similar situations, different reactions

Fortress Ayodhya & the Sangh Parivar

Violent children become violent adults

Origins of domestic dogs and cats

Resilience and guts

Disappointing

Challenge to democracy

Conscience & corruption