Author: Jaswant Singh
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 669
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788129113788

Description

The Partition of India, 1947, some call it vivisection as Gandhi had, has without doubt been the most wounding trauma of the twentieth century. It has seared the psyche of four plus generations of this subcontinent. Why did this partition take place at all? Who was/is responsible Jinnah? The Congress Party? Or the British? Jaswant Singh attempts to find an answer, his answer, for there can perhaps not be a definitive answer, yet the author searches. Jinnahs political journey began as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity (Gopal Krishna Gokhale), yet ended with his becoming the sole spokesman of Muslims in India; the creator of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam: How and why did transformation take place.

No Indian or Pakistani politician/Member of Parliament has ventured an analytical, political biography of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, about whom views necessarily get divided as being either hagiographical or additional demonology. The book attempts an objective evaluation. Jaswant Singhs experience as a minister responsible for the conduct of Indias foreign policy, managing the countrys defence(concurrently), had been uniformly challenging (Lahore Peace Process; betrayed at Kargil; Kandahar; the Agra Peace Summit; the attack on Jammu & Kashmir Assembly and the Indian Parliament; coercive diplomacy of 2002; the pace overtures reinitiated in April 2003).

He asks where and when did this questionable thesis of Muslims as a separate nation first originate and lead the Indian sub-continent to? And where did it drag Pakistan to? Whey then a Bangladesh? And what now of Pakistan? Where is headed? This book is special; it stands apart, for it is authored by a practitioner of policy, an innovator of policies in search of definitive answers. Those burning whys of the last sixty-two years, which bedevil us still. Jaswant Singh believes that for the return of lasting peace in South Asia there is no alternative but to first understand what made it abandon us in the first place. Until we do that, a minimum, a must, we will never be able to persuade peace to return.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION: A Complex Opening

1 India and Islam

2 Jenabhai to Jinnah: The Journey

3 The Turbulent Twenties

4 Sharpening Focus Narrowing Options

5 A Short Decade A Long End Came

6 Sunset of the Empire Post-dated Cheque on a Collapsing Bank

7 A War of Succession Diverging Paths

8 Stymied Negotiations?

9 Mountbatten Viceroyalty: The End of the Raj

10 Pakistan: Birth Independence -: The Quaid-e-Azams Last Journey

11 In Retrospect

APPENDICES

Appendix to Chapter I

Appendix I

The Simla Delegation and the Formation of the Muslim League

Appendices to Chapter 2

Appendix I

Minto-Morley Reforms (1909)

Appendix II

The official British opinion on the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms

Appendix III

Lucknow Pact

Appendix to Chapter 5

Appendix I

The Elections of 1937

Appendices to Chapter 6

Appendix I

The Cripps Mission Plan, 1942

Appendix II

The C.R. Formula, 1943

Appendix III

Gandhis offer as Revealed in his letter to Jinnah, 24 September 1944

Appendix IV

The Desai Formula

Appendix V

Wavell on Gandhi-Jinnah talks 30 September 1944

Appendices to Chapter 8

Appendix I

The Wavell Plan, 1945

Appendix II

The Muslim Legislators Convention, 1946

Appendix III

Muslim Leagues Memorandum to the Cabinet Mission

Appendix IV

Congress Proposals to the Cabinet Mission

Appendix V

The Cabinet Mission Plan, 1946

Appendix VI

The 3 June 1947 Statement

Appendix VII

Wavell-Gandhi-Nehru-27 September 1946 Post Calcutta killings

Appendix VIII

Wavell The Vicreoys Journal Ed. By Penderel Moon

Appendix IX

Note by Field Marshal Sir C. Auchinleck

Appendix X

The Long-Term Plan

Appendix XI

The Congress submitted panel of 15 names for the proposed Executive Council

Appendix XII

Appendix to Chapter 10

Appendix I

Quaid-i-Azams Message to Hindustan 7 August 1947

Appendices to Chapter II

Appendix I

Mr. Jinnahs Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan

Appendix II

Speech Delivered by Maulana Azad at Jama Masjid of Delhi on 23-10-1947

Appendix III

Dialogue between the Author, Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, Professors of Political Science Emeritus, University of Chicago

Endnotes

Index