Abstract
The book under review Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence written by Jaswant
Singh,ex Indian Foreign Minister of BJP Government, is a large size, hard cover that also
contains over twenty seven pictures of Jinnah and maps of Punjab, Assam and Bengal as well.
Jaswant Singh paid a heavy cost on writing such book that was not less than his expulsion from
the basic membership of BJP. The book was later banned in Gujarat. Jaswant Singh, ex- Indian
Army officer, hails from a Rajput family of Jodhpur, Indian State of Rajasthan. He is one of the
few political leaders who served as a Finance Minister, Foreign Minister and Defense minister of
India in different political regimes and prolific writers who have many renowned books on his
credit. His earlier work include; Defending India (Feb 15, 1999), District Diary (2001), Guru Ke
Bete (Punjabi) (2002), Jiwni Baba Sangat Singh Ji (Punjabi) (2002), A Call to Honour: In
Service of Emergent India (2006), Travels in Transoxiana (2006), Khankhana Nama (Hindi)
(2006), Shoor Shoorma (2007), Till Memory Serves: Victoria Cross Winners Of India (2007),
Conflict And Diplomacy East Pakistan Becomes Bangladesh (2008), Our Republic Post 6
December 1992: A Dialogue ,2008. His judicious political views, civility, self-confidence,
jingoism and liberal egalitarian personality earned him Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for
the year 2001.
The book ‘Jinnah, India, Independence’ is unique in its own kind which has been authored by
one of the founding members of hard lining BJP that has never accepted the idea of partition over
the last sixty three years. The author very boldly puts the culpability for division of India in 1947
on Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the Indian National Congress rather than
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The book portrays the political life sketch of Jinnah from being the
Indian nationalist and ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, to the defender of the Muslim rights
*
Israj khan, Research Scholar, M.Phil Pakistan Studies, Department of Pakistan Studies, Islamia
College University, Peshawar, Pakistan. E-mail: sraj.khan@yahoo.com
Book review: Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences. Vol.3 No.2
268
and lastly to a stubborn Ideologue of the ideology of Pakistan. The squabble followed by him,
certainly, confirms Jinnah not only the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan but also of the entire South
Asia. The author terms the vivisection of India as ‘wounding trauma’ because the creation of two
states faced disgusting massacre on both sides. This bifurcation not only created two separate
national ideologies but narratives of communal distrust and an enduring vendetta. The author’s
contention based on his postcolonial assessment of Indian history is that the
Indian Muslim scrupulous uniqueness and Muslim nationalism preceded the augment of Hindu
nationalism. The main theme of the book revolves around answering the questions like:
Why did the division of the India take place at all?
And who was to blame? By whom fault?
How and why did this alteration get consign?
Using established theories of nationalism-including mechanism of Kalhana, Ram Gopal Mishra,
C.H. Philips, Herodotus, Ibn Khaldun and others, he investigated the literary, political, and
sanctified texts shaped by the Pakistanis and Indian instigators. The author solicits where and
when did Two Nations Theory originate and where does it escort the Indo-Pak Subcontinent. He
believes that revitalizing of long-lasting serenity and harmony in South Asia is only possible
when we first realize and value what made Muslims ‘abandon’ us in the first place.
Israj Khan. (2010) Book Review Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence, Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences, Volume-03, Issue-2.
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