HVK Archives: Should Muslims sigh for a second Jinnah?; and a comment
Should Muslims sigh for a second Jinnah?; and a comment - The Pioneer
Syed Shahabuddin
()
13 September 1996
Title : Should Muslims sigh for a second Jinnah?
Author : Syed Shahabuddin
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : September 13, 1996
Fifty years after Independence, a small section of Muslim
Indians continues to pine and sigh for a second Jinnah,
not with-standing the tragedy that Partition has meant
for the Muslims of the subcontinent. Indeed, short of
deunification, impossible in Islam, or of sanctification,
in the absence of an established Church, Jinnah emerges
in the vision of these self-appointed guardians of Islam
and defenders of Muslims in India not only larger than
life, but, with a transformed persona the very model of a
truly Islamic leader.
In an open letter recently, Khalid Sabir, a man of many
words, who now edits News From India published in New
Delhi, invited me to don the mantle of Jinnah, fill up
the void, as the Muslims, to quote him, are waiting for
yet another Jinnah, this time for their "deliverance from
the fascism of the Sangh Parivar". Ironically, it brought
to my mind the historical image of the last Byzantine
Emperor, surrounded by the Patriarches of the Holy
Orthodox Church in the besieged City of Constantinople in
1492, waiting for the angels to come down from heavens,
swords in hand to save the city! In the event, no angel
made an appearance and the city fell to the Turks.
What is worse is that not only the image of Jinnah that
Mr Sabir draws is farthest possible from reality, but
Jinnah's style of leadership is equally far from the
ideal Islamic leadership that he seeks. Are the Muslim
Indians suffering from a split personality? Are they
victims of schizophrenia? Or have they lost the capacity
to discriminate between the image and reality? Granted
Jinnah created Pakistan, as he once said, singlehandedly,
with his stenographer and his typewriter. Granted Jinnah
won his case with the passion and eloquence of a great
lawyer that he was, with the help of evidence he
sometimes manufactured and of the arguments he marshalled
but did not believe in. Granted that there is no parallel
in history of resolution of a political party, drafted
without care and adopted in haste, implemented partially,
if not fully and at tremendous human cost, within seven
years. But Jinnah was no paragon of Islamic virtues that
Mr Sabir associates with or wishes to see in "Muslim"
leadership. Mr Sabir desires the leader to shape and
mould himself "as per the wishes and aspirations of the
people"; to have the quality of transparency and
establish and maintain "close and warm ties with the
masses", to be "part of their collective living" in such
a way as leaves but small differences between the two.
The Islamic Muslim leader must strive to possess "certain
basic and the most desirable qualities, that is, fearful
obedience to Allah, humbleness and humility, patience,
sympathy and tolerance to (sic) others point of view,
however wrong and worthless they may appear, warmth in
the heart, eagerness to establish and sustain close and
warm ties with one's fellow-beings and co-religionists".
Jinnah hardly fits the bill, Mr Sabir's prescriptions for
a Muslim leader or even a mass leader. Except for
occasionally wearing a shervani and donning what came to
be called the Jinnah cap, Jinnah never tried to "shape
and mould himself as per the wishes and aspirations of
the people". By all accounts, he was a cold person and
did not care to develop personal ties with the people and
even with his immediate colleagues. His style of living
was earth-and-sky apart from what Mr Sabir calls
"collective living" of the Muslim masses.
No one-point solution
Jinnah never showed any humility or tolerance for the
other's point of view. Indeed he was arrogant and self-
rhghteous to a fault; he never suffered fools and never
showed patience for base motives, never cared for
worthless opinions and long futile debate. He was
imperious, haughty and aloof and never made any populist
gestures or cared to seek endorsement of his views by the
other leaders.
Mr Sabir goes on to pinpoint my "defects and
shortcomings" as he sees them; how I fall short Jinnah.
In my defence, all I can say is that since I entered
politics, I have always stood for the option of secular
politics and have worked through secular parties. I have
refused to join or lead a Muslim party. Muslim
communalism, I feel, is suicidal, self-defeating, and
feeds Hindu communalism. At the same time, I have also
struggled for safeguarding the constitutional rights of
Muslim Indians, as of all religious, linguistic,
cultural, caste and ethnic minorities and for their
right, above all, to their identity. I have been dubbed
communalist, fundamentalist and worse. I have been
hunted, I have been exiled, but I have stood my ground
because I feel that the survival of the Muslim Indian in
dignity and equality is related to the survival of the
secularism.
I have nursed no desire to enter Mr Sabir's "terrain" (I
call it the wasteland) of Muslim politics. I have left
the privilege to others who think like Mr Sabir - the
predators and the demagogues who prey on the Muslim
community, rouse its emotions and play with its
sentiments. If any one of them could become a Jinnah and
defend the community from Hindu "fascism", some one, more
mass-oriented, less "bureaucratic", more humble, more
patient, more tolerant, more cordial, he is welcome to
take the plunge. Why should anyone seek to "lead" me into
a course of action I consider suicidal?
Mr Sabir finally charges me with not making public
speeches and seeing people. Yet, during the last 15
years. I have made more speeches than most politicians,
paid more visits to the sites of human tragedy then one
can imagine. I have met more people than one can count.
People know me; they come to see me. I listen to them,
advise, and do what I can for them. They write to me and
I reply to them. But I have no desire to carry anyone on
my shoulders or to build up, as local and regional
"giants", persons who are moral dwarfs.
The malady of "Muslim" politics lies in that every
political activist has the irrepressible urge for back-
seat driving. The activists want a leader, but on
condition that they can lead him! Charan Singh took at
least 14 turns during his political career but his
community never asked him where he was taking them.
Muslim Indians not being as politically mature as the
Jats are incapable of camouflage politics. Only the green
flag with the crescent and star and the Naara-e-Takbir
can inspire them. They, therefore, remain isolated from
the Muslim activists, the so-called leaders end up
courtiers or are treated as decorations. And the
community sets its course by every rising star on the
political horizon and runs after every passing bird that
takes their fancy. While micro groups have produced prime
ministers, the Muslims remain incapable of producing even
a powerful minister.
Yes, times were different; pre-independence politics had
a slower pace; it was much simpler, much less complex
than it is today. It revolved round a single point
programme for resolving the mega problem faced by the
Muslim community - submergence or survival on
independence. Today, the political dilemmas, the problems
and options, the levels and the dimensions are far more
complex. There cannot be a one-point solution; there
cannot be "sole" leadership. The country and the
community need capable, enlightened, progressive and
honest leadership at each level.
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Comments:
Would it not have been nice if Shri Shahabuddin would have realised
all this before he went into his obscurantist mood. Also, one needs to
recognise what Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar said in 1945: "(The
communal) problem has become insoluble because the approach
to it is fundamentally wrong. The defect in the present approach is
that it proceeds by methods instead of principles." Some of these
principles were enumerated by the late Shri Hamid Dalwai as far
back as 1970.
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