HVK Archives: 'It's time to reassess Jinnah'
'It's time to reassess Jinnah' - The Times of India
Ranjana Sengupta
()
15 September 1996
Title : `It's time to reassess Jinnah'
Author : Ranjana Sengupta
Publication : The Times of India
Date : September 15, 1996
Akbar Ahmed, Fellow of Selwyn College. Cambridge,
author
of Postmodernism and Islam and maker of a
documentary
series for British television entitled Living Islam, has
an ambitious project to mark the 50th anniversary of the
creation of Pakistan. The major component is a feature
film on Mohammed All Jinnah, which aims to re-evaluate
the role and personality of Pakistan's founder.
The film has been in the news because of Ahmed's conten-
tion that it seeks to redress the -demonology' in India
'where Jinnah is shown as a terrible man who brake the
unity of India and so is to blame for everything.' For
far too long, the Pakistani filmmaker believes, Jinnah
has been seen and portrayed (for instance in Richard
Attenborough's Gandhi) as cold. intolerant and communal.
Jinnah. the film, which has been pre-purchased by Channel
4, sets out to tell the story of the man the way he
really was, while the documentary that is being made
simultaneously will examine the serious issues that his
life and politics represent. Together, Ahmed maintains
in this interview which was recorded at Cambridge, the
film and documentary will prompt Indians to ask: was
Jinnah all that bad? Was Pakistan such a mad idea, or
was there some sense to it? Excerpts:
Way did you decide to make a film on Jinnah?
For the last seven or eight years, I have been looking at
questions like who speaks for Islam today - traditional
leaders, big landlords and chiefs, or clerics, ulemas,
maulanas, mullahs? Or people who are somewhere
between
the two? Someone. like Jinnah: a self made man. an edu-
cated lawyer who spoke a modern idiom. who talked about
being a Muslim, a modern Muslim. For the last seven or
eight years I became more and more fascinated by his kind
of leadership. And this led me to another question: why
is so little known about him?
Why?
Why was Jinnah not known, appreciated or understood?
There are three quite distinct schools of thought. The
first was the Indian school, which was, by and large a
kind of demonology where Jinnah is shown as a terrible
man who broke the unity of India and so is to blame for
everything .... By and large I would call it a 'bazaar'
mythology.
The second school is Pakistani, which is straightforward
hagiography, where Jinnah is simply the embodiment of
every virtue. The third school is the British school
which was dominated for two or three decades after Parti-
tion by Lord Mountbatten and people around him. They
had their own negative view of Jinnah, largely created by
Mountbatten himself. After reading all these I was very
dissatisfied; so it was a kind of challenge.
You are also doing a documentary and a book on Jinnah...
Yes. I am also writing an academic book to be published
by Routledge. The aim of the film is to tell the story.
The serious issues (that arise) will be dealt with in the
documentary. There is a logic, a symmetry to the project
- I, don't want to do crude propaganda.
In India, Jinnah is blamed for everything: Pakistan has
become a kind of whipping boy. In Pakistan, India is
blamed for everything. If the rains are late or a crick-
et match is lost, people see a conspiracy. What I want
is that after seeing the film and the documentary, people
in India should ask if Jinnah was a communalist, an India
hater? .... I want Indians to think: for 50 years we've
had this confrontationist pose with Pakistan (but) was
Jinnah all that bad? Was Pakistan such a mad idea as the
popular media makes out, or was there some sense to it? I
want Pakistanis to ask themselves if Jinnah really wanted
us to be in a confrontationist position with India all
our lives. How can they explain the fact that in his
will he left provisions for his estates in Bombay, Delhi
and Aligarh, knowing full well that they would be in
India. Clearly, in his mind he expected to come back and
meet his family. friends and colleagues. How do they
explain that in 1948 with the Cold War emerging and two
blocs forming, Jinnah proposed a joint defence pact for
India and Pakistan? I believe as far as India and Pakis-
tan are concerned, the key is Jinnah. If you do not
understand Jinnah, you do not under stand Pakistan; if
you do not understand Pakistan. you do not understand the
Muslims and with that there will be a lack of understand-
ing on both sides
Who is to play Jinnah?
As a black man, I'm very concerned that we get good Asian
actors. We had several very typically Asian problems.
If you have a good Indian actor, we'd have problems in
Pakistan. If you have a Pakistani actor, then you'd have
the problem of whether he was well-known enough abroad
to
satisfy the investors that he could sell it., that he
could carry off a two-hour-long English film. We came to
the conclusion that we ought to get someone of the sta-
ture of Jeremy Irons, or someone like him who looked like
Jinnah. That is very important - someone who was thin
and tall. We've sent him (Irons) the script; he hasn't
said yes or no....
Our producer - director Jamil Dehlavi - who is also doing
the roles of Gandhi and Nehru). So we have a good
balance: Pakistani, Indian and British actors. We'll be
filming in Lahore and Karachi. We'd like to film in
Mumbai. I hope it'll work out; Jinnah loved Mumbai.
Was it difficult to get together the Pakistani, British,
Arab and American investment for the film?
Like Attenborough's film Gandhi which Indira Gandhi gave
so much support to, Pakistan's president and prime min-
ister have been very helpful. Also, many Pakistanis not
in government have been helpful. Finances have been
forthcoming from British Pakistanis, Americans, some
Arabs.
Gandhi was a great film - it was an epic; It got all the
Oscars. It was, as it were, paying tribute to an ex-
traordinary man, a giant, one of the 20th century's great
figures and as South Asians we are all proud that here is
a man from our part of the world. But I didn't like the
portrait of Jinnah in Attenborough's film: it was a
caricature. It depicted Jinnah as a man who was simply
jealous of Gandhi and therefore created Pakistan.
I think they (Attenborough's Gandhi and the projected
film on Jinnah) are two totally different films. But.
all the time, Pakistanis say (to me), do a Gandhi ka
jawab and every time Indians see me they say, oh you're
trying to give an answer to Gandhi. What they don't
understand Is that over 15 years ago. Attenborough's
budget was 20 million pounds. He had a great name - he's
a great filmmaker. I'm a complete unknown. I'm just a
man with a dream.
But I have an intelligent script, skillful production
people. If people see it and say, Yes, it's time to
reassess Jinnah, I think we'll have achieved what we set
out to do.
Why do you think this view of Jinnah has persisted for
such a long time?
Well, It shows the power of images in the media. For
instance, the image of Jinnah in Gandhi. That image
existed in a vacuum. Had Pakistan been able to make a
film or a credible documentary to present an alternative
picture and let the viewer decide which is the correct
one, things may have been more balanced. There is no
popular biography about the man. So it is also a failure
of Pakistan and one of the things that is driving me is
that we haven't been able to do justice to the father of
the nation.
Then take his smile. Lord Mountbatten repeatedly says,
"My god, he's a cold man, he never smiles," but photo-
graphs of Jinnah with Gandhi and Bose and with Mountbat-
ten himself, show him beaming. Lord Mountbatten is a very
powerful figure and his influence is still felt. Mount-
batten didn't get on with Jinnah - It was bad chemistry I
think, and it got worse.
Another pervasive image is that he was very cold about
family relationships. He was devoted to his wife, Rut-
tie. It was a real romance - he was twice her age, she
was Parsi. The only time he's seen breaking down in
public is at her funeral. It's the same with his rela-
tionship with his daughter, Dina. He's known to have
told her that if she married a non-Muslim he'd never see
her again. But in fact she got In touch with him after
the assassination attempt in 1943 and from then on they
are very close.
In the India-Pakistan context, in the Hindu-Muslim con-
text and this is quoted in Rajmohan Gandhi's book -
there's a riot or a near riot in Karachi. Jinnah is told
not to go there because tensions are high. But he rushes
there and some refugees have come from India and are
saying this Is what the Hindus have done to us and we
must get them. Jinnah tells them you should be ashamed
of yourselves: these (the Hindus) are citizens of Pakis-
tan. And he orders the police to use force to protect
them. Then he makes a statement saying that I would
rather be protector general of the Hindu minority than
governor general of Pakistan.
Today, on both sides of the border, politicians play
politics all the time with the minorities. Please use my
words - I think the usage of the minorities Is disgrace-
ful, whether in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. You have
this example of Jinnah which few people in India and
Pakistan know. After this, how is Jinnah communal? ...
To me, as a modern Muslim living in South Asia, Jinnah is
a great example of a person who was able to balance
tradition and modernity; who was able to balance Islam
and live with other religions. That's really what socie-
ty and civilisation is all about. That is the relevance
of Jinnah.
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