Understanding Jinnah - The Times of India

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This is apropos of the article `It's time to reassess
Jinnah' (September 15).

Film-maker Akbar Ahmed would be doing a great service to
culture and history by portraying Mohammed Ali Jinnah in
a proper perspective, eschewing both the "demonology" of
India and the "hagiography" of Pakistan. Understanding
Jinnah is understanding India and Pakistan and also South
Asian complexities.

Jinnah was the only messiah of Hindi-Muslim unity till
Mahatma Gandhi emerged in 1920. He joined the Muslim
League only after being convinced that its objectives
coincided with those of the Congress - thus, he had the
secular charisma that made him the front leader of both
the Congress and the League. he was against the obnoxious
system of separate electorates on a communal basis, and
never dreamed of a truncated Bengal and Punjab. For him,
Pakistan was a desperate measure after the collapse of
the Motilal Nehru report of 1928 through which the Con-
gress stabbed him in the back.

I would advise Akbar to read The Sole Spokesman by Ayesha
Jalal and The Widening Divide - An Insight Into Hindu-
Muslim Relations by Rafiq Zakaria. These books deal
objectively in a pragmatic and historical perspective.

Finally I sincerely hops that Akbar's film brings out the
indisputable fact that before Jinnah became the father of
Pakistan, he was a son of India.

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