Jinnah’s Pakistan

“It was the Congress’s intransigence and arrogant refusal to acknowledge that it had failed to gain even the tiniest mandate from India’s Muslims. As a result, this moved Jinnah to build a consensus that resulted, first, in the Cabinet Mission Plan, and once that failed, in Pakistan.”

That’s a complete falsehood, I mean lie. In 1937 elections, Muslim League won only 4% of the total Muslim votes. At this point they turned to the retrogressive forces among Indian Muslims using an ‘Islam in danger’ rhetoric and selling the idea of a land separate from the ‘Kuffarstan” that India was to become. That’s how they increased their vote share and that’s how Pakistan was born.Recommend

One keeps hearing that it was the Congress’s ‘intransigence’ in rejecting the Cabinet Mission Proposal that led to partition. This seems to view the CMP as a well thought out, good blueprint for an Independent India.

My perception is that the CMP was a disaster since it would have led to a weak centred many splintered nation (since the princely states would have continued to exist) with religion as a major fault line. The Balkanization of this India would have been inevitable and social progress and building nation wide progressive policies & institutions impossible. The India of 1947 had rampant social and income disadvantages due to caste & gender, overwhelming poverty and other social inequities galore. What was needed was a strong centre which could bring about social and economic change while still giving space to the regions which was what was realized in the final partitioned India. This would have been impossible under a CMP India since the centre would have had control over just defence and foreign affairs.

As MJ Akbar says in his article, Jaswant’s Jinnah: Dividing India to save it “The provisions of the Plan could have left the political map of India an utter horror story, enmeshed by potentially rebellious Princely States, and ‘Groupings’ with their own executives and Constituent Assemblies, buttressed by the right to secede in 10 years. Jinnah might have been content with a ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. Nehru would not accept a ‘moth-eaten’ India.”Recommend

“Muslims all over the world often talk longingly of the Empire they had lost, of their past greatness, of their domination of the world . They had ruled Spain for 800 years and much of Eastern Europe for almost 400 years. They even talk of their past mastery of the sciences, they forget that for all their brilliance they cannot answer the question “why “. They cannot answer why there is life in the world, why there is a universe, why matter acts in the way it does, why oxygen and hydrogen form water and a myriad other chemical and physical reactions.

They may know how all those things happen but never why. They are not the genius they think they are. And because the human race is becoming more and more arrogant, religion and spiritual values are needed even more. And Islam can provide the spiritual values, to those who believe and to those who don’t. The Islam that can provide these values is fundamental Islam, the truly fundamental Islam which advocates peace, charity and caring, not the Islam which commits crimes and calls out the name of Allah to justify it.

The 21st Century is not relevant to the Muslims. It is just a period in time. But the 21st Century will see many changes and the Muslims will be a part of these changes whether they like it or not. It is better for them to face the 21st Century with their eyes wide open and with a clear vision of what they want to do and the role they wish to play. And if they chose to play a constructive role while retaining their faith, as well as their spiritual values and their true brotherhood, they would be able to contribute positively to the development of mankind, to put it on an even keel again and to prevent the self-destruct course which the human race appears to be heading for. The Muslims can be a force for human good in the 21st Century.”

~~ Dr Mahathir MohammadRecommend