Jinnah Vs Gandhi

Title: Jinnah Vs Gandhi

Author: Roderick Matthews

Publisher: Hachette India 2012 (First)

ISBN: 978-81-9061-739-0

Pages: 301

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the fathers of the modern Indian and Pakistani nations respectively, has attracted the attention of many political thinkers, journalists and writers throughout the world. Even after 65 years after they departed from this world, the very notion that present-day analysts are still sufficiently lured by their charisma to attempt a comparative analysis of their political lives is proof of the special niches the two great leaders have carved out for themselves in the national mindset of both India and Pakistan. Roderick Matthews is a freelance writer living in London, specializing in Indian history. He has a personal link to the legacy of Gandhi as it was his great-grandmother, Lady Cecilia Roberts who had looked after him when he fell ill on a visit to London in 1914. However, the author has not harboured any irrational soft feelings to the half-naked fakir and has subjected him to a sharp and impartial analysis.

Gandhi and Jinnah were the undisputed leaders of political factions they represented in pre-independent India. But, the similarity seems to end there. Gandhi was an idealist, who believed in moral truth as the foundation for all outward manifestations of personal conduct. Even when discussing issues of national and international ramifications, he believed in the inner lights of the individuals participating in the deliberations and the wonders ‘a change of heart’ can do for the individual as well as the country. As a result of this coupling at the personal level, he enjoyed a wide and varied friendship. Contrary to this, Jinnah was a liberal at first who later modified his program to protection of Muslims against a supposed Hindu tyranny as his sole agenda. Means was not a bother for him when the end justified it. While Gandhi was open and inclusive, Jinnah was reticent and defensive. Ahimsa, or non-violence was Gandhi’s creed which he believed could be extended to all struggles against oppressors, if the protests are staged in a sufficiently massive scale. He could convincingly prove his point as the British left, though not immediately and the transition of power was less violent than perhaps it might’ve been if confronted with more force.

In fact, it was not Jinnah who first termed Indian Muslims as a nation. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had already done this in late 19^th century. Establishment of Muslim League in 1906 gave a political platform for such ideas to be publicly expressed. Jinnah propounded his two-nation theory only in 1937 when avenues of cooperation with belligerent Congress leaders appeared to have closed down. But, the very idea that Muslims constituted a monolithic state arching over the sub-nationalities was proved conclusively false in 1971 when another Muslim state, Bangladesh, was carved out of Pakistan as a result of popular uprising and Indian military support. However, there were points in which Jinnah was proved correct in the 1920s. In a bid to find a moral issue to unite Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi initiated the Khilafat (Caliphate) movement which demanded the restoration of the Ottoman Sultan dethroned by British in 1918. The concept of  caliph was an anachronistic one which Jinnah thought unworthy to fight for. Gandhi went along with his plan and at many places, the struggle degenerated into an orgy of frightfulness. In Malabar, the Muslim protestors turned against the British and their Hindu neighbours in a violent paroxysm of murder, looting, arson, rape and forced conversions to Islam on a scale unheard of in Kerala. Gandhi’s pathetic reaction to this was that they were religious men fighting for their religion in a way they considered religious (p.40).

The Montagu-Chelmsford recommendations (1919) paved the way for constitutional reforms in India. It provided a sense of direction to India’s politicians who were stranded at the end of World War I, in search of the path to self-determination. Gandhi’s campaigns which ensured participation of the masses transplanted politics from the drawing rooms to the streets. This estranged Muslim League as they feared that in a popular upsurge, the majority community stands to exert a powerful hold in all avenues of power. Widespread communal riots in the mid-1920s and opposition to Simon Commission (1928) put Congress and the League in different boats. Jinnah was effectively sidelined in this period due to disunity in his party. Dominant provincial leaders like Fazl-i-Husain of Punjab was more interested in provincial autonomy under a weak central regime while Jinnah wanted a strong government at the centre.

The provincial governments which assumed power in 1937 as a result of the Government of India Act, 1935 was a watershed moment in national politics. Jinnah’s Muslim League was convincingly routed everywhere, even while trumpeting that they alone represented Muslim interests. Congress won eight out of the eleven provinces with Bengal and Punjab won by Islamic parties unsympathetic to Muslim League. Stung into action, Jinnah demanded that power be shared with his party, but Congress, in a short-sighted moment arisen out of euphoria was not in a mood to listen. This was the point at which Jinnah set upon partition as the final goal. Rahmat Ali, a student in England, had started arguing for a Muslim state of Pakistan in the North-West. His demands were exorbitant, asking for an independent state wherever Muslims were in a local majority, such as Haidaristan (Delhi), Osmanistan (Hyderabad), Maplistan (Malabar) and so forth. During the second World War, Congress opposed British government for making the country a partner in the war without prior consultation with its leaders. Jinnah sided with the British and remained loyal throughout the war. After it was over, mounting difficulties to keep the subcontinent under subjugation and the change of government at home made the British announce a slew of measures intended to bring total freedom to India. Jinnah threw all his weight behind the demand for a separate state for Muslims which was foisted up with mass action that was a euphemism for bloody communal violence. As a result, every party in the negotiating table had come around to partition by May 1947. Anyway, the Pakistan which Jinnah had in mind was not the same state run by venom-spitting Mullahs and terrorists of today. In a public address in Karachi on 11 August 1947, he assured full religious freedom to minorities and declared that religion would not be an issue to affect a citizen’s prospects in the new state. However, this remark is usually expunged in modern Pakistani accounts of their father of the nation.

The book contains several curious facts. The comparison between India and Pakistan is enlightening. Matthews says, “India, created by collective leadership and built on principles of diversity and tolerance, has become a country addicted to debate; Pakistan, the product of fear, single-mindedness and hero-worship has become a country marked by intolerance and inclinded to authoritarianism” (p.6). Such clarity in comparisons is a feature of the author and extends to the estimation of differences between the leaders. “Gandhi began his career looking for a way to realize his religious aims in political terms, while Jinnah ended his career looking for a way to fulfil his political aim in religious terms” (p.39). Gandhi’s embrace of the lost cause of Khilafat may be thought of as one of the reasons which divided the two major religions of India. His campaign to restore the caliph fanned the flames of Muslim fanaticism leading to widespread violence and forced conversions. Where there were 16 major communal incidents between 1900 and 1922, there were 72 such incidents between 1923 and 1926 (p.103). The amusing fact is that in a decision speaking of wisdom, Jinnah and the Muslim League stayed away from the Khilafat campaign.

The book helps to dispel the aura of a troublemaker surrounding Jinnah in India and presents the image of an intelligent leader who was forced to extreme corners after suffering non-cooperation from his Congress colleagues. It depicts a liberal man having a Parsi wife who started his career with secular ideals in mind, but finally ended up creating a theocratic state. Matthews provides a masterly dissection of biographies and accounts of the two politicians with a precise pointer at the end to show where that particular account has deviated from the correct path. The reading which went into this review is commendable. On the disadvantageous aspects, it may be noted that the author’s analysis of events and personalities though extensive, is uninteresting to read and loaded with pedantic play of terms and comparison, becoming difficult to navigate. In his bid to examine the personalities in as many points of detail as possible, a great many chapters are included, with not much coherence or continuity between them.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star