IS JASWANT LOOKING ANY BETTER THAN THE COTERIE NOW?

Let us imagine that an Archbishop has written a scholarly book, after a detailed study of Christian and Islamic religious texts, and come to the conclusion that Prophet Mohammad was possibly right: Jesus too was just a prophet like him, no more. How do you think the Catholic Church will react? What do you think the Pope will do? Jaswant Singh's reinterpretation of Jinnah in a similar vein is something that cannot be accepted by both the Congress and the BJP. It is only coincidental that he was in the BJP. Had he been in the Congress, he would have been hounded out from that party. Let there be no doubt that.

But where the BJP has displayed the almost total bankruptcy of its top leadership and the post-poll panic that has gripped it, is in the manner in which it summarily expelled him telephonically, within hours of the 600 plus page book being published, without giving him a show cause notice or any other opportunity to explain. Look at the irony: Jaswant Singh has criticised Nehru - whose descendants rule India - and Sardar Patel, also a Congressman. The rebuttals and criticisms should have been coming from the Congress - any criticism of Nehru being simply unacceptable - but it is the BJP that lost its balance.

The attacks began too, with Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi laying blame for the book on the BJP by calling it the Bharatiya "Jinnah" Party. A lot more, and worse, would have been heard from the Congress camp. TV studio debates would have centred around a stout defence of Nehru's actions and a trenchant criticism of Jinnah by the Congress. Jaswant Singh would have been in the firing line of the Congress, and the BJP would have been merrily watching Nehru being dissected and exposed like never before, from the sidelines. But for that, the BJP had to take time to act against Jaswant Singh. And let the Congress make the allegation that it was not doing anything only because he had criticised Nehru!

But, in one disastrous stroke, BJP's leadership committed brainless hara kiri. It took the heat off the Congress, turned it, magnified, upon itself, and pushed a humiliated Jaswant Singh into the enemy camp, armed with sordid secrets that had the potential of devastating its top leader and badly singeing his coterie.

Perhaps the great hurry to get rid of him was necessitated by the fact the the BJP's "Pope" had himself done something similar in 2005, and did not have the courage to personally confront him. In any case, it was indicative of the low level to which some other party leaders, who have been working hard to hijack the party for some time, had sunk in their efforts to marginalise all potential threats. The book was a heaven-sent opportunity which they grabbed with the disturbing greed and speed, to make sure that there was no slip between the stolen cup and their lips.

After his expulsion, Jaswant Singh has gone ballistic in his criticism, particularly of Advani. Kandahar and the cash-for-vote scam have been near mortal blows from which Advani will not recover. The party that was Jaswant Singh's home for over three decades has also begun to look to him like the Ku Klux Klan. It is not Advani alone who has been hit hard by these outbursts. Jaswant Singh himself is beginning to look uglier with each passing day, with his carefully constructed sophistication failing to conceal his own petty vindictiveness. He can no longer claim that he is being "conservative with truth". Perhaps even that was a lie.

During the course of writing the book, when he came to the conclusion that Jinnah was a great man, Jaswant Singh should have remembered that he was a senior leader in the political landscape of India, and not a free lancer or an outsider writing just another book criticising the fundamental beliefs of the BJP as well as the Congress. At that point of time itself, he should have either gone into political retirement or should have waited till he had retired before publishing the book. But he did not display the required rectitude even then.

Jaswant Singh's pretence of injured innocence and his utterances based on it are, therefore, nearly as inexcusable as his summary expulsion by leaders who are taking the BJP down. They will all do well to join him in political retirement. The sooner that happens, the better it will be for the BJP. If they still want to bat on, they will get an invitation from Amar Singh, like Jaswant Singh has got. That is the right the place for them all.

Picture Source: Reuters
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DOES INDIA NEED "FEDERALISM" LIKE JINNAH WANTED?

After being in the BJP for more than three decades, Jaswant Singh has begun to talk of the virtues of the "federalism" that Jinnah espoused and that Nehru was opposed to. He now says that India needs federalism and not the centralising that the RSS believes in and that led Nehru and the Congress to reject the Cabinet Mission Plan and agree to the Partition of India.

To briefly recapitulate, the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 envisaged the grouping of India into three main parts: Group "A" - Hindustan, Group "B" - Kashmir, Punjab, Sarhad, Sindh, Baluchistan, and Group "C" - Bengal, Orissa, Assam. Each of these groups were to have 11 members in the Centre in a kind of a senate. You may notice that Muslims were in overall majority in areas included in Groups B and C. So, effectively, the senate would have had 22 out of 33 members from here even though non-Muslim majority Group "A" had a much bigger area and population.

As is evident from this Plan and the maps of the Pakistan that was proposed by the Muslim League, one of which is shown above, the party led by Jinnah saw India in only two dimensions: majority and minority, Hindu and Muslim. There was no space in it for ethnicity. So, the "federalism" that Jinnah spoke about and that has so impressed Jaswant Singh, was, to my uncluttered mind, something that applied only along religious lines.

There is little evidence to show, notwithstanding Jinnah's famous secular speech to Pakistan's Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1946, that the Muslim League had any intention of granting the same federal freedom to religious and ethnic groups belonging to and living in Muslim majority areas that is sought for those areas as one entity. It never saw the federal government of Pakistan limiting its role to defence, finance and foreign affairs.

The happenings in Pakistan after Partition bear this out. First, almost all non-Muslims were systematically driven out from there, even long after Partition. Then, although Bengalis of East Pakistan constituted the single largest ethnic group in that country, real power remained in the hands of the Punjabis and the Mohajirs who had left India. The federalism that Jinnah wanted for Muslims in a united India was not put in place in Pakistan because it was viewed as a unitary whole solely on a communal basis. That is why East Pakistan eventually broke the chains of religion by which it had been bound to the artificially created new country.

It would be fair to say that the concept of Pakistan could easily have been buried at the time of Partition itself. Ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis would have undoubtedly revolted and rejected Pakistan had they found themselves getting outnumbered in their land by Muslims from other parts of India who chose not to go to Pakistan. That is the real trick that Indian leaders missed at that time.

It also needs to be mentioned here that Pakistan is the only multi-language, multi-ethnic state in the world created from nowhere on the basis of Islam. Even the Arabs, the race to which the Prophet belonged, have not ever been able to form one nation state with the glue of the religion that they have taken almost all over the world. One race, one language, one religion, 22 countries. The glue of Islam has worked only in West Pakistan so far, and that too primarily because the military, that has a huge stake in its continuance as one country, has ruthlessly put down movements for separation based on ethnicity.

Coming back to the concept of federalism, India was divided on the basis of the communal argument put forth by Jinnah and the Muslim League. That having happened, does federalism necessarily have to be viewed still only in terms of devolution of greater power to the states created after Independence on a linguistic basis?

Is not federalism at work at the Centre itself?

China is a country that is dominated and run almost exclusively by the Hans. Minorities have little stake and are often suppressed ruthlessly. Han Chinese are also being consciously settled in non-Han areas to change the demographic profile for good. The USSR called itself a federation alright but power rested primarily in the hands of the Russians, before that super power broke up along ethnic fault lines. In Pakistan too, it is Punjabis, comprising half the population, who enjoy a disproportionately large share of power.

In India, however, no ethnic group enjoys a dominant position. If we look at the present Central government, for example, we see real federalism. The most powerful national leader is a Catholic lady who was born in Italy, the Prime Minister is a Punjabi Sikh and the Defence Minister is a Christian from Kerala. The Home Minister hails from Tamil Nadu, the Foreign Minister from Karnataka and the Finance Minister from West Bengal.

In India, thus, the Centre does not represent the domination of any ethnic group. In fact, in the democratic model that we are following presently, it is possible for a small regional or ideological party to exert disproportionate influence in decision making. The holding up of economic reforms by the communists in the previous government and the stalling of the disinvestment of Neyvelli Lignite by the DMK are two visible examples that readily come to mind. Of course, there continue to be some ethnic groups who still do not feel empowered and connected to the nation like most others are. This sore point needs to be addressed. India belongs to all equally.

Looking at this picture from the point of view of religion does not show an accurate image at all. That is why, attempts being made by some leaders to perpetuate the Jinnah concept of looking at all Indians following Islam as one block, irrespective of their ethnicity, must be discouraged in every manner possible. Unfortunately, despite the examples of Bangladesh and the Arab world in front of us, we are fanning this communal practice in the name of secularism. Those demonising Jinnah are, ironically, keeping his flawed legacy alive. The outcome cannot be good.

Had Jinnah foreseen that after Independence, the Congress would cease to be the force that it was then, and that after half a century, regional political parties with barely a dozen MPs would be in a position to veto decisions of the Central government, he would have been able to look beyond the very limited and communal Hindu-Muslim dimension that he allowed himself to get stuck in, in his quest for an immediate and disproportionate share of the power pie.

As subsequent developments have shown, "Hindus" would not have been in any position whatsoever to deprive "Muslims" of their rightful share of power, had India remained united. And, India would have actually become a truly federal country, not by taking power away from the Centre, but because of the fact that power would have been shared there by leaders representing Indians from all communities and from all parts of the country. Arun Shourie, however, feels that a united India would have been bullied, thrashed and swamped by Islamic fundamentalists.

Jinnah-struck Jaswant Singh is now re-discovering the virtues of federalism. Unless he is saying it only to spite the parivar that he was with for a long time, it seems that like the man he now admires, he is also not able to see federalism in full flow at the Centre. His view has also been coloured by that single hue of religion beyond which Jinnah could never look in his later years. That is why he is unable to see that in a diverse nation like India, as long as there is democracy, centralisation and federalism cannot not mutually exclusive, and that the latter can actually thrive in the former.
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Readers may also read: Jinnah claims Jaswant: Hanuman becomes Ravan
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SPOT THE BJP IN THE PICTURE!

What do you see in this picture? There is tree, a bike and a few plants in the background. Which one of these do you think represents the BJP of today?

If you ask the troika of Advani, Rajnath and Jaitley, they will, no prizes for guessing, tell you that the tree is the BJP. And the bike? Oh! that is the once mighty Congress that the BJP has got hold of, notwithstanding the recent defeat which is nothing more than an aberration. And the plants? They are the Laloos, Mulayams and Karats of the world watching the two big boys as they grapple it out.

What will Jaswant and Shourie say? Of course the bike is the BJP! And the troika is the tree that has strangulated the party and left it helpless and without any hope, even though it is in great shape. No matter how hard dedicated workers and other leaders work to keep it gleaming, tanked up and raring to go, all that it can do is make a lot of noise standing where it is, and wear its tyres out without moving forward an inch. The troika's grip is unrelenting and will eventually prove to be fatal.

No wonder Arun Shourie is recalling what Mao said decades ago: bombard the headquarters. That is the only way to get rid of the top leadership. The bike can't move till the tree is cut. From the roots. When he says that the BJP is a Kati Patang, I believe it indeed is. But without a Rajesh Khanna and with plenty of Prem Chopras. Look at the picture again.

Can you see how they have pinned her? Or do you see a different picture?

Watch Arun Shourie's "Walk the Talk" NDTV video with Shekhar Gupta where he says all this and more.

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Readers may also read:
1. Jinnah claims Jaswant; Hanuman becomes Ravan
2. Will BJP's drooping Lotus bloom again?
3. Sacking of Khanduri: caucus destroying BJP
4. BJP: this time it is different
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JINNAH CLAIMS JASWANT; HANUMAN BECOMES RAVAN

A couple of days back, Abhishek Manu Singhvi of the Congress had referred to the BJP as the Bharatiya Jinnah Party. Today, the BJP attempted to exorcise the ghost of MA Jinnah that LK Advani had brought along with him from Karachi in 2005, by expelling veteran leader Jaswant Singh from the party. The swift move, that has surprised everyone, is a stark reminder that the many wounds created by the violent Partition of India still hurt, and hurt deep.

I don't know how many have already read Jaswant Singh's 600 page biography of Jinnah, Jinnah India-Partition Independence, released on August 17, 2009 and whether anyone has written a book review. In any case, in the coming days and months, what he has written after a great deal of research spread over five years, will undoubtedly be dissected from every possible angle, and there will be extreme reactions too. For the last six decades, Indians have accepted as the whole truth the view that Jinnah was an extremely unreasonable man who used violence and the threat of it to force the division of India on a communal basis.

This demonised image of Jinnah has stood out even more jarringly in India because of the almost saintly persona of Mahatma Gandhi who practiced and took the concept of non-violence to a new level altogether. Gandhi wanted Hindus and Muslims to live together in harmony and mutual respect. But it was Jinnah, the villain, who did not allow that to happen. That is what Indians believe. In Pakistan, the part of India that Jinnah took with him literally by force, on the other hand, he is eulogised as the saviour of India's Muslims from Hindu domination. The way Pakistan has shaped since 1947 into a Hindu-hating entity - as can be seen from the history that is being taught to its children in schools - has only helped to make extremely difficult any objective assessment of Jinnah's personality and role before Partition, on both sides of the border.

Above all, the fact that India has been ruled by the Congress for most of the 62 years that have passed since Independence, has ensured that India continues to see Jinnah as no more than a hyper ambitious individual who unleashed the ugly communal demon that burnt and divided India. This has happened primarily because India has been systematically made to see Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru as the great secular visionary who had the interests of Muslims uppermost in his mind, and who laid the foundations of modern India.

Thus, while in Pakistan Jinnah's image is distorted by the thick lens of religion that Pakistan has chosen to increasingly see itself through, in India Nehru's image has been carefully cropped by scissors guided by his descendants who have ruled India for long. As a result, over time, in their respective countries, Jinnah and Nehru have become the faultless leaders that they never were. Their ugly warts have been hidden and lie forgotten.

Jaswant Singh has apparently uncovered some Indian warts. From what one has gathered till now, he has dispassionately tried to look at the role of Jinnah in India's freedom struggle. In 1916, Gopal Krishna Gokhale had praised Jinnah and called him an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Thirty years later, the same man became the Qaid-e-Azam of Pakistan. No one will disagree that this transformation was remarkable. No one will also suspend elementary commonsense to say that such a total turnaround in outlook could have taken place without there being very strong environmental factors that would have, at least in Jinnah's perception, left him with no choice.

The questions that have manifestly been addressed in detail by Jaswant Singh are: what were the developments and who were the personalities that forced Jinnah to give physical shape to an idea that he wanted to use only as a bargaining tool to get a greater share of power for Muslims in India?

Jaswant Singh says that he has come to the conclusion that it was partly Nehru's intransigence and his vision of a centralised India that forced Jinnah to take the Partition route. The Congress party, not surprisingly, cannot accept a reading of history that shows Nehru as being responsible for Partition in any manner. It is goes without saying that any favourable hue that Jinnah gets has to be largely at Nehru's expense. For the BJP and the RSS, on the other hand, Jinnah, the man who divided India, cannot be the subject of any re-examination that even remotely justifies what he did to this country, even if some blame falls on Nehru. For them, the issue is foundational and ideological. Praise in any manner is, therefore, unthinkable, as Advani had earlier found out.

Where does that leave Jaswant Singh? The Congress has, not surprisingly, welcomed the BJP's swift decision to expel him from the party. In Pakistan, there is some joy and relief at the unexpected manner in which their founder has been portrayed by an Indian, and that too a politician belonging to a right wing Hindu party. That icing on the cake will ensure that Jaswant Singh's political career is terminated abruptly.

Jinnah has claimed Jaswant, as he had to. BJP's Hanuman has become Ravan.

But this debate is not going to die here. And should not. Whether Jaswant is right or not is not important. What is more important is that as a nation we must have the courage to accept and face history honestly, warts included. Non-acceptance of any praise for Jinnah and criticism of Nehru is as bad as the ignoring and/or denying of earlier developments and incidents in our history books on specious grounds. A society cannot claim to be liberal and free if it tries to distort and cleanse its history in any manner, for any political, social or ideological reasons. Unfortunately, after Independence, India has done that.

On hopes that Jaswant Singh's courageous, even if flawed, effort spurs India to take a holistic re-look at not just its modern history, but its medieval and ancient history too. India deserves it.
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Readers may also read: Does India need "federalism" like Jinnah wanted?