Angels and Demons

So Jaswant Singh is at it again. He has just done what he does the best (apart from managing finances and external affairs of the country well) and that is to speak his mind, controversies notwithstanding. This time he has opened a Pandora's box by praising Jinnah and blaming Nehru for the country's partitiion.

One has to go beyond traditional prejudices to look at the role of Nehru and Jinnah in Indian Partition. Jinnah was senior to both Gandhi and Nehru in Congress and it was Jinnah who opposed the Khilafat Movement (started by Gandhi to protest against British removal of Caliphate in Istanbul). At that time Jinnah had warned Gandhi against bringing religion (Islam) into politics and thereby showed his secular credentials. What then spurred Jinnah to take a u-turn and ask for partition on religious grounds remains an unsolved mystery specially in India because J-Word has demonised by those who were responsible for the u-turn in Jinnah's thought process namely the Congress, Nehru and Nehruvian historians cum sychopants. The injustice done to Jinnah, the humiliation he was made to suffer at Congress Committee meeting in late 20s and early 30s and finally Congress's refusal to share power with Muslim League in Central Provinces and UP were amongst the few reasons that drove Jinnah to ask for Partition. It was the power lust of 2 egoists - Nehru and Jinnah that was the reaosn behind death of millions, sufferings of billions and the hatred amongst two communities and now countries. Had Nehru not been a greedy egoist that he was, Jinnah might have never gone on the path to partition.

Unfortunately history is always the story of the person who is in power and so we all were brought up to demonising Jinnah and worshipping Nehru when the truth was that both were equally guilty. But that's what Congress did post independence. They tried to remove references and history marks of all those who weren't in the Nehruvian sphere. While Sardar Patel's authority was slowly and steadily diminished after his sterling role in unificaiton of country, Shubash Chandra Bose's life and death were kept a mystery and even today Mukherjee Commission Report has not been made public. Many other doyens and leading lights of the freedom movement were pushed to comparatively lesser stature like Lokmanya Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Veer Savarkar to name a few. The idea was to make Nehru synonymous with Indian Freedom. Because of Gandhi's popularity and stature, they could not do the same to him and they conviniently appropriated Babasaheb Ambedkar as Congress symbol when the history clearly shows how Ambedkar till last moment was aligned with Muslim League and not Congress. It took last minute intervention from Gandhi to convince him but he was never aligned with Congress.

Similarly, Guru Golwalkar was always shown (inspite of being cleared by the courts) as someone behind Gandhi's murder, what was subsequently erased from history books was his and RSS' role in assisting army during 1948 Kashmir Invasion, 1965 Pakistan war or 1962 China War not to mention their services during various natural disasters which prompted the government to allow RSS be a part of the Republic Day Parade. But Guru Golwalkar was always demonised by the historians without presenting the true story.

While we all have been brought up to hate Hitler and as human beings, rightly so. But let's stop for a moment and think as Indians. Hitler was the only international leader (apart from US President Roosevelt) who supported India's freedom and was ready to help Bose (maybe for his own selfish reasons). The German army under Shubashbabu's request did not use Indian soldiers captured while fighting for Britian, as canon fodders for fighting. But then we as Indians have always forgetting this small symbol of German support. Instead we all were taught that Lord Mountbatten was a supporter of India's freedom while the fact was that he was responsible for the partition too. Simlarly though US President Roosevelt did his best to support India during partition (as seen from his letter to British empire in Mr. Singla's book), US offer as friend was ignored just because of Nehruvian love for Soviets and this resulted in long US-Pakistan frienship with started with 1948 General Assembly of UN on Kashmir. But then angels and demons are decided by those who yeild the power.

It's time for the new generation to break the prejudices and accept things for what they were and are. While we all will rightly hate Jinnah for the partition, it's time for the new generation to see Nehru in his rightful place in Indian History and that is of a greedy egoist who ruined the nation for his lust to become the PM. And some of his mistakes are troubling us even today in a bloody manner.

(Sources - Mr. Singla's book "Untold Story of India's Partition", Jinnah's biography which contains letters from Gandhi on Jinnah nationalist and secular credentials, Arun Shourie's book - Worshipping False Gods, Lost Hero by Mihir Bose, and many other similar books by Indian authors on Indian partition and leaders)