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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Partition Time REVISITED! Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence!

Partition Time REVISITED! Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence!
 
Trouble Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 337
 
Palash Biswas
 

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  1. Yes, Netaji, CR Das and Fazlul Huq Could Have Chan | Palash Speaks

    11 Jan 2007 ... Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and Suharawardi and the British Empire, .... Mr. Palash Chandra Biswas has responded to my note at NFB. .... by Nehru, Gandhi, Shyma Prasad, Rajendra Prasad, Ballavbhai Patel and many other communal ...
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  2. GOMOH and Death mystery of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose | Palash Speaks

    Gandhi and Nehru marginalised Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose just addressing the ... ALI JINNAH had been the leaders of UNITED INDIA who cared most to keep the GEOGRAPHY ...... Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel too were not agreed to the theory. ...... chapter 320 Palash Biswas Pl Visit: http://nandigramunited-banga.b ...
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  3. Daily News Monitoring Service ISSN 1563-9304 | Ashara 13 1416 BS ...

    5 Jan 2007 ... Perhaps due to this reason Mr. Palash Biswas is loitering in the pages of NFB. ... Nehru forgot that he and Gandhi sent Jinnah to Pakistan. ... Mr. Biswas or Mr. Pal seems to ignore the role of Nehru and Patel as if ...
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  4. Daily News Monitoring Service ISSN 1563-9304 | Sraban 16 1416 BS ...

    Perhaps due to this reason Mr. Palash Biswas is loitering in the pages of NFB. ... Nehru forgot that he and Gandhi sent Jinnah to Pakistan. ...
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  5. Dalit Voice - The Voice of the Persecuted Nationalities Denied ...

    21 Apr 2009 ... Our Father, Dr. Ambedkar, and the Father of Pakistan, Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, .... The Congress and Vallabhbhai Patel made a very sarcastic statement:– ... Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Dr. Rajendra Prasad made a statement that .... I have been firmly supported by my colleagues — Palash Biswas, ...
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  6. Brahminical bid to kill 2 crore Bengali Dalit

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  7. Gajoner BAJNA BAJA, Bhang RE OI Lauha Kapat! BLACK

    Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 209 Palash Biswas The Telegraph ... reformers Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi · Mahatma Jyotirao Phule · Gopal Ganesh ... M. Ali Jinnah · Sardar Patel · Subhash Chandra Bose · Jawaharlal Nehru ...
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  8. GOMOH and Death mystery of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose ...

    Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 153. Palash Biswas .... Gandhi and Nehru marginalised Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose just addressing the NATIONALITY ...
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  9. Anarya Dravid Vanga Indigenous

    A cooking gas scheme will be renamed after Rajiv Gandhi five days from August 15 ...... Jinnah did not win Pakistan, as the Congress leaders - Nehru and Patel finally ...... Troubled galaxy Destroyed dreams, Chapter 330. Palash Biswas ...
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  10. Why the Brahamins Hate Most the Peasantry? Indian Parliament in ...

    Palash Biswas It is GAASI today. My landlady hails from Dhaka. She has two sons. ...... Nehru, took these steps which were also supported by Gandhi in the ...
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      Partition: The Long Shadow Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C Biswas, ... partition ... League for its role in partition? May we sue Congress and Muslim League ...
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      Palash Biswas. Caste Discrimination is translated into ethnic cleansing in ... Mind you, before partition all the three interim governments were headed by ...
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    3. Dalit Voice | Palash Speaks

      Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, .... Following the Partition of India, Satyani says, most Hindus living in what is now ...
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      Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 212 Palash Biswas I came to know about Indus .... Salwa JUDUM and DEPORTATION Drive against Partition Victims ...
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    5. Violence in Bengal, Tagore and His India, Amartya sen and Ruling ...

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    6. खोज परिणाम

      ... Hinduization of Nationalities, Salwa JUDUM and DEPORTATION Drive against Partition Victims Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 199 Palash Biswas ...
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      Palash biswas द्वारा 18 अप्रैल, 2009 1:00 AM पर पोस्टेड # ... Partition Victims Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 199 Palash ...
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      Killing Instinct V/S Inherent Injustice Palash Biswas (Contact: Palash C Biswas, ... Cold Horror Palash Biswas (Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, ...
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    9. Just Visit nandigram United to have the Documents on Marichjhapi ...

      Marxists mobilised the resettled partition victims, particularly in Dandakaranya ... of the killers of Marichjhanpi and Nandigram! Yours. Palash Biswas ...
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    10. Genocide of Hindus in West Bengal by CPM+ illegal Muslims... no ...

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      1. Was Partition of India Inevitable? - Mainstream Weekly

        15 Aug 2009 ... But in that case the partition of India would have been avoided and thousands of ... I don't believe, like some Gandhian and RSS ideologues, ... book The Great Partition: the Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmeen Khan, ...
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        "Thirty years of my political life with the BJP and (being expelled) on this note : saddened me and on the ground for writing a book, that saddened me even more, immensely more," a visibly upset Singh, a founding member of the party, told reporters.
        more by Jaswant Singh - 18 minutes ago - Reuters India (1 occurrences)

         

        Key excerpts from Jaswant Singh's book

         
        NEW DELHI: Excerpts from "Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence" by Jaswant Singh, the veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader whose views on the
        Pakistan founder led to his expulsion from the party Wednesday:

        "The basic and structural fault in Jinnah's notion remains a rejection of his origins; of being an Indian, having been shaped by the soil of India, tempered in the heat of Indian experience. Muslims in India were no doubt subscribers to a different faith but that is all; they were not any different stock or of alien origin."

        - & -

        "It is in this, a false 'minority syndrome' that the dry rot of partition first set in, and then unstoppably it afflicted the entire structure, the magnificent edifice of an united India. The answer (cure?), Jinnah asserted, lay only in parting, and Nehru and Patel and others of the Congress also finally agreed. Thus was born Pakistan".

        - & -

        "His opposition was not against the Hindus or Hinduism, it was the Congress that he considered as the true political rival of the Muslim League, and the League he considered as being just an 'extension of himself'. He, of course, made much of the Hindu-Muslim riots (1946; Bengal, Bihar, etc.) to 'prove the incapacity of Congress Governments to protect Muslims; and also expressed fear of "Hindu raj" to frighten Muslims into joining the League, but during innumerable conversations with him I can rarely recall him attacking Hindus or Hinduism as such. His opposition, which later developed into almost hatred, remained focused upon the Congress leadership' (M.R.A. Baig, Jinnah's secretary)."

        - & -

        "Religion in all this was entirely incidental; Pakistan alone gave him all that his personality and character demanded. If Mr. Jinnah was necessary for achieving Pakistan, Pakistan, too was necessary for the fulfillment of Mr. Jinnah."

        - & -

        "However, it has to be said, and with great sadness, that despite some early indications to the contrary, the leaders of the Indian National Congress, in the period between the outbreak of war in 1939 and the country's partition in 1947, showed in general, a sad lack of realism, of foresight, of purpose and of will."

        - & -

        "As (Maulana Azad) wrote in his memoirs, he had come to the conclusion that Indian federation should deal with just three subjects: defence, foreign affairs and communications; thus granting the maximum possible autonomy to the provinces. According to the Maulana, Gandhi accepted this suggestion, while Sardar Patel did not."

        - & -

        "For, along with several other there is one central difficult that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh face: our 'past' has, in reality never gone into the 'past', it continues to reinvent itself, constantly becoming our 'present', thus preventing us from escaping the imprisonment of memories. To this we have to find an answer, who else can or will?"
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         Jaswant Singh, whose book eulogising Mohd Ali Jinnah has come under attack from BJP and the sangh parivar, was today expelled from the BJP.

         

         Advani took decision to expel Jaswant Singh!

         

        Meanwhile, Six farmers have committed suicide in various parts of Vidarbha as drought situation looms large over the region, an NGO has claimed.



        The suicides were committed since yesterday, Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, tracking farmers suicides in the region, said in a release.

        The deceased have been identified as Vijay Bodhe, Mahapal (Yavatmal), Vishwanath Gavne, Pimpri (Amravati), Ramesh Maraskolhe, Pathrat (Yavatmal), Ramchandra Mungale, Bhishi (Chandrapur), Dilip Nandne, Ithlapur (Wardha) and Arun Dakhre, Yenikini (Nagpur), the release said.

        He said as many as 38 farmers have ended their lives in August and 62 farmers in last 18 days in Maharashtra, he added.

         

        Top BJP leaders began a brainstorming session here over the state of affairs in the party against the backdrop of Lok Sabha defeat and

        internal bickerings that have marred its image with senior leader Jaswant Singh keeping away from the opening session.

        Singh, from whose book hailing Mohd Ali Jinah, the party has distanced itself totally, was in Shimla still staying put in his room of a hotel different from Peterhoff Hotel where the three-day 'Chintan Baithak' is being held.

        Jaswant Singh

        Jaswanth Singh releasing his book on Jinnah in New Delhi on Tuesday

         

         There was no difference between Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the term Muslim state is a misnomer. These are some of the

        observations made by BJP leader Jaswant Singh in his new book titled `Jinnah-India, Participation, Independence'.

        In what may ruffle many feathers even within the Sangh Parivar, Singh observes in his book that Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel together conceded Pakistan to Jinnah with help from the British.

        Patel occupies a pride of place in BJP's historiography with the party eulogising his tough action for the integration of rebellious Hyderabad and Junagarh with the Union, and contrasting it with the Nehru's "blunder" in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN.

        The response of the partymen in the saffron stronghold of Gujarat where Patel has a cult status, may be interesting to watch.

        In his book which will hit the stands on August 17, he recalls the events leading to Partition as well as the "epic journey of Jinnah from being the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, the liberal constitutionalist and Indian nationalist to the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan".

        "Jinnah did not win Pakistan, as the Congress leaders Nehru and Patel finally conceded Pakistan to Jinnah, with the British acting as an ever helpful midwife," Singh says in his 669-page book.

        Singh goes on to state in the book that religion could not have been the basis for nationhood. "The cruel truth is that this partitioning of India has actually resulted in achieving the very reverse of the originally intended purpose; partition, instead of settling contention between communities has left us a legacy of markedly enhanced Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or other such denominational identities, hence differences,'' says the book which also describes reservation as a political tool.

        "The searing agony of it torments still, the whys and what-fors of it, too. We relieve the partition because we persist without attempts to find answers to the great errors of those years so that we may never, ever repeat them. Also, perhaps by recounting them we attempt to assuage some of our pain," the former foreign minister writes.

        According to Singh, both Jinnah and Nehru wanted special status for Muslims. "It is ironical that among the great constitutionalists of those times, Jinnah and Nehru became the principal promoters of special status for Muslims'; Jinnah directly and Nehru indirectly,'' adding that both were trying to be spokesmen for Muslims.

         

        The decision to expel Singh, a Lok Sabha member and a former Union Minister, was taken at the Parliamentary Board of the party which met here during the opening session of the three-day brainstorming session of the top leaders here.

        BJP President Rajnath Singh, who had yesterday issued a statement totally distancing the party from Jaswant Singh's book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", announced the decision to the media here.

        "I had issued a statement yesterday that the party fully dissociates itself from the contents of the book. Today I put up the matter before the Parliamentary Board which decided to end his primary membership.

        "So he has been expelled. From now now onwards he will not not be a member of any body of the party or be an office bearer," he said on the expulsion of the 71-year-old party veteran.

        Rajnath Singh said yesterday he had told Jaswant Singh not not to come to Shimla for participating in the 'chintan baithak'.

        Jaswant Singh has been having an uneasy relationship with the party leadership ever since the Lok Sabha elections on which he had circulated a note demanding thorough discussion on the debacle

         
        I have nothing to do with RSS, BJP or Jaswant Singh as they are Known to do everything to sustain the Aparteid Manusmriti Zionist Hegemony in Soth Asia in US Corporate interest. Gandhi nahru dynasty is CHALLENGED and RSS reacts most Violently. I have not read the BOOK. But we all respect the FREEDOM of Expression. Freedom of Thought! But Imperialism as well as Fascism associated with ZIONISM bank on TOTAL Mind Control. RSS is NEVER Delinked with either the CONG led UPA or the Selfstyled Marxists in India. Indian Political System is meant for ENSLAVEMENT and Persecution of Indigenous Aboriginal Minority ComMunities!
         
        It is TRUE that Transfer of Power the BRHMIN Bania Raj was MANIPULATED to deny the INDIAN People INDEPENDENCE and sovereignity. In fact, we do Celebrate only the TRANSFER of Power and the RULING Hegemony glorifies their version of Struggle for FREEDOM as well as The PARTITION Time! Jaswant Singh has attacked the Ruling Dynasty but the DYNASTY itself creates the BLIND Nationalism to Sustain Manusmriti Rule!
         
        Just as the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) idea of India is that of a Hindu nation and not a multicultural one, Jaswant Singh's interpretation of Mohammed Ali Jinnah's pre-1947 role is at odds with the widely held perceptions in India. As the objectiove version of History missing and Politics of RELIGION was initiated by MK Gandhi himself with the Slogan of HIND Swaraj! Basically, Hind Swaraj and Hindu Rashtra are just two sides of the Same Coin! We know, OPLITICALLY, RSS always have held GANDHI and Nehru responsible for partition! But in a AMERICANISED Colonial Polity, enslaved ECONOMY, Zionst War Set Up, RSS had to POT for the DEFENCE of Nehru whom they hate most! What an Irony!

         

         For the second time in five years, Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah has come to haunt the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party

        which espouses the cause of Hindus. Invoking of his name first nearly claimed the job of party president LK Advani and now has scalped Jaswant Singh, senior party leader.

         In 2005, then BJP chief Advani got into trouble when, during a six-day visit to Pakistan, he spoke of Jinnah's "forceful espousal of a secular state in which every citizen would be free to practice his own religion".

        The remarks stirred a hornet's nest in the party that dissociated itself with his views. Such was the groundswell of opinion against his remarks -- seen to be heretical to the party's long-held views that Jinnah was a Muslim communalist and the villain behind the partition of the subcontinent -- that Advani was forced to offer to step down as party president.

        "I have not said or done anything in Pakistan which I need to retract or review," he said then and described the founder of Pakistan as one of the "very few who actually created history".

        History repeated four years later with his party colleague Jaswant Singh falling victim to the Jinnah syndrome when, after five years of research, he came out with his book "Jinnah -- India, Partition, Independence".

        In his book, Jaswant Singh maintained that Jinnah was "demonised" for no reason and that it was Jawaharlal Nehru's "highly centralised polity" that led to the Partition of India. Singh also blamed Sardar Patel, India's first home minister.

        "Jinnah did not win Pakistan, as the Congress leaders Nehru and Patel finally conceded Pakistan to Jinnah, with the British acting as an ever helpful midwife," Singh has said in an interview to a TV channel.

        However, with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, strongly disagreeing with Jaswant Singh's views, the party leadership had little option.

        Speaking about the man to whom he has devoted a tome, Singh said he admired Jinnah's character.

        "I admire certain aspects of his personality. His determination and the will to rise. He was a self-made man. Mahatma Gandhi was the son of a Diwan. All these (people), Nehru and others, were born to wealth and position. Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved in Bombay, a metropolitan city, a position for himself," he said

         

        By arguing that the founder of Pakistan has been unfairly demonised for partitioning the country, Singh not only went against the BJP's views, which has now expelled him, but also against an overwhelming majority of public opinion in India. BJP and RSS have no OBJECTIVE View of the Past and MUSLIM HATRED being the IDEOLOGICAL base of the Fascist setup , it may not bear with any INVESTIGATION in the PAST which would rather EXPOSE the ultimate TRUTH that the Transfer of Power was hesitantly Manipulated for Brahmin Bania raj which is now CORPORATE TRIBLIS ZIONIST Political System naked! It also claries the PERCEPTION in India that Jinnah invented TWO nation tehory to accomplish the Great Divide! The History of Bengal, on which I have wtritten so many times , proves that the MUSLIMS never supported MUSLIM league as the LEAGUE was launched in DHAKA. BUT the Hindutva Forces POLARISED the Population and launched HATE Campaign to COMMUNALISE Indian MASSES and CREATED the GRass ROOT Lvel Bases of Muslim League! Muslim dominated EAST Bengal voted against the Partition while the Brahmin Dominated west Bengal not only EXECUTED partition with surgical Precission in alliance with Nehru and Patel, but also MANIPULATED the Map of Partition as the Hindu Dominated East bengal Districts inhibited by Scheduled castes and TRIBES were given aweay to Pakistan to ensure BRAHMIN Raj in Bengal as well as In INDIA! The REFUGEE Influx continues even today! Refugee Problem is not addressed even today. Already resettled and scattered all over the COUNTRY, the Dalit Bengali refugees face DEPORTATION  in NILEKANI PRANAB ADWANI MAMATA raj!

         

        In addition, Jaswant courted further controversy by arguing that it was actually Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel who were more responsible for dividing the country than Jinnah. While, this is mandatory to know and revisit Partitio TimeQ

         

        Before considering Singh's historical fallacies, it may be instructive to examine his possible motives. In doing so, it is necessary to recall that before him, another BJP leader, L.K. Advani, had praised Jinnah to the surprise and embarrassment of many in the BJP and earned the displeasure of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

         

        However, Advani's adulation of the Quaid-e-Azam was more historically valid than Singh's, for he quoted Jinnah's celebrated speech of Aug 11, 1947, to emphasise his secularism.

         

        In that speech, which Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal compared with the Magna Carta and another historian, Akbar S. Ahmed, with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Jinnah had outlined his vision of the new country where 'Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State'.

         

        There is little doubt that there has rarely been such a remarkable exposition of secularism before or after that speech, which is ignored in today's Pakistan and which was described as 'a serious lapse on his (Jinnah's) part' by Sharif-ul-Mujahid, director of the Quaid-e-Azam Academy in the 1980s.

        However, Advani's discovery of it nearly six decades after it was delivered suggests a personal motive rather than a belated attempt to set the record straight. The explanation perhaps lies in the BJP leader's attempt to pose as a moderate after the realisation that his hawkish image as the 'rath yatri' (his famous chariot-led march) of 1990 was no longer paying political dividends.

         

        Arguably, a similar motivation guided Jaswant Singh. He, too, seemed to have realised after the party's second successive defeat in a general election that it had reached a dead end so far as the espousal of its Hinduttva philosophy is concerned. Not surprisingly, Singh had wanted the BJP to take a fresh look at its pro-Hindu world view.

         

        By praising Jinnah, the MP from Darjeeling apparently wanted to distance himself from his party's anti-minority outlook and chart a new political course for himself as a moderate. But, predictably, his first step in this direction evoked the ire of both his party and the RSS.

         

        While Advani was relieved of his position as the party chief under pressure from the RSS following his pro-Jinnah observations, Singh, who is a much lesser figure, has had to pay a heavier price for defying the party line.

         

        But, irrespective of the political fallout, what has to be considered are the distorted analyses of the events prior to independence in his book: 'Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence'. His failure to understand why Jinnah is excoriated in India is a strange affectation considering that it was the Muslim League leader's two-nation theory which paved the way for partition to the accompaniment of communal violence sparked by his dangerously provocative Direct Action to secure Pakistan.

         

        Once the religious passions had been whipped up by Jinnah, based on his 'Islam is in danger' assertion because of the dominance of Hindus under Congress rule, there was little that Nehru and even Mahatma Gandhi could do to stem the tide.

         

        True, the Congress also made mistakes. For instance, a more accommodative attitude towards the Muslim League in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) after the Congress's 1937 election victory could have diffused the situation. As M.R.A. Baig, one of Jinnah's advisors, said: 'Pakistan never came to Jinnah's mind till about 1939... When the Congress formed the provincial government (in UP), he expected them to form a Congress-League coalition, which was his concept of Hindu-Muslim unity...'
        'It was only when the Congress, wedded to political theories perfectly applicable to Britain, such as majority party government, and not recognising that in Indian conditions, a numerical majority could be synonymous with a communal majority ... that he turned to Pakistan.'

         

        There were other miss-steps, too, as noted by Abul Kalam Azad in his 'India Wins Freedom' as when Nehru said that the Congress would enter the constituent assembly 'completely unfettered by agreements'. Since Jinnah interpreted this as a rejection of the Cabinet Mission plan, which the Muslim League had accepted, he also repudiated it and said that Pakistan remained the only course left for his party.

         

        Even if the Congress' authoritarian instincts (which again manifested themselves during the 1975-77 Emergency) made it dismissive of other parties, they are not sufficient to explain Jinnah's transformation from a constitutionalist to a votary of street violence and from an 'ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity' to a patron of communal carnage.

         

        As is clear, there were two Jinnahs - one a hero and the other a villain. The hero was driven by his thwarted ambitions because of the ascendancy of Gandhi and Nehru to turn into its opposite with a vengeance. Jaswant Singh's mistake is that he ignores this final phase of Jinnah's career.

         

        Advani took decision to expel Jaswant Singh

        "Expel Jaswant Singh from primary membership of the party". With these words, LK Advani sealed the fate of the veteran Bharatiya Janata

        Party (BJP) leader as the party's parliamentary board sat on Wednesday ahead of the 'chintan baithak' to decide on his alleged ideological transgressions.

        When some party leaders wondered aloud at the closed-door session if it was indeed the right course of action to take against someone who had been with the party since its inception and if the decision would not haunt him later ("Aap pe to yeh chipkega"), Advani said with finality that he was not worried, according to a party leader present at the fateful meeting.

        This was in spite of the fact that the two leaders were known to be close and Jaswant Singh always had high personal regard for Advani, addressed him always by his first name "Lalji" and supported his prime ministerial bid before the elections.

        The two seem to have had a fallout after Jaswant Singh joined Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie in seeking an internal debate to find out reasons for the poll debacle, fix responsibility and chart out the party's future ideological direction.

        Jaswant Singh has earned the party's ire with his views on Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah in his book "Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence", released two days ago.

        Ironically, Advani's website carried his statement praising Jinnah's professed commitment to secularism and his laudatory speeches during his visit to Pakistan four years ago. It was this remark that earned the ire of the party hardliners then and Advani was forced to offer to resign as party president before saying he had been "persuaded" to rescind the decision.

        Advani, in his autobiography "My Country, My Life", also defended his views on Jinnah and said criticism of his views at that time were unfounded.

         

        From BJP's Hanuman, I am now its Ravana: Jaswant
        He had gone from being the party's Hanuman to its Ravana, a tearful Jaswant Singh said on Wednesday shortly after he got a phone call from

        Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh that he had been expelled from the party.

        Saying that he was "sad and regretful", the 71-year-old former union minister, who has held the portfolios of defence, finance and external affairs, said he got a phone call at 1 pm from Rajnath Singh informing him that he had been expelled from the "basic membership of the party".

        "It is sad and I regret it for a number of reasons, which I cannot explain in detail," Jaswant Singh said in Shimla where the BJP began its three-day introspection meeting on Wednesday.

        The expulsion comes two days after the release of his controversial book praising Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, "Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence".


        Also Read
         → Jaswant Singh expelled from BJP
         → BJP's 'chintan baithak' to kickstart today
         → Book controversy not new for Jaswant Singh
         → BJP brainstorming session begins, Jaswant stays away



        He referred to a cartoon in India Today magazine that had portrayed him as Hanuman and said he had now become the Ravana of the BJP.

        "I have been a member of the BJP since it was formed (in 1980)," he said.

        "I had never imagined that 30 years of my service would have ended this way. It's regretful," the visibly emotional Jaswant Singh added.

        He said he also "regretted" that the party president informed him about the decision over the phone and not personally.

        "I would have stepped down had they informed me in person," he said.

        "I am worried and sad that just one book has led to my expulsion," he added, wondering what would happen if "soch, vichar and chintan" (thinking and introspection) stopped in Indian politics.

        He, however, said he didn't regret writing the book.

        "They (BJP leaders) have not even read it completely."

         

        Book controversy not new for Jaswant Singh

         

        IANS reports:

         

        Senior leader Jaswant Singh has been expelled from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for his book praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the

        founder of Pakistan, but this is not the first time his writings have touched off controversy.

        In his previous book titled "A Call to Honour: In Service of Emergent India in 2006", he alleged that there was a mole in the Prime Minister's Office in the nineties during the tenure of PV Narasimha Rao of the Congress who leaked information to American sources.

        Soon after the release of the book, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh disputed this and asked him to name the mole.

        Jaswant Singh then said he had sent him a letter, but Manmohan Singh said the letter neither had any signature nor the name of the mole. The former external affairs minister defended himself saying he had a "strong hunch" that information was being leaked from the PMO.

        His latest book, 'Jinnah -- India, Independence, Partition', released on Monday lauds the founder of Pakistan and holds India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and its first home ministere Vallabhbhai Patel responsible for the country's partition in 1947.

        According to his profile posted on parliament website, this is the 71-year-old leader's tenth book.

         

        Jaswant Singh, a central figure in the governments of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was summarily expelled by the Bharatiya

        Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday, was a key member of the party's core decision-making group though never a mass leader.

        During his six-year stint in the government, he experienced both highs and lows. The acme of his achievement was his exhaustive rounds of a dialogue that he as external affairs minister minister held with Strobe Talbott, his counterpart in the US administration, following the 1998 Indian nuclear test.

        They met as many as 14 times in seven countries between June 1998 and September 2000. These talks have been widely acknowledged by present US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as having laid the groundwork for the eventual transformation of Indo-US ties.

        The low point in his ministerial career was when he led Pakistani terrorists to freedom in Kandahar in Afghanistan in December 1999 after the hijack of flight IC-814 by Islamists.

        Between 1980, when he first became a Rajya Sabha member, and now, as a Lok Sabha MP from Darjeeling, he has been the defence, the finance and the external affairs minister- very few have handled all three portfolios- besides being on many committees of parliament.

        He was also conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2001.

        His trademark epaulettes and his customary evening drink were the only vestiges of his army background that he carried with him after joining politics.

        The man who joined the BJP at its inception in 1980 was never identified with any camp in the BJP; nor was he close to the party's ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

        Jaswant Singh, a liberal democrat who was all for economic reforms when he was the finance minister during the BJP-led government between 1999 and 2004, is a prolific writer who has authored ten books.

        The latest, 'Jinnah- India, Partition, Independence,' cost him his membership of the BJP.

        The 1938 born Singh hails from Rajasthan and is an alumnus of Mayo College and the National Defence Academy in Khadakvasla near Pune.

        Singh spent much of his career as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. But he was elected to the Lok Sabha twice. This time, he won from Darjeeling with the support of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha whom the BJP promised a separate Gorkhaland if it came to power.

         

        BJP has made a fool of itself: Lord Meghnad Desai

        Lord Meghnad Desai, noted economist and professor emeritus of the London School of Economics, Wednesday hit out at the BJP for expelling
        Jaswant Singh, saying "it was a bad move" and the party had made a "fool of itself".

        "It is a very bad move by the BJP for it shows how intolerant the party has become," Lord Desai, who was presented the launch of Jaswant Singh's book, told IANS in the capital.

        Singh was expelled from the primary membership of his party for his interpretation of Mohammed Ali Jinnah's role in the partition the country in 1947 in his book, "Jinnah- India, Partition and Independence" barely two days after it was released.

        Singh held Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel responsible for the partition in his book saying Jinnah had been unnecessarily demonised.

        "Jaswant has written a fine book which needs analysing, discussing and debating. He has raised very interesting questions. It's a pity that that the BJP has not read the book and has made a fool of itself," Lord Desai, who was present at the launch of the book, told IANS.

        He said the party had acted in a "pre-determined manner without any evidence".

        "Our minds are closed and we have nothing more to learn. I feel very sorry for the BJP and I wish that India had a decent opposition party," Lord Desai said.

        Lord Desai said BJP was "not a party of the future".

        "It is shocking for young India as BJP had been trying to reinvent itself to identify with the country's youth," the well-known economist said.

        "One should welcome and encourage politicians to write books. Jaswant Singh is the only senior politician to have addressed the issue of partition on the last 50 years after Maulana Azad addressed it in his book, 'India Wins Freedom'," Desai said.

        Lord Desai said "Jaswant Singh had read everything on partition and the book was detailed and well-documented".

        "The book is not dogmatic at all. But why should we be full of prejudices. May be, the Congress was as responsible for the partition as the Muslim League. But why should the BJP bother about it. In fact, Sardar Patel was closely associated with Nehru in the decision to break India in April 1947. By June, it was all over," he said.

        Desai, whose yet-to-be-released new book "Rediscovery of India" also revisits the partition of India but "from a different perspective", said "he has more or less gone through the same material as Jaswant Singh to research his book."

        "He has looked at every document and records. We can always have different ideas, but as a writer one must have the idea to express them without being discriminated. It happens in America all the time. People raise controversial issues. Why should people in India be reluctant to raise questions that can be debated?" Desai said.

         

        Jaswant's expulsion a 'sign' of BJP's collapse: Karat

        CPI-M said the expulsion of Jaswant Singh from BJP over the controversy triggered by his book on Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a

        "sign of collapse" of the saffron party.

        "BJP has now expelled one of its national leaders from the party. This is a sign of the collapse of the party after its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls", CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said at a party rally here this evening.

        With the electorate rejecting BJP's "communal policies", the people would be increasingly reposing their faith in the Left, he claimed.

        In the prevailing circumstances, it was the responsibility of Left parties to live up to the expectations of the masses, he added
        .   

         

        Jaswant Singh's expulsion boon for Gorkhaland: GJM

         

        The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) Wednesday termed
        Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh's expulsion from the party Wednesday as a "boon for the Gorkhaland movement" as the leader can now "work freely" for the realisation of a separate state.

        "Jaswant Singh is now free of party fetters. This development is a boon and not a bane for the Gorkhaland movement. He can now use his immense contacts at the national level for furthering our cause," GJM central committee member and publicity secretary Harka Bahadur Chhetri told IANS.

        Jaswant Singh, who has held defence, finance and external affairs portfolios in the BJP-led governments was expelled for his controversial book praising Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, "Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence".

        The GJM, spearheading the demand for a Gorkhaland out of Darjeleing and some adjacent areas in West Bengal, ensured Jaswant Singh's victory from Darjeeling in the general elections this April-May.

        Chhetri said the BJP cannot backtrack on its stand of supporting the creation of Gorkhaland as the issue figured in the party's election manifesto.

        "We supported Jaswant Singh only because the BJP nominated him. If the BJP had named any other candidate we would have gone all out to ensure his victory also. So, our relations with the BJP will also not be affected," Chhetri said.

        At the same time the GJM was happy with the progress of talks in the third round of tripartite talks recently in Delhi.

        "The result of this round of tri-partite is positive. We will continue our negotiations with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre."

         

        19/08/2009

        Jaswant's view on Jinnah has scholarly backing

        Boston, Aug 19 (IANS) Years before veteran politician Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday, a well-known historian here was championing Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah's many admirable qualities, including his passion for a united India.

        Ayesha Jalal, professor of history at Tufts University, has for long spoken about Jinnah's failed quest to remain within a united India while guaranteeing the Muslim community equal rights.

        Her book 'The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and Demand for Pakistan' is widely regarded as the most definitive work on Jinnah and the circumstances that led to the creation of Pakistan.

        'My understanding of Jinnah, and I have done substantial research on him, is that he never really abandoned the idea of a united India,' Jalal says in an upcoming documentary on Jinnah and the creation of Pakistan by US-based journalist Mayank Chhaya.

        'A united India for him included a Pakistan. He invoked Pakistan based on the Muslim majority provinces of the northwest and northeast as a way of acquiring substantial amount of power at the all India centre,' Jalal says.

        In tracing the history of developments that she says led to the movement for Pakistan as a separate state, Jalal focuses on the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 whose mandate was to discuss the transfer of power from the British rulers to Indians as well as discuss the framing of the constitution.

        In a sense the Cabinet Mission Plan was about 'layered or shared sovereignty', Jalal argues. She was referring to a three-tiered arrangement proposed in the plan which included a federal union of India, the grouping of provinces as the middle tier (which Jinnah supported) and provinces as the third-tier.

        'Throughout the discussion of the Cabinet Mission the Congress Party was not willing to have the centre reduced to three subjects -- defence, foreign affairs and communication. They wanted a broader vision.

        'When Jawaharlal Nehru made his famous statement that there is nobody who can stop the Constituent Assembly from enhancing the powers of the centre and we do not believe in grouping, it became untenable for Jinnah to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan. It was at that point that you begin to see a movement for a Pakistan as a sovereign state,' Jalal explains.

        She says what the Cabinet Mission gave Jinnah was 'an option of a Pakistan that is based on a partition of Punjab and Bengal or remaining within the all India union with no necessary assurance of Muslim share of power at the all India centre. He accepted that, he accepted something less than a sovereign Pakistan.'

        What made Jinnah 'revert back to the idea of a sovereign Pakistan', according to Jalal, was the rejection of the grouping by the Congress Party and once 'it became clear that the Congress had no intention of sharing power'.

        In Jalal's telling, Jinnah was still 'hoping against hope that the British will make an award and give him an undivided Punjab and Bengal'.

        Jalal's point that it was Nehru and the Congress Party that was unwilling to share power with Muslims tallies with what Jaswant Singh has said in his interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN. 'Nehru believed in a highly centralised polity. That's what he wanted India to be. Jinnah wanted a federal polity,' Singh has been quoted as saying.

         

        Start packing up, RSS tells Advani

        19 Aug 2009, 0503 hrs IST, ET Bureau

        NEW DELHI: In a clear signal to LK Advani, the RSS on Tuesday came out in support of handing over the reins of power within the BJP to a younger
        crop of leaders in time for the next general election.

        RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, in an interview to Times Now, favoured a generational shift in the BJP. "It's a universal rule that the younger generation must replace the older one. But when and where this should take place is for them to decide.

        Today, you say that the top-level of the BJP is in the age-group of 75-85. But 30 years ago, the situation was different. The generation, after working for 35 years, has now become old. So now they have to think of promoting younger leaders. When, where and how is their decision. This transition is taking place everywhere. In the RSS too, we'll have to think of promoting a new set after 10-15 years," Mr Bhagwat remarked.

        The RSS chief's observations are being interpreted as a clear signal to the BJP to bring a younger set of leaders at the helm. The party has to start preparing itself for a life beyond the Atal-Advani era, which has shepherded its affairs for the past four decades.

        Mr Bhagwat's remarks are also being seen as a hint to the 81-year-old Mr Advani to groom a younger colleague for the post of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The senior BJP leader had expressed his desire to step down from the post after the party's second consecutive defeat in the general election, but was persuaded to stay on as there were fears that a bitter succession war would ravage the party after his departure.

        Contrary to initial reports, Mr Advani has now made it clear that he would lead the party in the Lok Sabha for the entire term, and that he would not be leading a stop-gap arrangement.

        Responding to a specific query, the RSS chief suggested that the average age of a leader at every level in the party hierarchy should be within the 55-60 bracket. That would eliminate the chances of leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh taking over after Mr Rajnath Singh steps down in January next.

        The RSS chief, in the interview, also expressed serious concern at the never-ending factional feuds and the growing indiscipline within the BJP, and wanted its leaders to do a sincere stock-taking of the party's shortcomings at the chintan baithak, which kicks off in Shimla on Wednesday.

        "Yes, it must stop immediately. It is now a bit too much," was Mr Bhagwat's reply to a query on the infighting that has gripped the BJP. "All this is because of some lack of balance, procedure, methods, all of which should be restored. The party leaders, in our meetings, express their angst over the developments. They are keen to restore the balance, but they must do so quickly," he said.

        The RSS chief conceded that the verdict of the 2009 general election was shocking for the BJP. "I believe that it has received a jolt unexpectedly. They lost their balance in the process. They have to regain it fast. Whatever happened was not very good. All the BJP leaders feel bad about it and have to make amends fast. How it happened? What were the mistakes? They should give thought to all these during the chintan baithak," he said.
         
        RSS looks to increase activities in colleges
        19 Aug 2009, 0851 hrs IST, Gautam Siddharth, TNN
         
        The RSS has launched "software shakhas" in a move to induct young, upwardly mobile IT professionals into its fold. IT Milans aren't typical shakhas
        involving exercise and games.

        "These are get-togethers where issues before the nation, its culture and religion, are discussed. We've been looking for professional brains and the Pune IT sector has the potential to provide it," said Sahane. The Pune pracharaks are now planning IT Milans in Kolhapur and Solapur.

        In Bangalore, the participation of young IT pros and students has reached what the pracharaks call a "respectable 2,000". They conduct 28 IT Milans a week at various locations. Many of these professionals are also volunteering to go into rural areas in Karnataka and work with Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS outfit which focuses on tribal development.

        "What has also helped," says Ram Madhav, "is the relaxation in the rules of our uniform. The new lot of IT volunteers no longer come in khaki shorts. We are now focussing on increasing our activities in colleges."

        "There are many groups of RSS-minded IT youths who hold regular meetings. It's an informal step towards inculcating the RSS thought in young minds," says Niranjan Phadke, an IT professional.

        Unlike the traditional shakhas on open grounds, the shakhas these days aren't "visible" says Madhav, which has led to the erroneous impression that these are dwindling.

        "We are now appointing vidyarthi pramukhs at various levels to get the youth involved in our ideas," he says.
         

        RSS wants younger leaders to take over BJP

        19 Aug 2009, 0910 hrs IST, ET Bureau
        NEW DELHI: In a clear signal to LK Advani, the RSS on Tuesday came out in support of handing over the reins of power within the BJP to a younger
        crop of leaders in time for the next general election.

        RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, in an interview to Times Now, favoured a generational shift in the BJP. "It's a universal rule that the younger generation must replace the older one. But when and where this should take place is for them to decide.

        Today, you say that the top-level of the BJP is in the age-group of 75-85. But 30 years ago, the situation was different. The generation, after working for 35 years, has now become old. So now they have to think of promoting younger leaders. When, where and how is their decision. This transition is taking place everywhere. In the RSS too, we'll have to think of promoting a new set after 10-15 years," Mr Bhagwat remarked.

        The RSS chief's observations are being interpreted as a clear signal to the BJP to bring a younger set of leaders at the helm. The party has to start preparing itself for a life beyond the Atal-Advani era, which has shepherded its affairs for the past four decades.

        Mr Bhagwat's remarks are also being seen as a hint to the 81-year-old Mr Advani to groom a younger colleague for the post of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The senior BJP leader had expressed his desire to step down from the post after the party's second consecutive defeat in the general election, but was persuaded to stay on as there were fears that a bitter succession war would ravage the party after his departure.

        Contrary to initial reports, Mr Advani has now made it clear that he would lead the party in the Lok Sabha for the entire term, and that he would not be leading a stop-gap arrangement.

        Responding to a specific query, the RSS chief suggested that the average age of a leader at every level in the party hierarchy should be within the 55-60 bracket. That would eliminate the chances of leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh taking over after Mr Rajnath Singh steps down in January next.

        The RSS chief, in the interview, also expressed serious concern at the never-ending factional feuds and the growing indiscipline within the BJP, and wanted its leaders to do a sincere stock-taking of the party's shortcomings at the chintan baithak, which kicks off in Shimla on Wednesday.

        "Yes, it must stop immediately. It is now a bit too much," was Mr Bhagwat's reply to a query on the infighting that has gripped the BJP. "All this is because of some lack of balance, procedure, methods, all of which should be restored. The party leaders, in our meetings, express their angst over the developments. They are keen to restore the balance, but they must do so quickly," he said.

        The RSS chief conceded that the verdict of the 2009 general election was shocking for the BJP. "I believe that it has received a jolt unexpectedly. They lost their balance in the process. They have to regain it fast. Whatever happened was not very good. All the BJP leaders feel bad about it and have to make amends fast. How it happened? What were the mistakes? They should give thought to all these during the chintan baithak," he said.
        18/08/2009

        Is 300 mn a good target for Nandan Nilekani?

        Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes

        To start his work, Nandan Nilekani, the boss of India's unique identity project doesn't need to look beyond his mobile phone and voter identity card.

        There are several places Nilekani sahib could be looking for: the databases of PAN card, passport, driving license, ration card, voter I-card and so on. But the first three cover only a small part of the population and the ration card data is subsumed in voter card data.

        The database of voters is a credible starting point. Almost 586 million people have this card. But there is another database which is equally powerful: the mobile subscribers.

        "You get 40 percent penetration straightaway and this data has been verified by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)," says Guru Malladi, partner, Ernst & Young. Mobile connections of 427 million, however, do not mean subscribers. Some subscribers have more than one connection. Research firm Gartner estimates that 10 percent of connections fall in this category.

        Based on recent Department of Telecommunications audits of leading mobile operator's subscriber bona-fides, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent might turn out to be invalid. Assume 5 percent as the conservative estimate. Then there are connections being used by companies for their business operations. Add another 5 percent. The number that remains is 350 million.

        So now we have two large databases, one with 586 million people in it and the other with 350 million people. There will be common entries in these two databases. You call in the experts at de-duplicating. A de-duplication expert at IIT Bombay, who has worked on government database projects, reckons when such databases are merged and the common entries removed then the size of the database can become half or even one-fourth of the total entries. Let us assume that in this case the size will be a third of 586 million and 350 million put together. That number is 312 million. If the top 5 percent of the population really isn't dependent on the services that this new identity scheme will deliver then 300 million is a good target for Nilekani.

        Forbes

         
        19/08/2009

        After Nilekani, NRN to take up a government assignment

        Mumbai: Infosys chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy is likely to become the non-executive chairman of the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) being set up to handle the retail payment operations of the Reserve Bank of India.

        Narayana Murthy

        Indian Banks Association (IBA), which is functioning as a facilitator to set up the new entity, is understood to have approached the Infosys founder to take over the new responsibility, a source close to the development said.

        "IBA has approached Narayana Murthy to join the (NPCI) board. He has agreed to join the board," the source said.

        Though, Narayana Murthy will not be directly involved in the operations of the company, he will guide the board on crucial operations, the source said.

        Another former Infosys top executive, Nandan Nilekani had recently joined the government to head the Unique Identity Card project of the UPA government.

        NPCI, which was first mentioned in the 2005-08 vision document of the central bank, is being set up to segregate all retail payment activities.

        This, however, excludes, real time gross settlement (electronic) transactions, which will continue to be handled directly by the apex bank.

        The Reserve Bank, which is currently burdened with the responsibility of all type of payments, plans to hand over most of the retail operations to the NPCI in the next one year.

        NPCI will be majority owned by public sector banks which, together will have 51% stake in the company, while the rest of the holding will be with private and foreign sector lenders.

        State-owned lenders, who will own majority stake in NPCI are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, Canara Bank and Bank of Baroda. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citi and HSBC will be the other stake holders.

        Former RBI CGM in charge of payment and settlement AP Hota is the interim NPCI CEO.
        Hota will lead the operations of the new entity in the initial phase of operations, including the recruitment of a permanent CEO.

        KPMG has been appointed as a consultant to search for suitable candidates to run NPCI.
        Parliament cleared the Payment and Settlements Act, 2007, giving more power to the central bank in matters related to payment and settlement more effectively by introducing uniformity and standardisation in retail transactions.

        PTI

         
         

         

         
         
         

        India Jinnah Book

        Jaswant Singh, senior leader of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, gestures during a press conference after his expulsion from the party, in Shimla, India, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009. Singh was expelled Wednesday after he wrote a book about the founder of archrival Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. On Tuesday the party had also issued a statement disassociating itself from Singh's book "Jinnah India, Partition, Independence" which was released earlier in August.


        Jaswant & Jinnah

         


        19/08/2009

        Government to disinvest six more companies by 2010

        New Delhi: The government will sell equity in 6-7 state-owned companies over the next 12 months, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said today.

        "There will be 6-7 companies that will go to market in the next 10-12 months, all may not go in the current fiscal," Chawla said on the sidelines of an event organised by Corporation Bank.

        He did not, however, name the companies and quantify the capital the government expected to raise through this.

        The government has set a disinvestment target for the current financial year at Rs 1,120 crore though this has been more than met with the government expected to get over Rs 2,000 crore from sale of 5 per cent equity in power sector major NHPC Ltd. While NHPC recently come out with its initial public offer, Oil India Ltd is expected to go to market next month. The NHPC offer closed last week and is expected to raise around Rs 6,000 crore. NMDC and Coal India are other public sector undertakings (PSUs) that are expected to sell off equities in the coming months.

        The finance secretary also added that it would soon approach the Cabinet for amending the provisions of the National Investment Fund (NIF). Under the disinvestment programme, the government plans to retain 51 per cent stake in listed government companies. As a first step, it will dilute stake in those listed companies which have with less than 10 per cent floating equity, either through offloading its equity or through follow-on issues.

        Around 15 PSUs had earlier been identified for disinvestment. Railway PSUs Rites and Icron along with NTPC Ltd had conveyed their unwillingness to go for the follow-on issue. Icron and Rites stated that they did not require additional funds while floating equity in NTPC is already above 10 per cent.

        Source: Business Standard


        From BJP's Hanuman, I am now its Ravana: Jaswant

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        http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickieslist/4909035.cms

        The secrets of Pakistan's survival

        Pakistan has seen rapid change and frequent conflict in its 62 years. Its resilience is a testament to its people

        Karachi's Saddar Town is the frenetic heart of Pakistan's commercial capital. A retail hub where anything and everything from cameras to salwar kameez can be purchased, it was once the economic gateway into the northern reaches of British India. That legacy is still visible in Saddar's fading colonial terraces, but the intricate wooden shutters are mostly gone and the Victorian entrances have been converted into street stalls. Today most are too busy trying to survive to notice the heritage.

        Much the same could be said for the six decades that have followed independence.

        Pakistan has seen rapid change in its 62 years of existence. At partition, the population of what was then West Pakistan (the people of East Pakistan took matters into their own hands in 1971 and created Bangladesh) was around 30 million. Today it is closer to 180 million. Pakistanis have been struggling to cope with the demographic explosion ever since.

        The 33 long years of direct military rule and numerous wars have not helped, though Pakistanis have never lacked courage or a desire for genuine democracy. Each decade has seen its special dilemmas and surprises, none more frightening than the Talibanisation of the Pakhtun frontier and, possibly, beyond. From bulwark against communism to terrorist menace, the army has received a massive injection of American arms.

        But no front line, real or imagined, has been more fateful than the state's foundational moments. In 1940 the idea of Pakistan, a separate state for the subcontinent's Muslims, was formally adopted by its leadership under the Lahore Resolution. Significantly, the resolution spoke of "mandatory safeguards ... in the constitution for minorities ... for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights".

        Mohammad Ali Jinnah, known as the father of Pakistan, championed this pluralism. In 1946 he remarked: "Religion is dear to us. All the worldly goods are nothing when we talk of religion. But there are other things which are very vital – our social life and our economic life, and without political power how can you defend your faith and your economic life?"

        A year later, on 14 August 1947 – 62 years ago today – Pakistan was born.

        Not all of colonial India's Muslims accepted the notion of a separate Muslim state, but around 7 million, including an equal number of Hindus and Sikhs who were moving in the opposite direction, left their homes to join those already living in what is now Pakistan. Paradoxically, these peoples, now drawn upon sectarian lines, fell victim to communal violence at the very moment their new nations promised liberation.

        "Pakistan was created on the basis of the two-nation theory," explains Pervez Hoodbhoy from Qaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, "a belief that Muslims and Hindus were separate peoples who could never live together".

        He adds: "The unstated assumption was that Muslims – by virtue of sharing a common faith – naturally constituted a nation and could live together harmoniously by virtue of that."

        But events since then – the civil war that created Bangladesh and the current Taliban insurgency to name just two – place that assumption under serious doubt.

        History is not merely written by the great individual, no matter how much the powerful might think otherwise. But Mohammad Ali Jinnah holds a special place in the development of Pakistan. As ZH Zaidi wrote, "What distinguished Jinnah from his great contemporaries is that he was quite self-consciously a modern man – one who valued, above all, reason, discipline, organisation, and economy ... [who] differed from other Muslim leaders in so far as he was uncompromisingly committed to substance rather than symbol, reason rather than emotion, modernity rather than tradition."

        It has proven difficult for Jinnah's successors to live up to his credentials, though all invoke his name and image. "His ideals have been overlooked," says historian Ayesha Jalal, "particularly the rule of law of which he was a fervent advocate."

        In any country, politics is rarely about the rule of law. In Pakistan, it has the added vice of being held hostage to individuals whose personal alliances shift so rapidly that recent events soon become historical footnotes leading to some of the most ironic displays of political drama – like the use, by one-time political prisoner President Asif Ali Zardari, of authoritarian laws from the British Raj to stifle public protest, or opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's apparent championing of the recently reinstated chief justice despite his overt intimidation of the higher courts while prime minister in the 1990s.

        "In such circumstances," writes the historian Ian Talbot, "patronage alone can secure party cohesion and stability." That may explain why the current executive has an unwieldy 60 cabinet ministers.

        It is in opposition that Pakistani politics is at its best. Opposition transformed the Bhuttos into brave, virtuoso statesmen and women. When not in power, each political movement, even the Taliban, has looked to the abundance of ills that plague the nation to garner popular support. Once incumbent, however, all have been guilty of perpetuating the same vices. As a result, intrigues prevail while inequality and poverty remain entrenched.

        "Pakistan is beset by conspiracy theories," one analyst wrote derisively about the country recently. But western commentators tend to ignore the extent to which their own governments, especially those of the United Kingdom and United States, have stunted the development of democratic politics by favouring centres of concentrated power.

        Pakistanis are deeply aware of this. According to an al-Jazeera poll, a staggering 59% of Pakistanis consider the US the greatest threat to the country. Pakistanis may too-readily look to the US to explain their country's problems, but the world's only superpower has never trusted them much either.

        No postwar nation has been written off more regularly than Pakistan. That it survives remains a profound mystery to outside observers. That may partly explain the constant warnings about its impending collapse. The forecasts reflect a tendency to assume the worst about Pakistan, but its survival is a testament to the resilience of its people.

         

         


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        Jinnah — a visionary for all ages

        Even a brief look back onto the pages of history yields a handful of faces who, in their quest for higher ideals or goals never yielded and never shed a single drop of blood or fired a single shot. Of these visionaries, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, stands out among all others, having securing freedom and a separate homeland for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, all without a bloody revolution.

        At a time when India was passing through the most atrocious of times, it was Jinnah's statesmanship that helped Muslims secure the democratic state of Pakistan.

        "Our objective should be peace within, and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large," Jinnah once said.

        On way to materialise the dream of Allama Iqbal, the Quaid surpassed all obstacles, not only winning acknowledgement from friends, but also from foes.

        Vijay Lakshmi Pundit, the sister of Jawaharlalz Nehru, the first prime minister of India, wrote in her book, "If Pakistan Muslim League had 100 Gandhis and 200 Abulkalam Azads, there would have been no Pakistan. However, if the Congress had only one Jinnah, India would not have been divided."

        Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of the subcontinent, admitted in his memoirs, "Had I any clue that Jinnah would die in 1948, I would have extended the date of division and Pakistan would never have been there on the world map."

        But, no conspiracy, no ill will could come in the Quaid's way to an Ideology and creation of an independent state for the suppressed Muslims of the subcontinent.

        Pakistan Movement leader Azad Bin Haider says, "Quaid-e-Azam strictly believed in upholding the democratic norms and the party constitution." app

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        Muhammad Ali Jinnah

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        Quaid-e-Azam
        Muhammad Ali Jinnah
        محمد علی جناح


        In office
        August 15, 1947 – September 11, 1948
        Monarch George VI
        Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan
        Preceded by None; Office created
        Earl Mountbatten of Burma (as Viceroy of India)
        Succeeded by Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin

        Born December 25, 1876 (1876-12-25)
        Karachi, Bombay Presidency, British India
        Died September 11, 1948 (1948-09-12) (aged 71)
        Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan
        Political party Indian National Congress (1896-1913)
        Muslim League (1913-1948)
        Spouse(s) Emibai Jinnah
        Maryam Jinnah
        Children Dina Jinnah
        Profession huhiuhjinkjnkjkjy7gyu Lawyer, Statesman
        Religion Shia Islam[1][2][3]

        Muhammad Ali Jinnah Urdu: Hi-Muhammed_Ali_Jinnah.ogg Hi-Muhammed_Ali_Jinnah.ogg (help·info) (Urdu: محمد علی جناح) (December 25, 1876 – September 11, 1948), a 20th century politician and statesman, is generally regarded as the founder of Pakistan. He served as leader of The Muslim League and Pakistan's first Governor-General. He is officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم — "Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum (بابائے قوم) ("Father of the Nation"). His birthday is a national holiday in Pakistan.

        Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress expounding ideas of Hindu-Muslim unity and helping shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress; he also became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League. He proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in a self-governing India.

        Jinnah embraced the goal of creating a separate state for Muslims as per the Lahore Resolution. The League won most Muslim seats in the elections of 1946, and Jinnah launched the Direct Action campaign movement to achieve independence of Pakistan. The strong reaction of Congress supporters resulted in communal violence from supporters of both groups across South Asia. As the Indian National Congress and Muslim League failed to reach a power sharing formula for united India, it prompted both the parties and the British to agree to independence of Pakistan and India. As the Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah led efforts to rehabilitate millions of refugees, and to frame national policies on foreign affairs, security and economic development.

        Contents

        [hide]

        [edit] Early life

        Jinnah in his youth, in traditional dress.

        Jinnah was born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai [4] in, some believe, Wazir Mansion,[5] Karachi District, of lower Sindh. However, this is disputed as old textbooks mention Jhirk as his place of birth. Sindh had earlier been conquered by the British and was subsequently grouped with other conquered territories for administrative reasons to form the Bombay Presidency of British India. Although his earliest school records state that he was born on October 20, 1875, Sarojini Naidu, the author of Jinnah's first biography, gives the date as "December 25, 1876". The latter date is now officially accepted as his birthday.

        Jinnah was the eldest of seven children born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1901), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had moved to Sindh from Kathiawar, Gujarat before Jinnah's birth.[5][6] His grandfather was Poonja Gokuldas Meghji,[7] a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajput that converted to Islam.[6] Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Shi'a Islam.[3]

        The first born Jinnah was soon joined by six siblings, brothers Ahmad Ali, Bunde Ali, and Rahmat Ali, and sisters Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. Their mother tongue was Gujarati, however, in time they also came to speak Kutchi, Sindhi and English.[8] The proper Muslim names of Mr. Jinnah and his siblings, unlike those of his father and grandfather, are the consequence of the family's immigration to the Muslim state of Sindh.

        Jinnah was a restless student, he studied at several schools: at the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam in Karachi; briefly at the Gokal Das Tej Primary School in Bombay; and finally at the Christian Missionary Society High School in Karachi,[4] where, at age sixteen, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay.[9]

        In 1892, Jinnah was offered an apprenticeship at the London office of Graham's Shipping and Trading Company, a business that had extensive dealings with Jinnahbhai Poonja's firm in Karachi.[4] However, before he left for England, at his mother's urging he married his distant cousin, Emibai Jinnah, who was two years his junior.[4] The marriage was not to last long as Emibai died a few months later. During his sojourn in England, his mother too would pass away.[6] In London, Jinnah soon left the apprenticeship to study law instead, by joining Lincoln's Inn. The welcome board of the Lincoln's Inn had the names of the world's all time top ten magistrates. This list was led by the name of Muhammad, which was the sole reason of Jinnah's joining of Lincoln's Inn. In three years, at age 19, he became the youngest South Asian to be called to the bar in England.[6]

        Jinnah House in Mumbai, India.

        During his student years in England, Jinnah came under the spell of nineteenth-century British liberalism, much like many other future Indian independence leaders. This education included exposure to the idea of the democratic nation and progressive politics. He admired William Gladstone and John Morley, British Liberal statesmen. An admirer of the Indian political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta,[10] he worked, with other Indian students, on the former's successful campaign for to become the first Indian to hold a seat in the British Parliament. By now, Jinnah had developed largely constitutionalist views on Indian self-government, and he condemned both the arrogance of British officials in India and the discrimination practiced by them against Indians. This idea of a nation legitimized by democratic principles and cultural commonalities, however, was antithetical to the genuine diversity that had generally characterized the subcontinent. As an important Indian intellectual and political authority, Jinnah would find his commitment to the Western ideal of the nation-state, developed during his English education, and the obstacle that was the reality of heterogeneous Indian society to be difficult to reconcile during his later political career.

        The Western world not only inspired Jinnah in his political life. England had greatly influenced his personal preferences, particularly when it came to dress. Jinnah donned Western style clothing and he pursued the fashion with fervor. It is said he owned over 200 hand-tailored suits which he wore with heavily starched shirts with detachable collars. It is also alleged that he never wore the same silk tie twice.[11]

        During the final period of his stay in England, Jinnah came under considerable pressure to return home when his father's business was ruined. Settling in Bombay, he became a successful lawyer—gaining particular fame for his skilled handling of the "Caucus Case".[10] Jinnah built a house in Malabar Hill, later known as Jinnah House. His reputation as a skilled lawyer prompted Indian leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak to hire him as defence counsel for his sedition trial in 1905. Jinnah argued that it was not sedition for an Indian to demand freedom and self-government in his own country, but Tilak received a rigorous term of imprisonment test.[10]

        When he returned to India his faith in liberalism and evolutionary politics was confirmed through his close association with three Indian National Congress stalwarts Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjee. These people had an important influence in his early life in England and they would influence his later involvement in Indian politics.[12]

        [edit] Early political career

        Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as a young lawyer.

        In 1896, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organisation. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favour outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah became a member on the sixty-member Imperial Legislative Council. The council had no real power or authority, and included a large number of un-elected pro-Raj loyalists and Europeans. Nevertheless, Jinnah was instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act, the legitimization of the Muslim waqf (religious endowments) and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped establish the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun.[5][13] During World War I, Jinnah joined other Indian moderates in supporting the British war effort, hoping that Indians would be rewarded with political freedoms.

        Jinnah had initially avoided joining the All India Muslim League, founded in 1906, regarding it as too Muslim oriented. However he decided to provide leadership to the Muslim minority. Eventually, he joined the league in 1913 and became the president at the 1916 session in Lucknow. Jinnah was the architect of the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the League, bringing them together on most issues regarding self-government and presenting a united front to the British. Jinnah also played an important role in the founding of the All India Home Rule League in 1916. Along with political leaders Annie Besant and Tilak, Jinnah demanded "home rule" for India—the status of a self-governing dominion in the Empire similar to Canada, New Zealand and Australia. He headed the League's Bombay Presidency chapter.

        In 1918, Jinnah married his second wife Rattanbai Petit ("Ruttie"), twenty-four years his junior. She was the fashionable young daughter of his personal friend Sir Dinshaw Petit, of an elite Parsi family of Mumbai. Unexpectedly there was great opposition to the marriage from Rattanbai's family and Parsi society, as well as orthodox Muslim leaders. Rattanbai defied her family and nominally converted to Islam, adopting (though never using) the name Maryam Jinnah, resulting in a permanent estrangement from her family and Parsi society. The couple resided in Mumbai, and frequently travelled across India and Europe. In 1919 she bore Jinnah his only child, daughter Dina Jinnah.

        In 1924 Jinnah reorganized the Muslim League, of which he had been president since 1919, and devoted the next seven years attempting to bring about unity among the disparate ranks of Muslims and to develop a rational formula to effect a Hindu Muslim settlement, which he considered the pre condition for Indian freedom. He attended several unity conferences, wrote the Delhi Muslim Proposals in 1927, pleaded for the incorporation of the basic Muslim demands in the Nehru report, and formulated the "Fourteen Points" [14]

        [edit] Fourteen points

        Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader, Mohandas Gandhi, launched a law violating Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which a temperamentally law abiding barrister Jinnah disapproved of. Unlike most Congress leaders, Gandhi did not wear western-style clothes, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply rooted to Indian culture. Gandhi's local style of leadership gained great popularity with the Indian people. Jinnah criticised Gandhi's support of the Khilafat Movement, which he saw as an endorsement of religious zealotry.[15] By 1920, Jinnah resigned from the Congress, with a prophetic warning that Gandhi's method of mass struggle would lead to divisions between Hindus and Muslims and within the two communities.[13] Becoming president of the Muslim League, Jinnah was drawn into a conflict between a pro-Congress faction and a pro-British faction.

        In September 1923, Jinnah was elected as Muslim member for Bombay in the new Central Legislative Assembly. He showed great gifts as a parliamentarian, organized many Indian members to work with the Swaraj Party, and continued to press demands for full responsible government. He was so active on a wide range of subjects that in 1925 he was offered a knighthood by Lord Reading when he retired as Viceroy and Governor General. Jinnah replied: "I prefer to be plain Mr. Jinnah".[16]

        In 1927, Jinnah entered negotiations with Muslim and Hindu leaders on the issue of a future constitution, during the struggle against the all-British Simon Commission. The League wanted separate electorates while the Nehru Report favoured joint electorates. Jinnah personally opposed separate electorates, but then drafted compromises and put forth demands that he thought would satisfy both. These became known as the 14 points of Mr. Jinnah.[17] However, they were rejected by the Congress and other political parties.

        Jinnah's personal life and especially his marriage suffered during this period due to his political work. Although they worked to save their marriage by travelling together to Europe when he was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, the couple separated in 1927. Jinnah was deeply saddened when Rattanbai died in 1929, after a serious illness.

        At the Round Table Conferences in London, Jinnah was disillusioned by the breakdown of talks.[18] After the failure of the Round Table Conferences, Jinnah returned to London for a few years. In 1936, he returned to India to re-organize Muslim League and contest the elections held under the provisions of the Act of 1935.[19]

        Jinnah would receive personal care and support as he became more ill during this time from his sister Fatima Jinnah. She lived and travelled with him, as well as becoming a close advisor.[20] She helped raise his daughter, who was educated in England and India. Jinnah later became estranged from his daughter, Dina Jinnah, after she decided to marry Parsi-born Christian businessman, Neville Wadia (even though he had faced the same issues when he married Rattanbai in 1918). Jinnah continued to correspond cordially with his daughter, but their personal relationship was strained. Dina continued to live in India with her family.

        [edit] Leader of the Muslim League

        Jinnah with his sister (left) and daughter Dina (right) in Bombay

        Prominent Muslim leaders like the The Aga Khan, Choudhary Rahmat Ali and Sir Muhammad Iqbal made efforts to convince Jinnah to return from London (Where he had moved to in 1931 and planned on permanently relocating in order to practice in the Privy Council Bar.[21]) to India and take charge of a now-reunited Muslim League. In 1934 Jinnah returned and began to re-organise the party, being closely assisted by Liaquat Ali Khan, who would act as his right-hand man. In the 1937 elections to the Central Legislative Assembly, the League emerged as a competent party, capturing a significant number of seats under the Muslim electorate, but lost in the Muslim-majority Punjab, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province.[22] Jinnah offered an alliance with the Congress - both bodies would face the British together, but the Congress had to share power, accept separate electorates and the League as the representative of India's Muslims. The latter two terms were unacceptable to the Congress, which had its own national Muslim leaders and membership and adhered to secularism. Even as Jinnah held talks with Congress president Rajendra Prasad,[23] Congress leaders suspected that Jinnah would use his position as a lever for exaggerated demands and obstruct government, and demanded that the League merge with the Congress.[24] The talks failed, and while Jinnah declared the resignation of all Congressmen from provincial and central offices in 1938 as a "Day of Deliverance" from Hindu domination,[25] some historians assert that he remained hopeful for an agreement.[23]

        Jinnah delivering a political speech.

        In a speech to the League in 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal mooted an independent state for Muslims in "northwest India." Choudhary Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in 1933 advocating a state called "Pakistan". Following the failure to work with the Congress, Jinnah, who had embraced separate electorates and the exclusive right of the League to represent Muslims, was converted to the idea that Muslims needed a separate state to protect their rights. Jinnah came to believe that Muslims and Hindus were distinct nations, with unbridgeable differences—a view later known as the Two Nation Theory.[26] Jinnah declared that a united India would lead to the marginalization of Muslims, and eventually civil war between Hindus and Muslims. This change of view may have occurred through his correspondence with Iqbal, who was close to Jinnah.[27] In the session in Lahore in 1940, the Pakistan resolution was adopted as the main goal of the party. The resolution was rejected outright by the Congress, and criticised by many Muslim leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Syed Ab'ul Ala Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami. On July 26, 1943, Jinnah was stabbed and wounded by a member of the extremist Khaksars in an attempted assassination.

        Muhammad Ali Jinnah founded Dawn in 1941, a major newspaper that helped him propagate the League's point of views. During the mission of British minister Stafford Cripps, Jinnah demanded parity between the number of Congress and League ministers, the League's exclusive right to appoint Muslims and a right for Muslim-majority provinces to secede, leading to the breakdown of talks. Jinnah supported the British effort in World War II, and opposed the Quit India movement. During this period, the League formed provincial governments and entered the central government. The League's influence increased in the Punjab after the death of Unionist leader Sikander Hyat Khan in 1942. Gandhi held talks fourteen times with Jinnah in Bombay in 1944, about a united front—while talks failed, Gandhi's overtures to Jinnah increased the latter's standing with Muslims.[28]

        [edit] Founding Pakistan

        A letter by Jinnah to Winston Churchill

        In the 1946 elections for the Constituent Assembly of India, the Congress won most of the elected seats, while the League won a large majority of Muslim electorate seats. The 1946 British Cabinet Mission to India released a plan on May 16, calling for a united Indian state comprising considerably autonomous provinces, and called for "groups" of provinces formed on the basis of religion. A second plan released on June 16, called for the separation of South Asia along religious lines, with princely states to choose between accession to the dominion of their choice or independence. The Congress, fearing India's fragmentation, criticised the May 16 proposal and rejected the June 16 plan. Jinnah gave the League's assent to both plans, knowing that power would go only to the party that had supported a plan. After much debate and against Gandhi's advice that both plans were divisive, the Congress accepted the May 16 plan while condemning the grouping principle.[citation needed] Jinnah decried this acceptance as "dishonesty", accused the British negotiators of "treachery",[29] and withdrew the League's approval of both plans. The League boycotted the assembly, leaving the Congress in charge of the government but denying it legitimacy in the eyes of many Muslims.

        Jinnah gave a precise definition of the term 'Pakistan' in 1941 at Lahore in which he stated:

        Some confusion prevails in the minds of some individuals in regard to the use of the work 'Pakistan'. This word has become synonymous with the Lahore resolution owing to the fact that it is a convenient and compendious method of describing [it].... For this reason the British and Indian newspapers generally have adopted the word 'Pakistan' to describe the Moslem demand as embodied in the Lahore resolution.[30]

        Jinnah issued a call for all Muslims to launch "Direct Action" on August 16 to "achieve Pakistan".[31] Strikes and protests were planned, but violence broke out all over South Asia, especially in Calcutta and the district of Noakhali in Bengal, and more than 7,000 people were killed in Bihar. Although viceroy Lord Wavell asserted that there was "no satisfactory evidence to that effect",[32] League politicians were blamed by the Congress and the media for orchestrating the violence.[33] Interim Government portfolios were announced on October 25, 1946.[34] Muslim Leaguers were sworn in on October 26, 1946.[35] The League entered the interim government, but Jinnah refrained from accepting office for himself. This was credited as a major victory for Jinnah, as the League entered government having rejected both plans, and was allowed to appoint an equal number of ministers despite being the minority party. The coalition was unable to work, resulting in a rising feeling within the Congress that independence of Pakistan was the only way of avoiding political chaos and possible civil war. The Congress agreed to the division of Punjab and Bengal along religious lines in late 1946. The new viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma and Indian civil servant V. P. Menon proposed a plan that would create a Muslim dominion in West Punjab, East Bengal, Baluchistan and Sindh. After heated and emotional debate, the Congress approved the plan.[36] The North-West Frontier Province voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in July 1947. Jinnah asserted in a speech in Lahore on October 30, 1947 that the League had accepted independence of Pakistan because "the consequences of any other alternative would have been too disastrous to imagine." [37]

        The independent state of Pakistan, created on August 14, 1947, represented the outcome of a campaign on the part of the Indian Muslim community for a Muslim homeland which had been triggered by the British decision to consider transferring power to the people of India.[38]

        [edit] Views on statehood

        Will of Quaid

        A controversy has raged in Pakistan about whether Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a secular state or an Islamic state. His views as expressed in his policy speech on 11 August 1947 said:

        There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make. I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State. Jinnah, 11th August 1947 - presiding over the constituent assembly.

        While this was a clear indication that Jinnah wanted a secular state, he did on occasion refer to Islam and Islamic principles.

        Pakistan not only means freedom and independce but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us[dubious ] Message to Frontier Muslim Students Federation June 18, 1945.

        Furthermore he also pointed out on various occasions that the country's constitution and its financial setup must be based on Islamic principles.

        The constitution of Pakistan has yet to be framed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. I do not know what the ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principle of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1,300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fairplay to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims --Hindus, Christians, and Parsis --but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan. Broadcast talk to the people of the United States of America on Pakistan recorded February, 1948.

        It has been argued by many people that in this speech Jinnah wanted to point out that Pakistan would be a secular state as mostly people think that an Islamic state is a theocratic state. This perception, however, is wrong and is misinterpreted; the reason is that a true Islamic state is not a theocratic state, as rightly stated by Jinnah in his speech. Because in a theocratic state the civil leader is believed to have a direct personal connection with god, which is contrary to the principles of an Islamic state.[dubious ]

        On the opening ceremony of the state bank of Pakistan Jinnah pointed out that the financial setup of the state should be based on Islamic economic system.

        We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind. Speech at the opening ceremony of State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi July 1, 1948

        It appears that Jinnah felt the state of Pakistan should stand upon Islamic tradition in culture, civilization and national identity rather than on the principles of Islam as a theocratic state.[39]

        In 1937, Jinnah further defended his ideology of equality in his speech to the All-India Muslim League in Lucknow where he stated, "Settlement can only be achieved between equals."[40] He also had a rebuttal to Nehru's statement which argued that the only two parties that mattered in India were the British Raj and INC. Jinnah stated that the Muslim League was the third and "equal partner" within Indian politics.[41]

        [edit] Governor-General

        Jinnah with Gandhi, 1944.

        Along with Liaquat Ali Khan and Abdur Rab Nishtar, Muhammad Ali Jinnah represented the League in the Division Council to appropriately divide public assets between India and Pakistan.[42] The assembly members from the provinces that would comprise Pakistan formed the new state's constituent assembly, and the Military of British India was divided between Muslim and non-Muslim units and officers. Indian leaders were angered at Jinnah's courting the princes of Jodhpur, Bhopal and Indore to accede to Pakistan - these princely states were not geographically aligned with Pakistan, and each had a Hindu-majority population.[43]

        Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan and president of its constituent assembly. Inaugurating the assembly on August 11, 1947, Jinnah spoke of an inclusive and pluralist democracy promising equal rights for all citizens regardless of religion, caste or creed. This address is a cause of much debate in Pakistan as, on its basis, many claim that Jinnah wanted a secular state while supporters of Islamic Pakistan assert that this speech is being taken out of context when compared to other speeches by him.

        On October 11, 1947, in an address to Civil, Naval, Military and Air Force Officers of Pakistan Government, Karachi, he said:

        We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.[44]

        On February 21, 1948, in an address to the officers and men of the 5th Heavy Ack Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir, Karachi, he said:

        You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.[45]

        The office of Governor-General was ceremonial, but Jinnah also assumed the lead of government. The first months of Pakistan's independence were absorbed in ending the intense violence that had arisen in the wake of acrimony between Hindus and Muslims. Jinnah agreed with Indian leaders to organise a swift and secure exchange of populations in the Punjab and Bengal. He visited the border regions with Indian leaders to calm people and encourage peace, and organised large-scale refugee camps. Despite these efforts, estimates on the death toll vary from around two hundred thousand, to over a million people.[citation needed] The estimated number of refugees in both countries exceeds 15 million.[46] The then capital city of Karachi saw an explosive increase in its population owing to the large encampments of refugees. Jinnah was personally affected and depressed by the intense violence of the period.[citation needed]

        Jinnah authorised force to achieve the annexation of the princely state of Kalat and suppress the insurgency in Baluchistan. He controversially accepted the accession of Junagadh—a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler located in the Saurashtra peninsula, some 400 kilometres (250 mi) southeast of Pakistan—but this was annulled by Indian intervention. It is unclear if Jinnah planned or knew of the tribal invasion from Pakistan into the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir in October 1947, but he did send his private secretary Khurshid Ahmed to observe developments in Kashmir. When informed of Kashmir's accession to India, Jinnah deemed the accession illegitimate and ordered the Pakistani army to enter Kashmir.[47] However, Gen. Auchinleck, the supreme commander of all British officers informed Jinnah that while India had the right to send troops to Kashmir, which had acceded to it, Pakistan did not. If Jinnah persisted, Auchinleck would remove all British officers from both sides. As Pakistan had a greater proportion of Britons holding senior command, Jinnah cancelled his order, but protested to the United Nations to intercede.[47]

        Owing to his role in the state's creation, Jinnah was the most popular and influential politician. He played a pivotal role in protecting the rights of minorities,[citation needed] establishing colleges, military institutions and Pakistan's financial policy.[48] In his first visit to East Pakistan, under the advice of local party leaders, Jinnah stressed that Urdu alone should be the national language; a policy that was strongly opposed by the Bengali people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This opposition grew after he controversially described Bengali as the language of Hindus.[49][50][dubious ] He also worked for an agreement with India settling disputes regarding the division of assets.[citation needed]

        [edit] Death

        Tomb of M.A. Jinnah in Karachi, Pakistan
        The funeral of Jinnah in 1948.

        Through the 1940s, Jinnah suffered from tuberculosis; only his sister and a few others close to him were aware of his condition. In 1948, Jinnah's health began to falter, hindered further by the heavy workload that had fallen upon him following Pakistan's independence from British Rule. Attempting to recuperate, he spent many months at his official retreat in Ziarat, but died on September 11, 1948 (just over a year after independence) from a combination of tuberculosis and lung cancer. His funeral was followed by the construction of a massive mausoleumMazar-e-Quaid—in Karachi to honour him; official and military ceremonies are hosted there on special occasions.

        Funeral prayers were led by Allamah Shabbir Ahmad Usmani a renowned mainstream Muslim (Sunni) scholar and attended by masses from all over Pakistan, although this funeral was well on record and supported by pictures as well, yet the Shia minority sources claim in their books that "at Jinnah's request. Jinnah did have a private Namaz-e-Janaza at Kharadar which was attended by close relatives and people from the Shia community.[51]

        Dina Wadia remained in India after independence, before ultimately settling in New York City. Jinnah's grandson, Nusli Wadia, is a prominent industrialist residing in Mumbai. In the 1963–1964 elections, Jinnah's sister Fatima Jinnah, known as Madar-e-Millat ("Mother of the Nation"), became the presidential candidate of a coalition of political parties that opposed the rule of President Ayub Khan, but lost the election.

        The Jinnah House in Malabar Hill, Bombay, is in the possession of the Government of India but the issue of its ownership has been disputed by the Government of Pakistan.[52] Jinnah had personally requested Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to preserve the house and that one day he could return to Mumbai. There are proposals for the house be offered to the Government of Pakistan to establish a consulate in the city, as a goodwill gesture, but Dina Wadia has also laid claim to the property.[52]

        [edit] Legacy and criticism

        'Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.' - Stanley Wolpert[53]

        An Iranian stamp commemorating the centenary of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, printed in 1976.

        In Pakistan, Jinnah is honoured with the official title Quaid-e-Azam , and he is depicted on all Pakistani rupee notes of denominations five and higher, and is the namesake of many Pakistani public institutions. The former Quaid-e-Azam International Airport, now called the Jinnah International Airport, in Karachi is Pakistan's busiest. One of the largest streets in the Turkish capital AnkaraCinnah Caddesi —is named after him. In Iran, one of the capital Tehran's most important new highways is also named after him, while the government released a stamp commemorating the centennial of Jinnah's birthday. In Chicago, a portion of Devon Avenue was named as "Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way". The Mazar-e-Quaid, Jinnah's mausoleum, is among Karachi's most imposing buildings.[citation needed] In media, Jinnah was portrayed by British actors Richard Lintern (as the young Jinnah) and Christopher Lee (as the elder Jinnah) in the 1998 film Jinnah.[54] In Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, Jinnah was portrayed by Alyque Padamsee. In the 1986 televised mini-series Lord Mountbatten: the Last Viceroy, Jinnah was played by Polish actor Vladek Sheybal.

        Some historians like H M Seervai and Ayesha Jalal assert that Jinnah never wanted partition of India —it was the outcome of the Congress leaders being unwilling to share power with the Muslim League. It is asserted that Jinnah only used the Pakistan demand as a method to mobilise support to obtain significant political rights for Muslims.[55] Jinnah has gained the admiration of major Indian nationalist politicians like Lal Krishna Advani—whose comments praising Jinnah caused an uproar in his own Bharatiya Janata Party.[56] He has also won praise from former External Affairs Minister of India, Jaswant Singh, who said "I think we have misunderstood Jinnah because we needed to create a demon. We needed a demon because in the 20th century the most telling event in the subcontinent was the partition of the country".[57]

        Some critics allege that Jinnah's courting the princes of Hindu states and his gambit with Junagadh is proof of ill intentions towards India, as he was the proponent of the theory that Hindus and Muslims could not live together, yet being interested in Hindu-majority states.[58] In his book Patel: A Life, Rajmohan Gandhi asserts that Jinnah sought to engage the question of Junagadh with an eye on Kashmir—he wanted India to ask for a plebiscite in Junagadh, knowing thus that the principle then would have to be applied to Kashmir, where the Muslim-majority would, he believed, vote for Pakistan.[59]

        Apart from cultural legacies, it seems that Mohammad Ali Jinnah left a legacy as one of the most controversially portrayed figures in contemporary Asian history. From a Hindu nationalist perspective, Jinnah tends to be depicted as a cunning and relentless force that compromised the unity of India to create Pakistan, for a range of religious, cultural, political, and personal motives. Pakistanis tend to view Jinnah as a revered founding father, a man that was dedicated to safeguarding Muslim interests during independence movements in India, whatever the cost.[60] Despite any of a range of biases, it almost impossible to argue that, despite motive and manner, there is any figure during the first half of the twentieth century that had more of an influence on the formation of modern day Pakistan than Jinnah.[61]

        According to Akbar S. Ahmed, nearly every book about Jinnah outside Pakistan mentions the fact that he drank alcohol. Several sources indicate he gave up alcohol near the end of his life.[62]

        [edit] See also

        [edit] Notes

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        1. ^ Interview with Vali Nasr
        2. ^ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/muslim-law-doesnt-apply-to-jinnah-says-daughter/372877/
        3. ^ a b Vali Nasr The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 88-90 ISBN 0-3933-2968-2
        4. ^ a b c d Official website, Government of Pakistan. "Early Days: Birth and Schooling". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/life_quaid01.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        5. ^ a b c Timeline: Personalities, Story of Pakistan. "Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948)". http://www.storyofpakistan.com/person.asp?perid=P009. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        6. ^ a b c d Ahmed, Akbar S. 1997. Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin. London: Routledge. 320 pages. ISBN 0415149665. page 3.
        7. ^ India's Partition: The Story Of Imperialism In Retreat By D. N. Panigrahi, 2004; Routledge, p. 16
        8. ^ Fatimah Jinnah, My Brother, pp. 48–49
        9. ^ Jinnah, Mohammed Ali. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from : Encyclopædia Britannica Online
        10. ^ a b c Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Lawyer: Bombay (1896–1910)". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/lawyer3.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        11. ^ Almeida, Prakash. Jinnah: Man of destiny. Gyan Books, 2001. 8178350165
        12. ^ Encyclopedia of Asian History, Ainslie T. Embree 224
        13. ^ a b Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Statesman: Jinnah's differences with the Congress". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/politician7.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        14. ^ Robinson Francis, The Cambridge Encyclopidia of India, 205
        15. ^ Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, pp. 8
        16. ^ Wolpert, S., Jinnah of Pakistan (1984) p. 87
        17. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Statesman: Quaid-i-Azam's Fourteen Points". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/politician11.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        18. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Statesman: London 1931". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/politician14.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        19. ^ R.J. Moore, "Jinnah and the Pakistan Demand", Modern Asian Studies 17, no. 4. (1983), <http://www.jstor.org/stable/312235>, 532
        20. ^ Sachchidananda Battacharya, Dictionary of Indian History 495
        21. ^ Mr. K. B. Ganapathy, Jinnah in the eye of Advani. Some stray thoughts [1]
        22. ^ Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, pp. 27
        23. ^ a b Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, pp. 14
        24. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 262
        25. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 289
        26. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 292
        27. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Statesman: Allama Iqbal's Presidential Address at Allahabad 1930". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/politician13.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        28. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 331
        29. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 369
        30. ^ Press statement, Statesman, 19 February I941
        31. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life", pp. 372–73
        32. ^ Mansergh, "Transfer of Power Papers Volume IX", pp 879
        33. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 376–78
        34. ^ "The Assam Tribune", October 26, 1946
        35. ^ Nasim Yousaf (2007), Hidden Facts Behind British India's Freedom: A Scholarly Look into Allama Mashraqi and Quaid-e-Azam's Political Conflict. ISBN 978-0-9760333-8-7
        36. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Leader: The Plan of June 3, 1947: page 2". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/leader17_2.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        37. ^ http://www.quaid.gov.pk/speech11.htm
        38. ^ Robinson francis, The cambridge Encyclopedia of India. 207
        39. ^ Lewis, B, Ch Pellat, and J Schacht. "Djinah." The Encyclopedia of Islam. Vol. II. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983: 546.
        40. ^ The Tasks Ahead - Speech at a Rally at the University Stadium, Lahore: October 30, 1947 [2]
        41. ^ Bolitho, Jinnah, 113-114.ISBN 019547323X
        42. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 416
        43. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 407–08
        44. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "A call to duty". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/speech09.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 
        45. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "Selfless devotion to duty". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/speech24.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-07. 
        46. ^ "Postcolonial Studies" project, Department of English, Emory University. "The Partition of India". http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Part.html. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        47. ^ a b Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 444
        48. ^ Official website, Government of Pakistan. "The Governor General: The Last Year: page 2". http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/governor_g2_2.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        49. ^ R. Upadhyay. "De-Pakistanisation of Bangladesh". Bangladesh Monitor, South Asia Analysis Group. http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers22%5Cpaper2199.html. 
        50. ^ Sufia M. Uddin (2006). Constructing Bangladesh: Religion, Ethnicity, and Language in an Islamic Nation. UNC Press. pp. 3–16, 120–24. ISBN 0807830216. 
        51. ^ JinnahShia=KharadarMosque
        52. ^ a b Dina seeks Jinnah House�s possession
        53. ^ Wolpert, Stanley, Jinnah of Pakistan
        54. ^ "Wiltshire - Films & TV", BBC website. "Interview with Christopher Lee". http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/entertainment/films_and_tv/christopherlee.shtml. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        55. ^ Seervai, H. M. (2005). Partition of India: Legend and Reality. Oxford University Press. p. 127. ISBN 019597719X. 
        56. ^ Online edition, Hindustan Times. "Pakistan expresses shock over Advani's resignation as BJP chief". Archived from the original on 2005-06-09. http://web.archive.org/web/20050609004505/http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1391007,001300270001.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-20. 
        57. ^ Jinnah was a great Indian: Jaswant Singh
        58. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 435
        59. ^ Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, pp. 435–36
        60. ^ Z.H. Zaidi, Edit. Jinnah Papers: Prelude to Pakistan. 1 (Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1993), xxv.
        61. ^ R.J. Moore, "Jinnah and the Pakistan Demand", Modern Asian Studies 17, no. 4. (1983), <http://www.jstor.org/stable/312235>, 529
        62. ^ Ahmed, Akbar S., Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, p.200.

        [edit] References

        [edit] External links

        Government offices
        Preceded by
        Office did not exist
        Governor-General of Pakistan
        1947–1948
        Succeeded by
        Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin
        Political offices
        New creation Speaker of National Assembly
        1947–1948
        Succeeded by
        Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan
        Persondata
        NAME Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
        ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jinnah, Mohammad Ali; Jinnah, Mahomed Ali; Mahomedali Jinnahbhai
        SHORT DESCRIPTION Founder of Pakistan
        DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1876
        PLACE OF BIRTH Wazir Mansion, Karachi
        DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1948
        PLACE OF DEATH Karachi


        Partition of India

        From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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        Map of the British Indian Empire on the eve of independence in 1947. The Princely States are coloured yellow; the provinces of British India are shown in different (non-yellow) colours.

        Colonial India
        Portuguese India 1510–1961
        Dutch India 1605–1825
        Danish India 1696–1869
        French India 1759–1954
        British Empire in India
        East India Company 1612–1757
        Company rule in India 1757–1857
        British Raj 1858–1947
        British rule in Burma 1826–1948
        British India 1612–1947
        Princely states 1765–1947
        Partition of India 1947

        The Partition of India (Hindustani: हिन्दुस्तान की तक़्सीम, ہندوستان کی تقسیم Hindustān kī Taqsīm) was the partition of British India that led to the creation, on August 14, 1947 and August 15, 1947, respectively, of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India). The partition of India included the geographical division of the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan and West Bengal (India), and the similar partition of the Punjab province into West Punjab (later Punjab (Pakistan) and Islamabad Capital Territory) and East Punjab (later Punjab (India), Haryana and Himachal Pradesh), and also the division of other assets, including the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service and other administrative services, the Indian railways, and the central treasury. The partition was promulgated in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Indian Empire.

        In the aftermath of Partition, the princely states of India, which had been left by the Indian Independence Act 1947 to choose whether to accede to India or Pakistan or to remain outside them,[1] were all incorporated into one or other of the new dominions. The question of the choice to be made in this connection by Jammu and Kashmir led to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and other wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan.[2]

        The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 is not covered by the term Partition of India, nor is the earlier separation of Burma from the administration of British India, or the earlier separation of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Ceylon, part of the Madras Presidency of British India from 1795 until 1798, became a separate Crown Colony in 1798. Burma, gradually annexed by the British during 1826–86 and governed as a part of the British Indian administration until 1937, was directly administered thereafter. [3] Burma was granted independence on January 4, 1948 and Ceylon on February 4, 1948. (See History of Sri Lanka and History of Burma) The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined.[4] In 1947, Sikkim became an independent kingdom under the suzerainty of India and remained so until 1975 when it was absorbed into India as the 22nd state.

        The remaining countries of present-day South Asia are Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. The first two, Nepal and Bhutan, having signed treaties with the British designating them as independent states, were never a part of British India, and therefore their borders were not affected by the partition.[5] The Maldives, which became a protectorate of the British crown in 1887 and gained its independence in 1965, was also unaffected by the partition.

        The partition displaced up to 12.5 million people in the former British Indian Empire with estimates of loss of life varying from several hundred thousand to a million.[6]

        Contents

        [hide]

        Pakistan and India

        Two self governing countries legally came into existence at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in Karachi, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan, so that the last British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi. However another reason for this arrangement was to avoid the appearance that Pakistan was seceding from a sovereign India. Therefore Pakistan celebrates Independence Day on August 14, while India celebrates it on August 15.

        Another reason for Pakistan celebrating independence on August 14 is the adoption of new standard time in Pakistan after partition.[citation needed] The new standard time of West Pakistan (modern 'Pakistan') was behind Indian standard time by 30 minutes and the new standard time of East Pakistan (modern 'Bangladesh') was ahead of Indian standard time by 30 minutes, so technically on the stroke of midnight falling between August 14 and 15, when India became independent, it was still 11:30 p.m. on 14 August in West Pakistan.

        Background

        Late 19th and early 20th century

        1920–1932

        Train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off. New Delhi railway station, 1947
        Train to Pakistan steaming out of New Delhi Railway Station, 1947.

        The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. They complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members. A number of different scenarios were proposed at various times. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Iqbal, Jouhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, to lead the movement for this new nation. By 1930, Jinnah had begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests. The 1932 communal award which seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces catalysed the resurgence of the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the League did not do well in the 1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the hold of the conservative and local forces at the time.

        1932–1942

        In 1940, Jinnah made a statement at the Lahore conference that seemed to call for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the document was ambiguous and opaque, and did not evoke a Muslim nation in a territorial sense. This idea, though, was taken up by Muslims and particularly Hindus in the next seven years, and given a more territorial element. All Muslim political parties including the Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India[7] Mashriqi was arrested on March 19, 1940.

        Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha, though against the division of the country, were also insisting on the same chasm between Hindus and Muslims. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted:[8]

        " India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main — the Hindus and the Muslims. "
        Rural Sikhs in a long ox-cart train headed towards India. 1947. Margaret Bourke-White.

        Most of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi and Allama Mashriqi believed that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. Gandhi opposed the partition, saying,

        " My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God. "
        An old Sikh man carrying his wife. Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and travelled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home.

        For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party (a major exit of many Muslim activists began in the 1930s), in the process enraging both Hindu Nationalists and Indian Muslim nationalists. (Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.) Politicians and community leaders on both sides whipped up mutual suspicion and fear, culminating in dreadful events such as the riots during the Muslim League's Direct Action Day of August 1946 in Calcutta, in which more than 5,000 people were killed and many more injured. As public order broke down all across northern India and Bengal, the pressure increased to seek a political partition of territories as a way to avoid a full-scale civil war.

        1942–1946

        Viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma with a countdown calendar to the Transfer of Power in the background

        Until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India.

        Some historians believe Jinnah intended to use the threat of partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated center.[9]

        Other historians claim that Jinnah's real vision was for a Pakistan that extended into Hindu-majority areas of India, by demanding the inclusion of the East of Punjab and West of Bengal, including Assam, a Hindu-majority country. Jinnah also fought hard for the annexation of Kashmir, a Muslim majority state with Hindu ruler; and the accession of Hyderabad and Junagadh, Hindu-majority states with Muslim rulers.[citation needed]

        The British colonial administration did not directly rule all of "India". There were several different political arrangements in existence: Provinces were ruled directly and the Princely States with varying legal arrangements, like paramountcy.

        The British Colonial Administration consisted of Secretary of State for India, the India Office, the Governor-General of India, and the Indian Civil Service.

        The Indian political parties were:

        The Partition: 1947

        Mountbatten Plan

        The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

        The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government-commissioned report usually referred to as the Radcliffe Line after the London lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who wrote it. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of the colony, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.

        Countries of Modern Indian subcontinent

        On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations. The union formed from the combination of the Hindu states assumed the name India which automatically granted it the seat of British India (a UN member since 1945) as a successor state.[10]

        The 625 Princely States were given a choice of which country to join.

        Geography of the partition: the Radcliffe Line

        An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grand children sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.

        The Punjab — the region of the five rivers east of Indus: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — consists of interfluvial doabs, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Bari doab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs, although some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery were all disputed.[11] All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsils (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. In addition, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).[11]

        Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin. 1947.
        A map of the Punjab region ca. 1947
        The claims (Congress/Sikh and Muslim) and the Boundary Commission Award in the Punjab in relation to Muslim percentage by Tehsils. The unshaded regions are the princely states.

        Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman.[11] The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as: "To demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab, on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will take into account other factors." Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."[11]

        The communities in the disputed regions of the Upper Bari Doab in 1947.

        Independence and population exchanges

        Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed states in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.[citation needed]

        "With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi." Margaret Bourke-White, 1947
        A crowd of Muslims at the Old Fort (Purana Qila) in Delhi, which had been converted into a vast camp for Muslim refugees waiting to be transported to Pakistan. Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1947.

        The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000.[12]

        Punjab

        The Indian state of Punjab was created in 1947, when the Partition of India split the former Raj province of Punjab between India and Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab Province; the mostly Sikh and Hindu eastern part became India's Punjab state. Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and so the partition saw many people displaced and much intercommunal violence. Lahore and Amritsar were at the center of the problem, the British were not sure where to place them - make them part of India or Pakistan. The British decided to give Lahore to Pakistan, whilst Amritsar became part of India. Areas in west Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujart, had a large Sikh population and many of the residents were attacked or killed by radical Muslims.[citation needed] On the other side in East Punjab cities such as Amritsar, Ludhiana, and Gurdaspur had a majority Muslim population in which many of them were wiped out by Sikh guerrillas who launched an all out war against the Muslims.

        Bengal

        The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal belonging to India, and East Bengal belonging to Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

        While Muslim majority districts of Murshidabad was given to India, Hindu majority ditrict Khulna and the Buddhist majority Chittagong division was given to Pakistan by the award.

        Sindh

        Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in Sindh following Partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of Partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in the cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. However, because of an uncertain future in a Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave for India. Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim refugees broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus moved into India.[13] Unlike the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, Sindhi Hindus did not have to witness any massive scale rioting; however, their entire province had gone to Pakistan thus they felt like a homeless community. Despite this migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province where they number at around 2.28 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census while the Sindhi Hindus in India as per 2001 census of India were at 2.57 million.[citation needed]

        Perspectives

        A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan

        The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the subcontinent today. British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma has not only been accused of rushing the process through, but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line in India's favour since everyone agreed India would be a more desirable country for most.[14] [15] However, the commission took so long to decide on a final boundary that the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them. Even then, the members were so distraught at their handiwork (and its results) that they refused compensation for their time on the commission.[citation needed]

        Some critics allege that British haste led to the cruelties of the Partition.[16] Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds[17]

        " at the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless "

        However, some argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.[18] Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After World War II, Britain had limited resources, [19] perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another view point is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances.[20] Historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involvement in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.[21]

        Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire ceased to be a world power, following Curzon's dictum that "While we hold on to India, we are a first-rate power. If we lose India, we will decline to a third-rate power."

        Delhi Punjabi refugees

        An estimated 25 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs (1947-present) crossed the newly drawn borders to reach their new homelands. These estimates are based on comparisons of decadal censuses from 1941 and 1951 with adjustments for normal population growth in the areas of migration. In northern India - undivided Punjab and North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) - nearly 12 million were forced to move from as early as March 1947 following the Rawalpindi violence.

        Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city - the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917.939) to a little less than 2 million (1.744.072) between the period 1941-1951.[22] The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Old Fort Purana Qila), Red Fort (Red Fort), and military barracks in Kingsway (around the present Delhi university). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat.

        The camp sites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. A number of housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period like Lajpat Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin, Punjabi Bagh, Rehgar Pura, Jungpura and Kingsway.

        A number of schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, easy loans to start businesses, were provided for the refugees at all-India level. The Delhi refugees, however, were able to make use of these facilities much better than their counterparts elsewhere.[23]

        Refugees settled in India

        Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) settled across Eastern India and Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands.

        Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis. However, non-Sindhi Hindus received little help from the Government of India, and many never received compensation of any sort from the Indian Government.

        Photo of a railway station in Punjab. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and crossed newly formed borders.

        Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, though the loss of a homeland has had a deeper and lasting effect on their Sindhi culture.

        In late 2004, the Sindhi diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India which asked the government of India to delete the word "Sindh" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.

        Refugees settled in Pakistan

        In the aftermath of partition, a huge population exchange occurred between the two newly-formed states. About 14.5 million people crossed the borders, including 7,226,000 Muslims came to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan. About 5.5 millions settled in Punjab Pakistan and around 1.5 millions settled in Sindh.

        Most of those refugees who settled in Punjab Pakistan they came from Indian Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. Most of those refugees who arrived in Sindh came from northern and central urban centers of India, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan via Wahga and Munabao border, however a limited number of muhajirs also arrived by air and on ships. People who wished to go to India from all over Sindh (other than Muslims) awaited their departure to India by ship at the Swaminarayan temple in Karachi and were visited by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. [24]

        The majority of Urdu speaking refugess who migrated after the independence were settled in the port city of [Karachi in southern Sindh and in the cities of Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah and Mirpurkhas. As well the above many Urdu-speakers settled in the cities of Punjab mainly in Lahore, Multan, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi. the number of migrants in Sindh was placed at over 540,000 of whom two-third were urban. In case of Karachi, from a population of around 400,000 in 1947, it turned into more than 1.3 millions in 1953.


        Artistic depictions of the Partition

        In addition to the enormous historical literature on the Partition, there is also an extensive body of artistic work (novels, short stories, poetry, films, plays, paintings, etc.) that deals imaginatively with the pain and horror of the event.

        See also

        References

        1. ^ Revised Statute from The UK Statute Law Database: Indian Independence Act 1947 (c.30) at opsi.gov.uk
        2. ^ Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990, Roxford Books 1991, ISBN 0-907129-06-4
        3. ^ Sword For Pen, Time, April 12, 1937
        4. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. "Sikkim."
        5. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. "Nepal.", Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. "Bhutan."
        6. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 221–222
        7. ^ Nasim Yousaf: Hidden Facts Behind British India's Freedom: A Scholarly Look into Allama Mashraqi and Quaid-e-Azam's Political Conflict
        8. ^ V.D.Savarkar, Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya Hindu Rasthra Darshan (Collected works of V.D.Savarkar) Vol VI, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p 296
        9. ^ Jalal, Ayesha Jalal (1985). The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the Demand Pakistan. Cambridge University Press. 
        10. ^ Thomas RGC, Nations, States, and Secession: Lessons from the Former Yugoslavia, Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 5 Number 4 Fall 1994, pp. 40–65, Duke University Press
        11. ^ a b c d (Spate 1947, pp. 126-137)
        12. ^ Death toll in the partition
        13. ^ Markovits, Claude (2000). The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750-1947. Cambridge University Press. pp. 278. ISBN 0521622859. 
        14. ^ K. Z. Islam, 2002, The Punjab Boundary Award, Inretrospect
        15. ^ Partitioning India over lunch, Memoirs of a British civil servant Christopher Beaumont
        16. ^ Stanley Wolpert, 2006, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-515198-4
        17. ^ Richard Symonds, 1950, The Making of Pakistan, London, ASIN B0000CHMB1, p 74
        18. ^ "Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India" Lawrence J. Butler, 2002, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, p 72
        19. ^ Lawrence J. Butler, 2002, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, p 72
        20. ^ Ronald Hyam, Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-1968, page 113; Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521866499, 2007
        21. ^ Lawrence James, Rise and Fall of the British Empire
        22. ^ Census of India, 1941 and 1951.
        23. ^ Kaur, Ravinder (2007). Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195683776. 
        24. ^ Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar (2007). The long partition and the making of modern South Asia. Columbia University Press. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EfhqQLr96VgC&dq=&client=firefox-a&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. Retrieved May 22, 2009.  Page 52

        Further reading

        Popularizations

        • Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre: Freedom at Midnight. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-638851-5
        • Zubrzycki, John. (2006) The Last Nizam: An Indian Prince in the Australian Outback. Pan Macmillan, Australia. ISBN 978-0-3304-2321-2.

        Memoir

        Academic textbooks and monographs

        • Ansari, Sarah. 2005. Life after Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh: 1947—1962. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 256 pages. ISBN 019597834X.
        • Butalia, Urvashi. 1998. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 308 pages. ISBN 0822324946
        • Chatterji, Joya. 2002. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932—1947. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 323 pages. ISBN 0521523281.
        • Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
        • Gossman, Partricia. 1999. Riots and Victims: Violence and the Construction of Communal Identity Among Bengali Muslims, 1905-1947. Westview Press. 224 pages. ISBN 0813336252
        • Hansen, Anders Bjørn. 2004. "Partition and Genocide: Manifestation of Violence in Punjab 1937-1947", India Research Press. ISBN 9788187943259.
        • Hasan, Mushirul (2001), India's Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 444 pages, ISBN 0195635043.
        • Ikram, S. M. 1995. Indian Muslims and Partition of India. Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 8171563740
        • Jain, Jasbir (2007), Reading Partition, Living Partition, Rawat Publications, 338 pages, ISBN 8131600459
        • Jalal, Ayesha (1993), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 334 pages, ISBN 0521458501
        • Kaur, Ravinder. 2007. "Since 1947: Partition Narratives among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi". Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195683776.
        • Khan, Yasmin (2007), The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 250 pages, ISBN 0300120788
        • Lamb, Alastair (1991), Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846-1990, Roxford Books, ISBN 0-907129-06-4
        • Metcalf, Barbara & Thomas R. Metcalf (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xxxiii, 372, ISBN 0521682258.
        • Page, David, Anita Inder Singh, Penderel Moon, G. D. Khosla, and Mushirul Hasan. 2001. The Partition Omnibus: Prelude to Partition/the Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947/Divide and Quit/Stern Reckoning. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195658507
        • Pandey, Gyanendra. 2002. Remembering Partition:: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambride, UK: Cambridge University Press. 232 pages. ISBN 0521002508
        • Raza, Hashim S. 1989. Mountbatten and the partition of India. New Delhi: Atlantic. ISBN 81-7156-059-8
        • Shaikh, Farzana. 1989. Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0521363284.
        • Talbot, Ian and Gurharpal Singh (eds). 1999. Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 420 pages. ISBN 0195790510.
        • Talbot, Ian. 2002. Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 216 pages. ISBN 0195795512.
        • Talbot, Ian. 2006. Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar. Oxford and Karachi: Oxford University Press. 350 pages. ISBN 0195472268.
        • Wolpert, Stanley. 2006. Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0195151984.
        • J. Butler, Lawrence. 2002. Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World. London: I.B.Tauris. 256 pages. ISBN 186064449X
        • Khosla, G. D. Stern reckoning : a survey of the events leading up to and following the partition of India New Delhi: Oxford University Press:358 pages Published: February 1990 ISBN 0195624173

        Articles

        • Review by Chudhry Manzoor Ahmed Marxist MP in Pakistani Parliament book by Lal Khan 'Partition can it be undone?'
        • Gilmartin, David. 1998. "Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative." The Journal of Asian Studies, 57(4):1068-1095.
        • Jeffrey, Robin. 1974. "The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947" - Modern Asian Studies 8(4):491-520.
        • Kaur Ravinder. 2007. "India and Pakistan: Partition Lessons". Open Democracy.
        • Kaur, Ravinder. 2006. "The Last Journey: Social Class in the Partition of India". Economic and Political Weekly, June 2006. www.epw.org.in
        • Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali. 2005. "Divided Homelands, Hostile Homes: Partition, Women and Homelessness". Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 40(2):141-154.
        • Morris-Jones. 1983. "Thirty-Six Years Later: The Mixed Legacies of Mountbatten's Transfer of Power". International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), 59(4):621-628.
        • Spate, O. H. K. (1947), "The Partition of the Punjab and of Bengal", The Geographical Journal 110 (4/6): 201-218
        • Spear, Percival. 1958. "Britain's Transfer of Power in India." Pacific Affairs, 31(2):173-180.
        • Talbot, Ian. 1994. "Planning for Pakistan: The Planning Committee of the All-India Muslim League, 1943-46". Modern Asian Studies, 28(4):875-889.
        • Visaria, Pravin M. 1969. "Migration Between India and Pakistan, 1951-61" Demography, 6(3):323-334.

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