Chapter - 1 1 Introduction 1 Chapter - 2 5 History of that Period 5 Chapter - 3 7 Social Background 7 Work for the Muslim Community 8 Chapter - 4 10 Political Career 10 Struggle for existence 11 Chapter - 5 13 Personality of Jinnah 13 Chapter - 6 15 Conclusion 15 Bibliography: - 17
Chapter - 1
Introduction
The partition of India, 1947, some call it as vivisection as Gandhi had, has without doubt has been the most wounding trauma of the twentieth century. It has seared the psyche of more than four generations of this subcontinent. Why did the partition take place at all? Who was/is responsible – Jinnah, the Congress Party or the British? Jaswant Singh attempts to find an answer, his answer, for there can perhaps not be a definite answer, yet the author searches. Jinnah’s political journey began as ‘an ambassador of Hindu – Muslim Unity’ (Gopal Krishna Gokhle), yet ended with his becoming the ‘sole spokesman’ of Muslims in India; the creator of Pakistan, the Quid-e-Azam: How and why this transformation takes place?
Writing about the politics of Partition in the right register seems impossible. Entrenched ideological commitments, the desire for explanations, the need to apportion blame, and a preoccupation with subtexts make the history almost impossible to write. Writing on Partition also suffers from a peculiarly unimaginative take on human agency. How could anyone in the 1930s and ’40s have imagined what the Indian subcontinent would be like? How do such a complicated and brilliant cast of political characters engage in complex political negotiations? How easy is it to read intentions? What is the relationship between the negotiations of these characters and the complex movements of self and identity brewing on the ground? How do we think of possible counterfactuals: if only Nehru had done “X” or Mountbatten had done “Y”? There has always been a false confidence with which so many historians approach these
Bibliography: Jaswant Singh, Jinnah-India Partition Independence, 1st edition, 2009, Rupa Co. New Delhi Internet Sources: -