Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence

Last updated

Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence
Jinnah India, Partition, Independence.jpg
Author Jaswant Singh
LanguageEnglish
GenreBiography
Publisher Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
Publication date
2009
Publication placeIndia
Pages658
ISBN 978-81-291-1653-6

Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence is a book written by Jaswant Singh, a former Finance Minister of India and an External Affairs Minister, on Muhammad Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan) and the politics associated with the Partition of India. It is currently the latest book written by an Indian politician on the life of Jinnah. [1] The book was released on 17 August 2009 and soon became the subject of controversy, subsequently leading to Singh's expulsion from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). It contains controversial opinions of Singh, claiming that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's centralised policy was responsible for partition, and that Jinnah was portrayed as a 'demon' by India for the partition. The book launch ceremony was held at Teen Murti Bhavan in the presence of only a couple of BJP members. [2] [3]

Contents

Response

Singh was expelled by the BJP following a party meeting chaired by L.K. Advani on 19 August 2009 stating that they will not "compromise on matters of ideology or discipline". [4] The government of the Indian state Gujarat banned the book for allegedly having defamatory references towards India's first home minister Vallabhbhai Patel. [5] However, Gujarat lifted the ban on 4 September 2009 after a court struck it down. The Indian newspaper The Hindu claimed "Mark Tully, Meghnad Desai, Ram Jethmalani, Natwar Singh and Hameed Haroon said a new appraisal of Jinnah’s role was needed and Mr. Singh had done a commendable job." [ citation needed ] [2] In response to the book, Nusli Wadia, the grandson of Jinnah said: "My grandfather is my grandfather. You can't change the fact that I am his [Jinnah's] grandson, and I take extreme pride on being that." [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bharatiya Janata Party</span> Indian political party

The Bharatiya Janata Party is a political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP was born out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP is aligned with right-wing politics and has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right paramilitary organisation. Its policies adhere to Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology. As of January 2024, it is the country's biggest political party in terms of representation in the Parliament of India as well as state legislatures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partition of India</span> 1947 division of British India

The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and the Punjab, based on district-wise Hindu or Muslim majorities. It also involved the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury, between the two new dominions. The partition was set forth in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 14–15 August 1947.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. K. Advani</span> 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India (born 1927)

Lal Krishna Advani is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. He is one of the co-founders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. He is the longest serving Minister of Home Affairs serving from 1998 to 2004. He is also the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He was the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP during the 2009 general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaswant Singh</span> Indian politician (1938–2020)

Major Jaswant Singh was an officer of the Indian Army and an Indian Cabinet Minister. He was one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and was one of India's longest serving parliamentarians, having been a member of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha almost continuously between 1980 and 2014. He was NDA's Vice-presidential candidate in the 2012 Indian vice-presidential election. Singh was the only leader from Rajasthan who had the distinction of becoming the Minister Of External Affairs, Finance and Defence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dina Wadia</span> Daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1919–2017)

Dina Wadia was the only child and daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, and Rattanbai Petit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Independence Act 1947</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Indian Independence Act 1947 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received Royal Assent on 18 July 1947 and thus modern-day India and Pakistan, comprising west and east regions, came into being on 15 August.

Jinnah House, also known as the South Court Mansion, is an unoccupied house in Malabar Hill, a premium neighbourhood of the city of Mumbai in India associated with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and first governor-general of Pakistan, and his family. It was built by Jinnah and remained his main residence for 10 years until he left in 1946 for Karachi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nusli Wadia</span> Indian businessman (born 1944)

Nusli Neville Wadia is an Indian billionaire businessman and the chairman of the Wadia Group, an Indian conglomerate involved in the FMCG, textiles, and real estate industries, among others. His net worth was estimated at US$4.4 billion by Forbes in August 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of India (1947–present)</span>

The history of independent India or history of Republic of India began when the country became an independent sovereign state within the British Commonwealth on 15 August 1947. Direct administration by the British, which began in 1858, affected a political and economic unification of the subcontinent. When British rule came to an end in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines into two separate countries—India, with a majority of Hindus, and Pakistan, with a majority of Muslims. Concurrently the Muslim-majority northwest and east of British India was separated into the Dominion of Pakistan, by the Partition of India. The partition led to a population transfer of more than 10 million people between India and Pakistan and the death of about one million people. Indian National Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India, but the leader most associated with the independence struggle, Mahatma Gandhi, accepted no office. The constitution adopted in 1950 made India a democratic republic with Westminster style parliamentary system of government, both at federal and state level respectively. The democracy has been sustained since then. India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newly independent states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Two-nation theory</span> Political ideology that, in the Indian subcontinent, Hindus and Muslims are separate nations

The two-nation theory was an ideology of religious nationalism that advocated Muslim Indian nationhood, with separate homelands for Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus within a decolonised British India, which ultimately led to the Partition of India in 1947. Its various descriptions of religious differences were the main factor in Muslim separatist thought in the Indian subcontinent, asserting that Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus are two separate nations, each with their own customs, traditions, art, architecture, literature, interests, and ways of life.

The Wadia family is a Parsi family from Surat, India, currently based in Mumbai, India. The family rose to wealth in the mid-1700s as shipbuilders serving the British East India Company as the latter established its sway over India.

<i>Jinnah</i> (film) 1998 film by Jamil Dehlavi

Jinnah is a 1998 Pakistani–British epic biographical film which follows the life of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It was directed by Jamil Dehlavi, and written by Akbar S. Ahmed and Dehlavi. It stars Christopher Lee in the lead role as Jinnah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rajnath Singh</span> Indian politician (born 1951)

Rajnath Singh is an Indian politician and lecturer who is serving the Defence Minister of India since 20 May 2019. He was also the Deputy Leader of the House, Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2024. He also served the Home Minister in the first Modi ministry from 2014 to 2019, making him the first person born after India obtained independence to hold that position. He was the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2014. Singh is a veteran leader of the BJP who started his career as a swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ness Wadia</span> Indian businessman

Ness Nusli Wadia is an Indian businessman. Wadia is the managing director of Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, a company which has holdings in most of the Wadia Group subsidiaries, including an indirect majority stake in Britannia Industries. He was the Joint Managing Director of Bombay Dyeing, the flagship company of the Wadia Group, till March 2011 when he stepped down from the post. Wadia is a co-owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Punjab Kings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian reunification</span> Concept of the potential reunification of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

Indian reunification refers to the potential reunification of India with Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were partitioned from British India in 1947.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jinnah family</span> Political family of Pakistan

The Jinnah family was a political family of Pakistan. It has played an important role in the Pakistan Movement for creation of Pakistan, a separate country for Muslims of India. The family held the leadership of All-India Muslim League, and its successor, Muslim League, until it was dissolved in 1958 by martial law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muhammad Ali Jinnah</span> Founder and 1st Governor-General of Pakistan (1876–1948)

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pakistan on 14 August 1947 and then as Pakistan's first governor-general until his death.

Jal Ratanji Patel was an Indian physician, who attended to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, during the years the latter was being treated for Tuberculosis. Patel, who was born into a Parsi family, kept Jinnah's disease a secret which had impact on the Partition of India. In his book Freedom at Midnight, Dominique Lapierre claimed that Patel had handed over a confidential file pertaining to Jinnah, and that Patel kept his patient's condition a secret on the patient's advice. The Government of India awarded Patel Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opposition to the Partition of India</span> Political viewpoint in South Asian politics

Opposition to the Partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism in the Indian subcontinent. The Hindu, Christian, Anglo-Indian, Parsi and Sikh communities were largely opposed to the Partition of India, as were many Muslims.

References

  1. "Acknowledgments". Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence.
  2. 1 2 "BJP fears Jaswant's Jinnah book will re-ignite controversy". The Hindu . 18 August 2009. Archived from the original on 26 August 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  3. "At Jaswant Singh's book launch, the case for and against Jinnah". The Hindu . 18 August 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  4. Joy, Santosh (19 August 2009). "BJP expels Jaswant Singh over praise for Jinnah in his book". LiveMint. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  5. "India state bans book on Jinnah". BBC. 20 August 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
  6. Cover Story (31 August 1989). "Interview with Jinnah's Grandson, Nusli Wadia". Youtube. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 28 November 2016.