Last few days we have seen a huge interest in media about Jinnah. This interest has been triggered because of the contents of a book written by Jaswant Singh, who used to be a prominent leader of the BJP which is seen as the right wing party of India.
I am surprised at two things: first, why did Jaswant Singh is so eloquent in praise of Jinnah. I am not talking of his book because I have not read it but of his interviews. Second, why some sections of media are hell bent upon showing Jinnah as a moderate Muslim who was secular and would have never approved of the atrocities meted out to minorities in Pakistan.
Of many ghettos surrounding the Muslim community in India one is that they admire Jinnah or for that matter Pervez Musharraf. Do you remember that Bus during 2004 elections with painting of Vajpayee and Musharraf on it? That was also the time when we had uproar over Advani's remark on Jinnah. This was ostensibly done to win good will of Indian Muslims for the BJP. What happened in that election is history now. My personal experience (because I had interactions with a lot of Muslims in my school days and with some in college days) is that there is no admiration for Jinnah in majority of Muslims. But people like Jaswant Singh think otherwise. And for the second thing I will say so called 'liberals' or more appropriately the 'pseudo secularists' of India think that they are being progressive by showing Jinnah in 'true' light. I want to know if Jinnah did only one thing wrong in instigating partition riots and so is a secularist because of of what he did rest of his life why do this same section castigates Narendra Modi? Mr. Modi has done nothing wrong other than not controlling Gujarat riots. Is he a secularist?
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Valid question and this has only one valid answer which is self evident.
Jinnah was only power hungry not even hardliner muslim I would say because he did not participate in Khilafat movement in India.
Nor was he founder of Muslim League but was there all the time only to grab the opportunity to take position of head of a state while all the ground was prepared by other leaders of congress and other small parties (may include Muslim League before Jinnah, I'm not aware).
P.S. You can re-title the post as 'Jinnah ka jinn' :P
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