Jaswant Singh, a senior leader of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); who authored a book on the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah titled, -"Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence" which has opened new avenues of debate over the partition of the sub-continent in 1947. Jaswant Singh wrote in his book that the Congress leadership; Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in particular was equally responsible for the partition of the sub-continent.
The book portrays the Quaid-e-Azam as a "great personality", and holds India's first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and the Congress party responsible for the partition of India. In the book, Jaswant Singh says Jinnah has been "demonised in India."
In a television interview aired recently, the 71-year-old politician, a former foreign minister and finance minister and presently member of parliament, said he had chosen the Muslim League leader as his subject because Jinnah had "an intricate, complex personality of great character, determination." Jaswant Singh has been expelled from BJP, only because of his book praising Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
He has been able to prove that Jinnah was a leader, who emerged as a torch-bearer of Muslim rights in the Sub-continent, having no intention to divide the country. But he lamented that the Congress had failed to ensure him the equal rights for the second largest community of India, the Muslims. He said in his book that Patel and Nehru appeared biased towards Muslims and pushed the country into division.
While substantive movement was started by Patel and Nehru against the Muslims, Gandhi was compelled to adopt the hostile attitude against the Muslim community that further raised the gulf and created mistrust between the two communities.
He puts forward an evidence to prove the claim that the Quaid-e-Azam had accepted the Cabinet Mission plan just before the independence - which establishes the fact that he was still in favour of United Hindustan. Following the epoch-making review in the book, a new controversy has emerged about the partition of India.
It is worthwhile to mention that the former Chief of Hindu extremist, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has acknowledged the fact by saying, Gandhi had supported "Tehrik Khilafat", while Jinnah stayed aloof on the plea that he could not join hands to save Turkey's monarchy on religious basis. He went on to say that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was more principled and secular than Gandhi - gives a food for thought to the students of history to reshape their vision over Muhammad Ali Jinnah, India, partition and independence.