The Heart of the Matter: Partition

In the current controversy over Jinnah some ask with a smirk why India having an ancient civilization should be so much haunted by the past so soon and so often after its independence from the British. So soon, since we got independence in 1947 and so often since LK Advani’s tour of Pakistan in2005 and his hangover of that country’s founder and now Jaswant Singh’s book on qaid-e-azam, India, independence and partition. Still water runs deep and if historical events remain so dominant in shaping the present then there is something pathetic about it.
The creation of Pakistan or rather the inevitability of this eventuality and the role of religion ascribed to it is a matter of perennial interest. During a visit to London the Indian leaders sat for dinner. Sardar Patel, however, did not sit with the group. Afterwards Jinnah noticed him eating alone. He mused about Patel not deigning to eat with the rest. As an epiphany he found that it could be because there were people like him whom Patel did not consider equal and acceptable so far as the caste equation is concerned. If that was so how could the Muslims and Hindus share power and live together in an independent country after the British had left? This haughtier of Patel also comes out when he was home minister in the power sharing constitutional government. He could not appoint a peon without the approval of the finance minister who was from Muslim League. This drove him to such anger that he wished to have the country partitioned rather than governed together. The guilty men of India’s partition did play some role. The Hindu Mahasabha as well as Congress did want the partition of Punjab and Bengal although Jinnah had an altogether different view over the two provinces. (Something like the present time when BJP would be happy to have Jammu and Kashmir trifurcated between Hindu majority Jammu, Buddhist dominant Laddakh and the valley where the Muslims are in majority. )
Could Patel’s reluctance to eat with Jinnah be the result of hatred? There are people who feel so. Among them is Khushwant Singh who in his write up The Legacy of Jinnah says that hatred generated by history is the cause of partition. If this view persists then does it imply that the dynamic force of hatred is the motivating factor of those who want to continue to show the Muslims their place in independent India? Jinnah did change tactics to achieve his goal of having equitable share for Muslims in the governance of the emerging independent India. It was abysmal display of events which put his thought of equitable share in life and government beyond reach given the attitude of some Congress leaders. The strategic objective of equitability was invariable though he wanted to reach it by shuffling different tactics.
The division of India has made some wear their nationalism on their sleeves and be vociferous about it. Many such were not that enthusiastic during the freedom struggle, they were even very obliging to the British. It is they who have not let the ghost of Jinnah be buried once for all. They evoke it from time to time whenever the time is out of joint for them.