Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin

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Summary: A book every hindu should read!
Review: First of all: I am a hindu. Even today it is painfull for me to see that our Mother India is divided. I used to detest Mr. Jinnah, like most other hindus. However, I reached a point when I realised that I had only read the hindu version of South Asian history. I needed to view our history through the eyes of a muslim. Jinnah cannot be blamed for his security measure i.e. his decision to demand a separate muslim state. Had the Congress treated Jinnah in a more civilized manner, Pakistan could have been avoided. But Nehru, clinging to his illusions, viewing himself as the new "Kaiser-E-Hind" did not make room for people who would threaten his position in the Congress Party. Just as he squeezed Netaji Bose out of the leadership, he saw to that Jinnah was shoved into to the darkness as well. I regret the creation of Pakistan, as would Jinnah. But one should not ignore the fact that Jinnah was the greatest Indian politician of the twentieth century. I don't agree with Mr. Akbar Ahmed on all issues, but there is no doubt that he has done a magnificent job. I really enjoyed the book.

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Summary: How could such a subject ever be so entertaining?
Review: Hunting around for something unique to do a research paper on, Professor Ahmed's attractive book caught my eye. It was a providential find. "Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity" is one of the most readable and engrossing non-fiction books I've read in a couple of years. It's simply amazing how a historian can make the story of Pakistani state-formation so interesting, even gripping.

This is a "postmodernist" book, but it's not the kind of faddish stuff that nobody can understand. The book's real strength is the range and diversity of material Ahmed incorporates into his analysis of Jinnah's career. While he certainly writes at length about politics alone, the bulk of the book is made up of a wealth of other material that invigorates this discussion. For instance, we read about the way Jinnah dresses and the way he speaks. Ahmed explains how things like this were crucial to the history of South Asia. The "anthropogical" approach certainly livens up what could otherwise be some very dull sections on diplomatic conferences and party congresses.

I also found the book wonderfully revisionist, even pleasantly iconoclastic (e.g, the title of Chapter 6, "Lord Mountbatten: Last Viceroy and First Paki-Basher"). Nevertheless, the book doesn't deteriorate into a polemic. Ahmed strives to clear away the misty, romantic Raj haze which hovers around men like Louis Mountbatten, Nehru, and Gandhi, a haze in which their images have been virtually enshrined, placed almost beyond the reach of historical criticism and, for political purposes, used and distorted. Jinnah suffered during his own career from this deification of the "official heroes" of the last days of the Raj, and as Ahmed shows, still suffers from it. Condemned as a cold, unfeeling Muslim hardliner, he was scapegoated as the instigator of all the horrors of the partition of India. Ahmed's book demonstrates that, on the contrary, Jinnah was actually one of the most rational statesmen of his time, a man not easily intimidated and not afraid to express his deep-seated concern about the condition of India's Muslims vis-à-vis the problems of Mother India -- e.g., the caste system, Hindu nationalism, the hostility of some influential non-Muslims toward Islam's contributions to India.

The book is excellently written and thoroughly enlightening. Well worth finding. Five stars.

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Summary: STILL THE SUBCONTINENT STAYS DIVIDED- 1857 SE 1947 TAK
Review: I am an Hindu Muslim-an archetypical Indian- carrying within me the blood of centuries. I am a divided soul spilt by borders and the soul of India lies buried within me. My Muslim ancestors died for the Motherland alongside my Hindu grandfathers for the sake of the Motherland. At that time they did know what it was to hate. But then the Englishmen crept in- frightened of their entity- their oneness started his long winded game which lasted a century. That game has lasted too long. The time -1857- when they fought him together for the one INdia ( how could it be otherwise). And so it happened. IN 1947 he got his stake in Indian blood- I sound like antiimperialist but N0- No- civilisational justification can justify the destruction of 5000 years of a civiisation to 50 years of western paradigms and imperialist savagery. Of course the Hindu and the Moslem were fools- not to see the game they were being drawn into and their landlords and zamindars had their own game to play. So what happens as a result. I stand divided like a twisted barrack where my soul is neither Hindu nor Moslem - nor crying nor bleeding with the thorns of the borderposts- but STILL saffron and green. Jai Hind.

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Summary: Lousy
Review: I had to stop reading this book. At the very least it is inaccurate, at the very worst it is cynically manipulative. It certainly did not answer my questions about Jinnah and partition. Why did Jinnah's views on Hindu-Muslim unity change over time ? Why did Congress lose Muslim support ? Why wasn't Nehru (an astute politician in almost every sense) not able to come to an accomadation with Jinnah and the Muslim League ? In my opinion, no book has been able to answer these questions in an unbiased manner. This book does not even come close.
At times Ahmed is terribly manipulative. In analyzing Hindu thought, he continually quotes represenative views of the RSS. It is like quoting Mullah Omar or Bid Laden to argue that Muslims are intolerant. I was not able to find the tolerant views of Nehru and Gandhi anywhere in this book. Later in the book, he uses BJP slogans to justify the formation of Pakistan. Never mind that Muslims in India have greater political freedom in India than in Pakistan, and that the vast majority of Hindus in India live side-by-side in peace with Muslims. Never mind that Pakistan killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Bangladesh in state-sponsored genocide in 1970. There is even an argument that Muslims in India are less Islamic then their Pakistani counterparts. Instead of providing insight into Jinnah and the formation of Pakistan, Ahmed simply justifies the formation of Pakistan by agruing that Hindus are intolerant. This is the first book I have had to stop reading since college.

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Summary: Superb
Review: I just can't tell you how happy i am to see this book. although there was alot of literature on Quaid-e-Azam but this book is too good. it is realistic and makes and even if the reader is an Indian , he realizes the greatness of Quaid-e-Azam and tells us what actually Gandhi and Nehru did with the Muslims. this book shows us the real face of Gandhi and Nehru.

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Summary: Jinnahs Pakistan is as valid today as it was in '47.
Review: If ever I had a chance to meet a personality from the past my first and only choice would be a chance to have an evening tea with Mr. Jinnah. Many times I have been approached by my fellow Pakistani citizens claiming that creation of Pakistan was a historical blunder of immense proportions. Their claim that in a unified India; a larger muslim minority would be better able to project their interests. After all emotional and rational explanations to the defense of Pakistan I recluse with a potent exclamation from my dad "Had I been in India I would have been a peon in a government office serving tea". My residence is in the Silicon Valley; which inhabits many residents from the sub-continent; interestingly enough out of the 1000's of desis I get in contact with I have only met with one muslim from India. His despairing accounts of continual police harassment; the unsaid discrimination at official levels and the lack of job opportunities there; has created a deeper conviction within me to philosophy of Pakistan. I am indebted to Mr. Jinnah for the gift he gave us all in the form of a state where we can freely partake in the pleasures of life often denied to the muslims to the east. If it had not happened I would be reading Anandamath (a tale of Hindu lords massacring muslims).

Mr. Ahmed has accomplished a marvelous effort in the writings of Jinnah. He very clearly presents the general situation and tensions prevalent during the times; and the decisions that were made.


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Summary: This book was really needed.
Review: It is great to see that atlast there is a bok that can effectivelt the enormous Indian propaganda of defaming Jinnah. This book is realistic and makes the reader understand what Jinnah meant. The Indians will always try to define the creation of Pakistan asif the Muslims of the sub continent were mis-led on the name of religion but this book shows the real face of the Hindus. It shows that what caused Jinnah, a liberal Muslim and an ardent preacher of Hindu-Muslim unity to demand Pakistan. This book exposes the real ,evel face of the Hindus whose extremism and narrow mindedness forced the Muslims of the sub-continent to demand Pakistan.Being a Muslim from India , I am amongst the un-fortunate ones who are still trying to survive against these Hindu extremists who have made hell for all the minorities of this country.

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Summary: A must read for those in search of truth.
Review: It is one of those books that you enjoy from the beginning to the end. I think irrespective of whoever reads this book, they must applaud the author of the frankness, sincerity and great research and giving the readers a fascinating insight into the history of sub-continent at the time of partition. Many may agree or disagree with Mr. Akbar's views but I think nobody can question his sincerity and passion to bring to the world the forgotten or undermined personality of Mr. Jinnah. This book is a must read to all the students of this subject whether in India or in Pakistan. Since the people on both sides (Pakistan or India) have read mostly the official or biased versions of this era of history, this book brings a breath of fresh air for every intellectual and commoners. Once again, this book is a great effort by the author. I have also read quite a bit of critism on the book for its ill-organization, but it must be pointed out that what makes this book different from others is that its explains the life and times of Jinnah in complete perspective of events and people around him. Hence it may seem that the author is astray at places in the book discussing other events of personalities, but actually it is not so because he wants the reader to envision Jinnah in a complete background of events and circumstances faced in that era.

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Summary: Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Mr. Ahmed's masterful effort is a breath of fresh air (along with Stanley Wolpert's biography, "Jinnah of Pakistan") in helping delineate the truth on one of the world's great leaders. Too often, Jinnah has been defamed, or his importance marginalized, by writers and movie makers. Thanks to some powerful propaganda, due in large part to the likes of Attenborough and Mountbatten, Mr. Jinnah was depicted as being a haughty, cold and stubborn man. The reality was considerably different. Jinnah was a man of incredible intelligence and foresight. He realized that the British and the Hindu leadership, led by Nehru, Patel and even Gandhi, could not be trusted to care for the welfare of India's Muslim population. No better evidence of this could be the fact that the princely state of Hyderabad was attacked from seventeen sides the day Jinnah died. Mountbatten had clearly demonstrated his bias toward Nehru and the Hindus, facilitated by his own wife, Edwina, having a torrid affair with Nehru. Jinnah, being a man of principle, pragmatism and prescience, provided for freedom, a home and safe haven for hundreds of millions of people.

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Summary: Another apologist for the 2 nation theory--w/a fancy title
Review: Much of the historical discourse and social analysis in Pakistan is based on negative methodologies which seek to justify Pakistan's failures and shortcomings by pointing out similar problems that also exist in neighboring India. Instead of focusing their academic lens on the Pakistani situation, and be the view positive or negative, analyzing what is seen within their nation, scholars repeatedly use the tact of dismissing problems in Pakistan by discussions of parallel problems in India. Within this paradigm, Pakistani scholarship is defined by placing the country's problems in a less negative light in comparison to India's problems. This could be called the theory of self justification, but more aptly results in self negation. A vivid example of this methodology can be found in the book by Akbar S. Ahmed, "Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: the Search for Saladin". It is one of a great number of books published in Pakistan during 1997. Many of these books published in honor of Pakistan's fiftieth anniversary, such as Feroz Ahmed's "Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan," and others such as the work by the linguist, Dr. Tariq Rehman, represent an effort to look objectively at topics such as Pakistani nation-building, society, cultural myths, domestic and foreign policy. Prior to this golden jubilee moment of self analysis, most books that graced the OUP or Vanguard shelves were basically biased and very much situated in the straight jacket of the two nation theory. This is not to criticize their nationalist orientation, all nations write nationalist histories, but an observation that historical discourse in Pakistan is dominated by negative images of India and Hinduism. In general, the majority of books in the field of the social sciences written in Pakistan have lacked theoretical basis and are short on angst and verve. Dr. Rahat, an intellectual in Karachi joked, "In Pakistan social scientists are more social than scientific!" However, since 1997, there have been several books written about the Bangladesh experience and other previously taboo and controversial issue, such as the recent book by Ahmad Saleem, "Blood Beaten Track", which does not lay the blame squarely in Indira Gandhi's lap, for conspiring to "Sink the Two Nation theory in the Bay of Bengal".

In Akbar S. Ahmed's book, "Search for Saladin", if judged by its cover, the fairly post modern title gives the impression that perhaps the book would be theoretically based and hopefully less biased than the standard fare offered up as state sponsored Pakistani scholarship. In this regard the book was a disappointment. Ahmed is a well know Pakistani scholar, and though a civil servant and therefore perhaps prone to rubbery research results stretching to accommodate the reigning regime, he is a fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge and would probably get a wider reading audience in the West. Unfortunately, in this book he has fallen once again into the prevailing discourse of Pakistani historians who define their nation in the negative, in terms of what it is not. "We are not Hindus. We are not Indians. We will not be ruled by the Hindus. We do not practice the evil caste system. We do not mistreat our minorities. We do not attack our neighbors." Through the decades Pakistani writers have used this discourse of negation consistently describing their nation in contrast to Hindu India's other. There have been far too few examples of reflexivity, inward looking analysis.

In this book by Ahmed much of the discussion centers on communalism in India. He refers to books by Veena Das, Asghar Ali Engineer, Sarvepalli Gopal, Kumari Jayawardena, T.N. Madan, Ashish Nandy, Khushwant Singh, etc. He uses these Indian authors' work to prove his points about the sufferings of minorities in India, couched in the usual anti-Indian Pakistani-centric rhetoric. He never pauses to question why there are so many open and frank books about the plight of minorities in India and there are very few such books about the problems faced by minorities in Pakistan. He doesn't mention the bishop who blew his brains out on the city hall steps to protest continuing officially sanctioned harassment of the Christian community in Pakistan and the death sentence handed down to a young Christian boy. He fails to mention that Hindus and other minorities are delegated to second class citizens through their prejudicial voting system and blasphemy laws. Or that women are also second class citizens living under the burden of Hudood laws. He can not see the problems in his own nation, for he is too busy looking for problems in India. Once again, Pakistan is not looking at Pakistan for its own meaning, it is looking to India to justify its own failings. Akbar dwells extensively on rape during the Bombay riots of 1993, citing the suffering in several pages, but he dismisses rape by Pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh with less than one sentence. These types of examples are to be found throughout the book. It must be said that some of the most exciting and theoretically based and insightful scholarship in Pakistan is coming from the small group of feminist intellectuals associated with such centers as Simorgh, ASR, and Sahe in Lahore. In books purporting to be more objective and intellectual, such as, "Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: the Search for Saladin," the author though appearing to be sympathetic to the Bengalis and regretting the racism dealt out to them during their 24 years under West Pakistani domination, still does not mask his inherent bias, as can be seen in the following quote in which he relates a conversation he had with General Yaqub Khan, who "summed up the situation he faced before the military crackdown. Pakistan is like a Ming vase, priceless and delicate, he said. Mujib-ur-Rehman, leading the Bengali nationalist party the Awami League and later President of Bangladesh, is like a fly sitting on it. We have to smack the fly but make sure the vase does not break [said Yaqub]. Only a few months later his colleagues would use a hammer to swat the fly; they would smash the vase and the fly would be unharmed." (end quote)

Bangladesh's most famous hero of their liberation struggle, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, is unapologetically reduced to an insect in this 1997 Pakistani account.

In the entire narrative as presented by Akbar S. Ahmed, there is only one passing mention of the general elections called by Yahya Khan, but nothing about the cancellation of the National Assembly; nothing about Bhutto's political machinations. The creation of Bangladesh is blamed on Indian cunning and a incipient Bengali irredentialism. Ahmed ends his discussion of Bangladesh with numerous excerpts from newspapers about crime and violence in Dhaka and notes from Bengalis who complain about RAW's influence and the failure of the state. . . as if to say that the problems of East Pakistan were not solved by the creation of Bangladesh. This book is a good example of typical Pakistani apologist scholarship, where M.A. Jinnah is standing near the gates of heaven. . . it is the same old story with a fancy title.