Jinnah was 'demonised' by India: BJP leader Jaswant Singh

New Delhi, Aug 16 (PTI) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leader Jaswant Singh has said that Pakistan's founder
Mohammad Ali Jinnah was "demonised" by India even though it
was Jawaharlal Nehru whose belief in a centralised system had
led to the Partition.

Jaswant, whose book "Jinnah - India, Partition,
Independence", will be released Monday, also said Indian
Muslims are treated as aliens.

"Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and
single-handedly he stood against the might of the Congress
party and against the British who didn't really like him...
Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don't we
recognise that? Why don't we see (and try to understand) why
he called him that," Singh said, when asked by Karan Thapar in
an interview whether he viewed Jinnah as a great man.

He said he did not subscribe to the popular
"demonisation" of Jinnah.

Singh, a former India external affairs minister, feels
India had misunderstood Jinnah and made a demon out of him.

Contrary to popular perception, Singh feels it was not
Jinnah but Nehru's "highly centralised polity" that led to the
Partition of India.

Asked if he was concerned that Nehru's heirs and the
Congress party would be critical of the responsibility he was
attributing to Nehru for Partition, Singh said, "I am not
blaming anybody. I am not assigning blame. I am simply
recalling what I have found as the development of issues and
events of that period."

Singh contested the popular Indian view that Jinnah was
the villain of Partition or the man principally responsible
for it. Maintaining that this view was wrong, he said, "It is.
It is not borne out of the facts...we need to correct it."

He feels Jinnah's call for Pakistan was "a negotiating
tactic" to obtain "space" for Muslims "in a reassuring system"
where they would not be dominated by the Hindu majority.

He said if the final decisions had been taken by Mahatma
Gandhi, Rajaji or Maulana Azad -- rather than Nehru -- a
united India would have been attained, he said, "Yes, I
believe so. We could have (attained an united India)."

Singh said the widespread opinion that Jinnah was against
Hindus is mistaken.

When told that his views on Jinnah may not be to the
liking of his party, he replied, "I did not write this book as
a BJP parliamentarian. I wrote this book as an Indian...this
is not a party document. My party knows I have been working on
this."

Singh also spoke about Indian Muslims who, he said, "have
paid the price of Partition". In a particularly outspoken
answer, he said India treats them as "aliens".

"Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and
if you truly see the pain with which they live, to which land
do they belong? We treat them as aliens...without doubt
Muslims have paid the price of Partition. They could have been
significantly stronger in a united India...of course Pakistan
and Bangladesh won't like what I am saying." PTI RC
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