***
“Look here, I never wanted Pakistan! It was forced upon me by Sardar Patel. And now they want me to eat the humble pie and raise my hands in defeat.” Jinnah to his closest friend Ramkrishna Dalmia to whom he (Jinnah) sold his marvelous Delhi house for Rs.3 lacs before partition. Jinnah chose his friend Ramkrishna Dalmia over others, a Jain, no-onion; no-garlic; a sprinkler of Ganga jal if a Muslim entered the home type of Hindu. The house was later sold to the Dutch Embassy as Nehru had issues with Mr.Dalmia. Nehru ensured that Mr.Dalmia would later be jailed. Jinnah never wanted Pakistan and even accepted Cabinet Mission Plan in July, 1946 to form United India. However Congress backed out after initially accepting it and that really made, Pakistan. Behind the Cabinet Mission Jinnah's acceptance to Cabinet Mission was again Ramkrishna Dalmia.
Mr. Dalmia's daughter and author par excellence wrote:
"During the visit of the Cabinet Mission to India in 1946, when all else failed, my father pressed Jinnah to settle matters on the basis of full autonomy for the provinces and only three subjects — communications, defence and foreign affairs — remaining with the Centre. He urged Jinnah to meet and attempt a solution with Nehru for the last time.
"Jinnah was sceptical but agreed on the condition that any meeting would take place at my father’s house. Thereafter, in a lengthy meeting with Rajendra Prasad at our Akbar Road home and a telephone conversation with Sardar Patel, my father urged them to arrange a meeting at any cost.
"The BBC announced that ‘a wealthy Indian merchant’ was attempting an amicable settlement between the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League. But Jinnah’s hunches were correct. The meeting was declined and a statement issued the next morning that no significance need be attached to Dalmia’s negotiations. Jinnah was the first to phone: 'Look at your own people’s mentality', he lamented.
"What public opinion in both countries disregards, out of ignorance and prejudice, is that Jinnah tried his utmost to prevent India’s partition. He hated partition. For the Two Nation Theory. Indians do not absolve him of the guilt of Partition on the basis of the ‘Two-Nation Theory’, which posits that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and cannot live together in a single nation.
"Rather, they contend, not without justification, that the Hindutva family’s icon, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, had advocated the same theory much before the Muslim League’s supremo used it to demand the creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for Indian Muslims.
"Both Indian critics and Pakistani admirers of Jinnah would be surprised to know that, although he did advocate the ‘Two-Nation theory’ a few years before Partition (and that was the greatest mistake of his political life), he was also, for the longest period in his active public life, a believer in the ‘Two-Nations-Together theory’.
"Jinnah’s trusted follower Raja of Mahmudabad, who met him in Karachi in 1948, writes that Quaid-i-Azam looked a sad and unhappy man. He could not undo his past. He wanted to come back to India. In fact, he still considered himself an Indian and wanted to return to India.
"In his address to the All India Muslim League Council meeting in Karachi in December 1947, he stated something that sounds unbelievable today: 'I tell you that I still consider myself to be an Indian. For the moment I have accepted the Governor-Generalship of Pakistan. But I am looking forward to a time when I would return to India and take my place as a citizen of my country.'
"Jinnah obviously never sold his Bombay House. His pride as he loved Bombay and even wanted to retire to live in Bombay. Jinnah's heart was not in his Government House in Karachi but in the beautiful mansion he had built for himself at Malabar Hill in Bombay. An authentic and fascinating account of this is given by Sri Prakasa, India's first High Commissioner to Pakistan, in his memoirs 'Pakistan: Birth and Last Days' (Meenakshi Prakashan; Meerut, 1965).
"In the aftermath of Partition, the governments of India and Pakistan had started acquiring evacuee properties left behind by those who migrated from one country to another. Out of goodwill, Prime Minister Nehru decided not to disturb the Jinnah House in Bombay.
"However, since there was a shortage of accommodation for consulates, the government directed Sri Prakasa to consult Jinnah's wishes and the rent he wanted for letting it out. Jinnah, writes Sri Prakasa, was flabbergasted by the inquiry and almost pleadingly said to me: ‘Sri Prakasa, don't break my heart. Tell Jawaharlal not to break my heart. I have built it brick by brick. Who can live in a house like that? What fine verandahs? It is a small house fit only for a small European family or a refined Indian prince. You do not know how I love Bombay. I still look forward to going back there'."
"Jinnah was sceptical but agreed on the condition that any meeting would take place at my father’s house. Thereafter, in a lengthy meeting with Rajendra Prasad at our Akbar Road home and a telephone conversation with Sardar Patel, my father urged them to arrange a meeting at any cost.
"The BBC announced that ‘a wealthy Indian merchant’ was attempting an amicable settlement between the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League. But Jinnah’s hunches were correct. The meeting was declined and a statement issued the next morning that no significance need be attached to Dalmia’s negotiations. Jinnah was the first to phone: 'Look at your own people’s mentality', he lamented.
"What public opinion in both countries disregards, out of ignorance and prejudice, is that Jinnah tried his utmost to prevent India’s partition. He hated partition. For the Two Nation Theory. Indians do not absolve him of the guilt of Partition on the basis of the ‘Two-Nation Theory’, which posits that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and cannot live together in a single nation.
"Rather, they contend, not without justification, that the Hindutva family’s icon, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, had advocated the same theory much before the Muslim League’s supremo used it to demand the creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for Indian Muslims.
"Both Indian critics and Pakistani admirers of Jinnah would be surprised to know that, although he did advocate the ‘Two-Nation theory’ a few years before Partition (and that was the greatest mistake of his political life), he was also, for the longest period in his active public life, a believer in the ‘Two-Nations-Together theory’.
"Jinnah’s trusted follower Raja of Mahmudabad, who met him in Karachi in 1948, writes that Quaid-i-Azam looked a sad and unhappy man. He could not undo his past. He wanted to come back to India. In fact, he still considered himself an Indian and wanted to return to India.
"In his address to the All India Muslim League Council meeting in Karachi in December 1947, he stated something that sounds unbelievable today: 'I tell you that I still consider myself to be an Indian. For the moment I have accepted the Governor-Generalship of Pakistan. But I am looking forward to a time when I would return to India and take my place as a citizen of my country.'
"Jinnah obviously never sold his Bombay House. His pride as he loved Bombay and even wanted to retire to live in Bombay. Jinnah's heart was not in his Government House in Karachi but in the beautiful mansion he had built for himself at Malabar Hill in Bombay. An authentic and fascinating account of this is given by Sri Prakasa, India's first High Commissioner to Pakistan, in his memoirs 'Pakistan: Birth and Last Days' (Meenakshi Prakashan; Meerut, 1965).
"In the aftermath of Partition, the governments of India and Pakistan had started acquiring evacuee properties left behind by those who migrated from one country to another. Out of goodwill, Prime Minister Nehru decided not to disturb the Jinnah House in Bombay.
"However, since there was a shortage of accommodation for consulates, the government directed Sri Prakasa to consult Jinnah's wishes and the rent he wanted for letting it out. Jinnah, writes Sri Prakasa, was flabbergasted by the inquiry and almost pleadingly said to me: ‘Sri Prakasa, don't break my heart. Tell Jawaharlal not to break my heart. I have built it brick by brick. Who can live in a house like that? What fine verandahs? It is a small house fit only for a small European family or a refined Indian prince. You do not know how I love Bombay. I still look forward to going back there'."
टिप्पणियाँ