Looking Through Glass

Pakistan, Jinnah said had been ``The biggest blunder of my life``

On 125th birth anniversary of Jinnah

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah1.html

Pakistan : The biggest blunder of my life

Mohammad Ali Jinnah created Pakistan out of oratory and blood



By Carl Posey

When he stood up in court, slowly looking toward the judge, placing his monocle in his eye—with the sense of timing you would expect from an actor---he became omnipotent. Yes, that is the word---omnipotent.`` Thus an Indian barrister upon his remarkable and enigmatic subject, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Courtroom omnipotence may have brought the Bombay lawyer wealth and comfort, but Jinnah’s portal to immortality lay elsewhere. By sheer force of will, he sundered the grand ruby that had been British India and raised Pakistan from shards.

Nothing in Jinnah’s early history suggested that this tall, almost transparently thin man would be anything more, or less, than a distinguished barrister, what a contemporary called a great pleader. Jinnah spent most of his life stalking the courts an parliament of London and Bombay, almost a caricature of a Victorian attorney---1,9m tall, less than 54kg in weight, a monocle, fine clothing and, an extraordinary, very British voice, of such quality that he was once offered a spot with troupe of English actors.

A marvelous subject for Charles Dickens, perhaps, who might have observed that the heart was no fatter than the man, and that the man was incorruptible as a strip of desiccated hide. Jinnah was not particularly religious, at least not in the beginning. Yet he would finally be reviled by Hindus as the Muslim serpent in the garden of independence---and revered by Muslims as Quaid-e-Azam: Great Leader.

Among the many paradoxical myths still swirling around Jinnah was that he had been born a Hindu, on Christmas Day 1876, and later converted to Islam. In fact, he was the first of seven children of Jinnahbhai Poonja, an affluent merchant in Karachi; the son would later derive his surname from Jinnahbhai. After matriculating at the University of Bombay, 16-year-old Jinnah was married off to a young girl, then sailed alone to study for the bar at London’s Lincoln’s Inn. His bride would die before he returned.

This was the liberal, end-of-the-century Britain of William Gladstone, however, and Jinnah’s political glands began to stir. From the outset he was a frequent visitor to Parliament, and he worked hard for India pioneer nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji, who in 1892 became the first Indian seated in the House of Commons. Called to the English bar in 1895, Jinnah returned to Karachi. Appointed advocate of the Bombay High Court in 1906, he was, according to one account, ``the best showman of them all. Quick, exceeding clever, sarcastic, and colorful, his greatest delight was to confound the opposing lawyer by confidential asides and to outwit the presiding judge in repartee.``

Like the other lawyer-nationalists fencing with the British Raj, Jinnah believed fervently in an independent India; and like them, he say that independence was a secular mosaic in which a Hindu majority and Muslim minority---a huge one, to be sure---lived in amity and equity. Though not a man of the masses, he was elected in 1910 to India’s Imperial Legislative Council, where he began a long, distinguished tenure. He kept himself apart from the nascent All-India Muslim League until he was assured that Indian nationalism was its primary concern. Once in, he became what one colleague called the ``best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.`` At the historic Lucknow meeting of the Indian National Congress and Muslim League in 1916, his speeches for unity were so strong as later to be an embarrassment to the Muslim League.

Soon after Lucknow, the 39-year-old barrister met and fell hopelessly in love with Ruttie, the beautiful 16-year-old daughter of Parsi millionaire Sir Dinshaw Manockjee Petit. Two years later, deaf to her family’s objections, the pari eloped into a marriage that turned out to be as bad as it was brave. Ruttie would give him on daughter, Dina, but leave him in 1928, fleeing Paris. When he followed and learned she was deathly ill, he arranged her care. She recovered, but returned without him to Bombay, where she died the following year. He would be consoled then, and forever after, by his sister, Fatima.

Something curdled in Jinnah during those years. Gandhi’s policy of non-cooperation repelled him. Believing it would not advance independence, he left the Indian Congress. The man of the hour at Lucknow was becoming steadily less relevant. From the sidelines he watched Gandhi’s non-cooperation fail against a hard-willed British Raj, and the emergence of a militant Hinduism and ensuing riots between Hindus and Muslims---riots of a violence no one had foreseen. By 1932, Jinnah had abandoned India to its factions. He took up a quiet life in north London’s posh Hampstead district with daughter Dina and sister Fatima, and made another grand success in law.

His political life appeared to be over. Attempting to find a seat in the Commons, he found he was too much the toff for Labour, too dark for the Tories. At home the enfeebled Muslim League was splintering into factions. When Jinnah heard that students were pushing something called PAKISTAN---an acronym made of the initial letters of Punjab, Afghan province, Kashmir and Sind and tan from Baluchistan---he would not even see them

Yet when the Muslim League asked him to return and heal them, Jinnah moved his elegant practice and life-style back to Bombay and Delhi. By then he was quite a different man from the reasonable, unity-minded Jinnah of old. This Jinnah had discovered in the Congress Party’s dismissive treatment of the league the one thing worse than British rule: Hindu Raj. Islam, he began to caution his auditors, was in danger. Nehru would wipe away wealth with the ``red pen`` of his socialism. Islamic culture would be diluted to extinction in a Hindu sea.

Jinnah remained the Muslim who eschewed the Mosque, smoked and partook wine and spirits; who made no pilgrimages and endured no fasts. But the snob described by Nehru had vanished. He embraced the masses, though a trifle gingerly and without perceptible warmth, bringing them along with the sheer force of his oratorical technique. He breathed life back into the league---indeed, he had become the league. On Oct. 15, 1973, Jinnah signaled his real destination at a league convention in Lucknow. He had arrived there in the costume of the British barrister. But when he took the podium, it was in the Muslims’ long, black sherwani, and a black Persian lamb cap borrowed from a Muslim nabob. Then he told the assembly that they held a ``magic power`` with which they could spin a new and better future. ``It is by resisting, by overcoming, by facing these disadvantages, hardships and suffering, and maintaining your true convictions and loyalty, that a nation will emerge.``

His opportunity arrived in September 1939, when it became clear that Britain would be fighting for its life in Europe---and later for its Asian empire against the Japanese. The British Indian Army counted many Muslims among its members. As their political leader, Jinnah could bargain with their continued loyalty. The price: dismissal of the Congress Party ministers. ``Turn them out at once,`` on writer quotes Jinnah as saying. ``They will never stand by you.`` And he also hinted at a terrible choice: partition or civil war. In October, unable to get what they wanted from the British viceroy, Congress ministers began to resign. The unexpected result---to everyone but Jinnah---was to make the league a full member of all future negotiations, and to hand Jinnah a veto. Muslims, he told his 80 million, would celebrate the fall of the Congress government as ``a day of deliverance and thanksgiving`` on Dec. 22. India trembled with fear and loathing.

On March 23, 1940, a Muslim League conference in Lahore defined the ethnic fault lines of the subcontinent. ``The area in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute ‘Independent States’ in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.`` Away from the negotiating table, however, the mood had been less formal. ``The only course open to us all is to allow major nations to separate to their homelands, ``Jinnah told 100,000 followers gathered in the killing heat. A permanent Muslim minority in independent India, he added, ``must lead to civil war and the raising of private armies.`` The fuse laid that day would sputter for seven more years.

Another fuse sizzled within. Behind what he had for decades called just a smoker’s cough lived a fatal tuberculosis, which had long ago begun gnawing its way beyond his ruined lungs. It was a race. If his body ran anything less than a dead heat, he would die, and so would Pakistan. His new nation was just that fragile.

Jinnah lived long enough to see what he had created---a bath of blood between Hindus and Muslims. The Dominion of Pakistan was born on Aug. 15, 1947, and the Quaid-e-Azam became its first Governor General in the capital of Karachi. His new nation was huge, and hugely poor. He survived long enough to be aware, perhaps, that the separatist forces unleashed by partition had propelled Hindu assassins to Gandhi’s side that January. And then, on Sep. 11, 1948, just 13 months after independence, the tuberculosis fuse burned down to nothing. On his death bed, according to his doctor, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the wealthy lawyer of Bombay, rendered his final judgement on his signal achievement: Pakistan, he said, had been ``the biggest blunder of my life.``

TIME, December 23, 1996

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah2.html



A TIGERISH MAN, ATOP A SECTARIAN TIGER

The chronicle of a leader and the passions he fanned into flames



By Carl Posey

Delhi in the spring heat of 1946 was not relaxed,`` TIME reported that April. ``It was taut with waiting, gravid with conflict and suspense. Two socialist lawyers and a former Baptist lay preacher from Britain had sat of 25 days in the southeast wing of the viceregal palace, preparing to liquidate the richest portion of empire that history had ever seen---to end the British Raj, the grand and guilty edifice built and maintained by William Hawkins and Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley, the brawling editor James Silk Buckingham and the canny merchant Lord Inchcape and by the great Viceroys, austere Curzon and gently Halifax. The Raj was finished.``

Finished, perhaps, but still difficult to put down. The Raj at the end was like one of the unexploded bombs still lettering postwar Europe, and it held the same promise: peaceful independence if you do it right, explosive civil war if you fail. ``The issue,`` said TIME, ``seemed to turn on one man---Mohammed Ali Jinnah.`` On Boris Chaliapin’s portrait cover, the metaphorical tingers of East and West Pakistan stalked the subcontinent.

TIME had watched Jinnah intermittently since 1930, first as an ardent articulator of Indian nationalism, then as a spark flashing perhaps too close to the subcontinent powder keg. ``Where the low, bare limestone ridges of Sukkur, Sind slope like unkempt stairs down to the banks of the Indus,`` TIME reported in December 1939, ``Indians who loudly object to fighting Germans in the name of Empire last week fought each other in the name of their various gods.`` Muslims had claimed a government building near the river as the site of an ancient mosque and ``threatened to hold it until nirvana-come. Whereupon Hindus swept the city, storming, looting, burning Moslem shops.`` It was a chilling preview of bloodbaths ahead.

``The leaders of the Moslems,`` TIME observed, ``usually thinks first about independence for Moslems and afterward about independence for Indians. His name is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and he is probably the greatest single force for disunity in all disunited India.`` As TIME watched the inexorable progress of the cracks that would culminate in India’s partition, that view of Jinnah would be modulated, but it would not fundamentally change.

There was, in fact, a good deal to admire in Jinnah’s tough single-mindedness and the way he played his cards. Talking with TIME correspondent William Fisher in 1942, Jinnah said he would accept a national government that gave Muslims ``a fair break,`` but that he would stop cooperating if the British made peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress Party.

The April 1946 Jinnah cover story reported by Pacific bureau chief Robert Sherrod was more than TIME’s bittersweet obituary for the British Raj; it was one of the world’s first real close-ups of the man who would have Pakistan, in all his coldly tigerish colorations. Here was a charismatic leader who during Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India campaign had ``boasted that if his followers joined Gandhi’s pacifist program, the British would have 500 times more trouble ‘because we have 500 times more guts than the Hindus.’`` It was also a grim prophecy. ``The British Raj had given India a unified defense and a unified region of internal free trade,`` said TIME. ``Jinnah would destroy both ... Between mighty Russia to the north and the main body of India to the south, Pakistan would dangle like two withered arms.``

In August, Jinnah unleashed---perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not---an ugly sample of the horrors to come. Opposed to a British plan for Indian independence that did not also create Pakistan, he designated the 18th day of Ramadan as ``Direct Action Day.`` ``Though direct,`` TIME reported, ``the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta’s streets.

``Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta’s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums ... By the 21 day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more.``

Interspersed with what TIME called ``musical chairs`` of negotiation, in which neither the Hindu side nor the Muslim side could be budged by British nudging, the killing went on and on. ``Perhaps, after all, there would be no independent India,`` TIME mused sadly in May 1947. ``Indeed, there might be no India.``

Pakistan was by then an idea nothing could contain. In August 1947 it became the world’s largest Muslim nation. The forces of hatred unleashed by Jinnah’s rhetoric, however, had acquired a life of their own. By late October 1947 the plague of enmity flared in Kashmir, where a Muslim majority lived under a Hindu maharaja who decided to throw in with India. ``In Moslem Karachi,`` TIME reported, ``Pakistan Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah raged at the news. He ordered Pakistan troops ... into Kashmir.`` But as the raiders pushed into the Vale, ``the blind butchery of neighbor by neighbor had reached Kashmir. Pakistan heard that 50,000 Moslems had been slaughtered by Hindus. British officials said that 100,000 fleeing refugees from Kashmir and nearby Jammu had crowded south into the still reeking Punjab.``

Jinnah, meanwhile, seemed to fade even as his discordant creation took form. ``Last week,`` TIME reported in early December 1947, ``after less than four months of independence, Pakistan was economic wreck, and serious social unrest was rising.`` The new country coul dnot afford to feed its millions of refugees; its checks bounced around the globe. As for the health of the seldom seen Jinnah, TIME added, ``The Pakistan Ministry indignantly said: ‘There is absolutely no truth in the rumors that Quaid-e-Azam [the Great Leader] is seriously ill.’``

In fact, as evidently only he was aware, Jinnah was dying.

``Out of the travail of 400 million in the Indian subcontinent,`` TIME wrote in September 1948, ``have come two symbols---a man of love and a man of hate. Last winter the man of nonviolence, Gandhi, died violently at the hands of an assassin. Last week, the man of hate, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at 71, died a natural death in Karachi, capital of state he had founded.``

Enemies gave Jinnah his due, though. ``The Hindustani Times,`` TIME observed, ``devoted a page to an uncompromising attack on Jinnah’s motives and methods. However, it concluded: ‘A man of destiny, he was perhaps the greatest man of Islam since Mohammed.’`` But, TIME noted warily, his death ``raised the possibility that his political heirs might seek the final solution for insolvent, disorganized governments: war.`` Indeed, Jinnah’s chief legacy proved to be an eternity of discord

Jinnah: making of a myth

By Mubarak Ali

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had all the qualities and characteristics in his personality which go into the making of a myth. He was reticent, reserved, kept his personal matters secret, behaved coolly and proudly and was not warm towards anybody. Thus he created a halo of awe and fear around himself.

Sri Prakash, the first Indian High Commissioner to Karachi, in his book Pakistan: birth and early years gives an account of a reception which was given by the Governor-General of Pakistan, just after Independence to the diplomatic corps. It was also attended by the party leaders and bureaucrats. According to his version, Mr Jinnah was sitting at a distance alone on a sofa and called one by one those he wanted to talk to. He exchanged notes with each one of them just for five minutes. To the High Commissioner, he appeared a lonely man, averse to people. His serious and sombre expression made all those who interacted with him uneasy in his company.

This conveyed the impression that he was the final authority in every matter. The Muslim League and its leaders were merely rubber stamps. His image of being the sole spokesman of his party and people created a number of myths. For instance, the myth about his serious illness which is recounted by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book Freedom at midnight fascinates everybody and compels readers to take it seriously. The version of their story is:

``If Louis Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi had been aware in April 1947 of one extraordinary secret, the division threatening India might have been avoided. The secret was sealed onto the gray surface of a film, a film that could have upset the Indian political equation and would almost certainly have changed the course of Asian history. Yet, so precious was the secret that that film harboured that even the British CID, one of the most effective investigative agencies in the world, was ignorant of its existence.``

These were the X-rays of Jinnah diagnosed as a TB patient. The authors, after creating a suspense, further write that: ``The damage was so extensive that the man whose lungs were on the film had barely two or three years to live. Sealed in an unmarked envelope, those X-rays were locked in the office safe of Dr J.A.L. Patel, a Bombay physician.``

On the basis of the story, Jinnah emerged as the one on whom depended the whole movement of Pakistan. The story further becomes interesting when a Hindu doctor kept the secret at the cost of Indian unity. His professional integrity was more important than his political inclinations.

In 1997, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of India-Pakistan Independence, Patrick French published a book, Liberty or death. After his own investigation, French refutes the whole story narrated by Collins and Lapierre. According to him: ``The idea that Jinnah`s poor state of health was a closely guarded secret is absurd: it was referred to in the press at that time, and it is obvious from photographs taken in the mid-1940s that Jinnah was unwell.

Moreover, the reduction of the Muslim League`s wide popular backing to the whim of one man`s `rigid and inflexible` attitude is indicative of the way that Pakistan history has been traduced. A second problem with Collins and Lapierre`s story is that it is not correct. Jinnah did not go to Bombay in May or June 1946, since he was busy in negotiating with Cripps in Simla and New Delhi. Nor did he have a doctor by the name of J.A.L. Patel. Although it is possible that Jinnah had tuberculosis in 1946, there is no evidence among his archive papers to support the theory.``

However, Jinnah himself on many occasions expressed the view that he was the sole creator of Pakistan. In one of his famous quotes, he said that he and his typewriter made Pakistan. The statement disregarded the efforts of his colleagues and the other Muslim League leaders in the Pakistan movement. It also downgraded the people`s participation in the struggle for a separate homeland.

There is evidence that he did not think highly of the leaders of the Muslim League. He found them mediocre and not capable of leading the nation. Perhaps, that was the reason that Jinnah, knowing his fatal illness, accepted `the moth eaten and truncated Pakistan`. The later history of Pakistan vindicates Jinnah`s assessment of the Muslim League leaders who miserably failed to solve the problems of a nascent nation.

The failure of these leaders has boosted Jinnah`s image as a superman. He overshadowed everybody. The nation also paid respect to him by naming universities, colleges, airports, roads, hospitals, and institutions of different kinds after him with the result that a citizen of Pakistan feels his presence every where in the country, wherever he goes.

Moreover, his image as a ``Great Leader`` (the Quaid-i-Azam) is presented in the textbooks to mould the mind of the young generation encouraging them to follow in his footstep. Scholars are eulogizing different aspects of his life. A film is screened to counter the film Gandhi in which Attenborough distorts the image of Jinnah. These efforts have made Jinnah sacrosanct. Any criticism of him is regarded a treason. He has become a paragon of super human virtues, beyond all weaknesses normal in human being.

The reverence accorded to him is such that mere association with him catapults a person from a humble position to the rank of freedom fighter. People take pride in their claim to have shaken hands with him (though he avoided shaking hands with people), or having seen him, talked to him, or merely attended his public meeting. The rulers of Pakistan, realizing the impact of his association, create myths of their links with him. Z.A. Bhutto claimed that as a student he wrote a letter to the Quaid - it is not known whether he replied to that letter or not, Zia`s sycophant bureaucrats discovered a diary of Jinnah (that was the time when Hitler`s diaries were discovered and later on proved false) which disappeared along with him.

Nawaz Sharif, assuming to follow in his footsteps, called himself `Quaid-i-Sani` (the second leader). One such similar example is found in the history of France when Napoleon III made an attempt to revive the image of Napoleon I in order to legitimize his authority. Marx jokingly comments in The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that ``Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.`` Nawaz Sharif`s self-given title proves it.

Jinnah has become such a symbol of wisdom in the Pakistani society that people visualize Pakistan with his reference. His vision, his agenda, his dream and his ideals, all remained unaccomplished because he died soon after Independence. It is commonly believed that had he lived some more years, the history of Pakistan would have been different. There are few nations which rely so heavily on one individual.

No doubt, Jinnah was a great leader of his people. He was a man of integrity and honesty, but to idealize him to such an extent as to preempt the emergence of another rank of leaders out of his shadow is strange. Every generation has its own dreams and vision which it wants to accomplish without interference. Not imitation but freedom is required to build a new world. Therefore, an attempt should not be made to repeat but to make new history. People should be liberated from the shadows and allowed to flourish in a free society. Great leaders should be respected but not worshipped.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books4.htm

December 25, 2001

=== Interact Filtered ===
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re: Rehan

``The book would be worth the read if only for Ammi`s election campaign. She decides to run for a seat in `45, `46 elections, as an independent, i.e neither Congress nor Muslim League. The name of her party: Anjuman Bara-e-Tahafffuz-e-Haal (!) She is pissed off at experienced old men like Nehru and Jinnah who, she says, want to sweep their lives away and live like strangers in brand new countries.``

Absolutely. I can`t wait to get my hands on this book. Ammi, I guess, is clearly exercising the 3rd option. Any sort of 2 Nation theory debate, to this day, ends up being polarised by 2 extreme right wing views of the Ummah and Hindutva, projected onto the Muslim league and Congress respectively. This debate is still very relevant within India given the pluralistic nature of its populace.
BTW what does Bara-e-Tahakfffuz-e-Haal mean ?

regards

Re: Shafqat # 2

Thanks for the correction....after I posted that InterAct, I was chargrined to notice the typos too! As to the quote, I should have paraphrased it, because I was not sure, but then hindsight is always perfect! :)

You are right on the mark. This fallacy is not only limited to Indian and Pakistanis, but encompasses everyone.

The intent of history should be to educate not deify.....

Ferozk,

Fully agree with you. After the Independence, most of the national leaders in India, or their actions

and decisions, were completely immune from even mild criticism, or, any rational historical analysis. This, however, changed gradually after their passing. Nehru, after his death, came under severe scrutiny both by politicians, as well as, historians. It took a little longer to put Gandhi under a similar exercise. It is still an ongoing process before the shading of deitified(sp?) image is complete and a thorough historical study could be carried out.

Sometime ago, a Gujarati play glorifying, somewhat, the Gandhi`s assassin generated house-full responses. However, the same play in a Marathi version drew the Govt.`s ire and, was banned. There is still a large section of population that treats Gandhi as above earthly figure, something divine. However, as I understand, the play was released again to full-houses.

In Pakistan, Jinnah is still revered not as a political or historical figure but as a deity. Hence, there is absolutely no factual account of his personal life , or, any critique of his actions. This is especially a profound ommission in historical sense considering that here is the one who took almost all the decisions on behalf of his contemporary muslim followers. There has been complete absence in the history books regarding the fact that Zinnah was a Gujarati, mothertongue Gujarati and not Urdu, As a matter of fact, Zinnah had very limited knowledge of Urdu. Secondly, the last name, I believe, Zinnah actually was adopted from his grandfathers name, which was Zinabhai. This name was a common Gujarati (Hindu) first name in the old days. Zinabhai means small (size)man.

I believe, either him or his close ancestors converted from Hinduism. Now you see how and why the so-called historians and writers rewrite the history to suit their own selfish interests. Lastthing the politicians in Pakistan want the new and future generations to know that Zinnah had some trace of Hindu in him. I recently read in a Pakistani newspaper(The Nation?) an article by a columnist, I believe Jilani, that he referred to Quaid as Zinnah in his article and not Quaide Azam,and he was critized left and right. Anyway, for the sake of future generations ,and to do justice to nation`s history it beehooves on everyone to be truthful and rational, devoid of emotions or personal bias.

Sorry for a long narrative. Excuse for spelling, its time to go home.

KP

Interesting point, Feroz, about the deification of the political architects of partition, but the phenomenon is hardly unique to desi-land. I was surprised to see how the founding fathers of the American republic are also revered as infallible icons, comparable to religious figures.

BTW, you wrote: ``Why did Santanya say, `those who fail to learn from histroy are condemed to repeat it`.``

You managed to both misspell and misquote the great Santayana. The correct quote is: ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.`` (George Santayana - Life of Reason.)

Saad

After nearly 52 years of perpetual ignorance, the histrography of the sub-continent needs to be revisited. The only problem, an obstacle, towards objective historic analysis is that we have created these walls of myth around our leading personalities of the period and are unwilling to ask critical questions concerning their conduct, lest we destroy our own false set of assumptions by which we have grown to judge our own history.

Before an accurate historic picture can be created, of the time preceding and immediately following partition, we have to understand that our repspective leaders were human beings and not demi-gods. Being human, they were subjected to the same vices which haunt all human behaviour: prejuduce, greed, selfish motives, petty interests, visions of grandeur and above all, the fallibility of the human character itself.

Another historic truth that we, in the sub-continent, need to learn is that history is not the summation of great events and noble deeds practiced and urged in the name of loftier principles, but rather the confluence of human failings. Just as the motto of the French Foreign Legion suggests, ``we will muddle through``, history is created by mistakes committed and through the personal faults of its contempories. Why did Santanya say, ``those who fail to learn from histroy are condemed to repeat it``. He uttered those words, because the lesson of history is accumulative and an undertanding of history is always perfect, blessed with a hindsight, but its creation is always marred by doubtful indecisions.

Hence,the only way in which can truly appreciate history is by realizing that it was created imperfectly and those whom we study were imperfect just like us. The real lesson of learning history lies in disciphering the mistakes of the past and in seeking to avoid them in the present and therein begins our historic journey into a realm of an accuquired wisdom.