Advani in Karachi

Re: # 390

The issue you`ve raised about Indian Muslims is a valid one and has been addressed by Hindvi eloquently albeit in the wrong context.

My answer is simple.... as Dina Jinnah revealed in the famous C. Mitchell`s documentary ``Mr Jinnah and the Making of Pakistan``... ``My father did not want a complete separation from India.``

Ayesha Jalal`s thesis and then H M Seervai`s thesis proves adequately that Jinnah wanted organic unity between Pakistan and what he called Hindustan to form one great Secular United India with joint electorates ultimately and a federal equipoise between Hindu majority provinces and Muslim majority provinces.

Re: # 389

Yes.. ha ha ...

Islamic Social Justice means simply equality fraternity and justice... nothing religious about that either.

Thank you for your enlightening comments.

Re: # 383

Echoboom,

We`ve been through this many times... but still please have the decency to read my post.

I do not ascribe to your view. I accept that Jinnah`s role as the leader of the Indian Muslims was different from his role as the statesman of the nation state. In the pre-1947 period like any good lawyer, He proceeded brief by brief (as did Gandhi and Nehru so there is really little question of opportunism)... ofcourse he paid lip service to Islam but he always QUALIFIED that lip service with the ideal... so if it was the essential principles of Islam ... those principles were Equality Fraternity and Justice for all...

At the end of the day however ... Jinnah managed to do the following:

1) Shoot down all proposals (and there were several) of the inclusion of Quran and Sunnah being part of the constitution (1943 Delhi Address he called it a censure on every leaguer, 1947 he clearly and equivocally refused again and beyond ``Islamic principles of social justice, equality etc`` you don`t find any statement from him

2) install a Hindu LAW minister ... now was Jogindranath Mandal, a secularist himself, qualified to make the sharia law of an Islamic state.

3) appoint Englishmen as governors, especially in NWFP where the Khan Brothers (Ghaffar Khan yes the frontier gandhiji himself) were colluding with the Fakir of Ipi and claiming that Pakistan`s government was secular and not suited for Islamic pathan needs. This is there in US Embassy agent`s reports to the state department.

(Ironic twist for Indian friends... the great `secular` Ghaffar Khan, according to an American diplomat reporting to the State Department , had been inciting the masses in NWFP to revolt against the unIslamic government of Pakistan... he had even proposed a constitution for ``Pathanistan`` endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi which spoke of Islamic Democracy)

--

The 11th August Speech itself was made by Jinnah in response to a speech by a Hindu Legislator ... who had risen to congratulate him. The Hindu legislator had asked Mr Jinnah if Pakistan was going to be a secular democratic state.

It was then that Jinnah rose as the president of the constituent assembly to make plain his ideas on governance... and I am sure anyone here will agree that Jinnah in the constituent assembly was no longer a lawyer with a client or a politician but a legislator and a law maker (the kind he had been when he was part of the Indian Legislative Assembly). It is precisely this reason that Jinnah`s 11th August speech is more important than any other pronouncement he might have made ... whether as a leader of the Muslims or as the best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity.

Let us then consider the ``salient features`` of this speech which have always been a constant:


1) Religion is a personal matter.

2) The state has to be completely impartial to all faiths.

3) No community has precedence over the other

4) Supremely all citizens of one state

5) No distinction religion caste creed


In his statement to Doon Campbell on 21st May 1947 he spoke of a ``Modern state with sovereignty resting with the people regardless of religion caste or creed``.

In his statement, quoted to the Americans in Feb 1948, he says clearly and forcefuly... Pakistan shall not be a theocratic state to be run with priests with a divine mission. He acknowledges the presence of christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Parsis as Pakistanis and equal citizens consequently part of the nation.

This is why Jinnah is secular in my opinion and this is how I use the word. None of what you`ve quoted is in my opinion a contradiction of the secular ideal. On the contrary it is an attempt on Jinnah`s part to show the people that a modern democratic secular state is in no way a contradiction to `Islam which has taught us democracy 13 centuries ago`... he might be wrong on this but it doesn`t disprove his secular credentials whether you like it or not or whether the government of Pakistan continues lying for the next 100 years. The cat is out of the bag and the TRUTH has come out.


Now coming to your statements:

1) 11th August ``that is the personal faith of the individual`` ... nails it.

2) Jinnah, as a brilliant tactician, lawyer and politician was simply consolidating his position. He did not expect Pakistan to be created... he was raising the stakes.

3) He did not make any distinction. He was simply trying to prove that the status quo as was was perfectly Islamic... hence there was no need to Islamize (as some quarters had begun to clamour) the ``Islamic democracy`` then was the democracy under the government of India act 1935 that was the constitution of the dominion. It was the most secular constitution Pakistan had. Note he didn`t say ``Future Islamic Democracy``. He was actually calling the existing western democracy in the country entirely Islamic. Ironic that you would be fooled this easily...

4) Gandhi and Jinnah were locked in the famous deadlock. At the end of the talks Gandhi told C R Gopalachari that Jinnah had painted a very rosy picture of a perfect democracy with equal rights for all.. and had no Islamic pretensions.

5) The idea of social justice is in no way a contradiction to a secular state, and Islam preaches no special social justice...

6) Jinnah defined the ``Essential principles`` as ``Equality Fraternity and Justice for all``.

7) Refer to 5

8) Yes. Islam is a complete code of life for the `individual` Muslim. I don`t think it is for the state though and neither did Jinnah. He also left the interpretation of Islam to the individual (`every Muslim should be his own priest`) as well instead of imposing it from the top. This is secularism. Jinnah also at one point said that Muslims were so democratic that they even decided the matters of religion democratically (referring to Ijtehad) ... I think that statement itself accepts the dichotomy of ``religion`` and ``state``.


Now some of my questions:

Call it secular or call it Islamic but has Jinnah`s vision been fulfilled in Pakistan?

1) Is there no distinction between religions, sects and castes in Pakistan?

2) Is the state impartial to all religions and communities?

3) Are equal rights accorded to each citizen?


The answer to these questions are NO.

-YLH

There is actually only one group that has a legitmate right to complain against Jinnah. And they are the Indian Muslims. They got a bum deal because of what he did. If he was a representative of all the Muslims in South Asia, then he certainly didn`t do a good job of representing the ones who ended up remaining in India. They ended up in a far more vulnerable position because of him (and in my opinion, at least, will remain in this vulnerable state, as long as BJP type parties hold any influence in India)........Having said that, Indian Muslims (specifically of UP) were the biggest supporters of Pakistan. So maybe they had a reason to like him also.........I don`t know........

Everyone else is doing nothing more than hiding their own faults, pushing their own political agendas and trying to justify, in a round about manner, the recent about-face of Advani........

Comparing Jinnah with Advani is quite ridiculous. One guy is a representative of a religious majority party, which has as its political philosophy (please check RSS and BJP websites) a very anti-Muslim stance, on which it has gained its glory. The other guy was a leader of a religious minority, which forever will consider him their Great Leader, because he fulfilled their dreams; not by suppressing anyone else, but by protecting them.

There is something wrong with introducing religion into politics if it is going to be used to suppress others, by a majority. There is nothing wrong with introducing religion into politics to defend the rights of a religious minority that feels threatened. In the later case, it is not the minority that has introduced the religion. It is someone else that is making the minority feel insecure, because of their religion.

Hence the minority has no option, but to emphasise their religious orientation..........

Jinnah did not introduce religion into Indian politics. It was already there. This can simply be judged by the fact that there existed a religious minority which felt insecure, because of its religion. In any society, it is the job of the majority to make the minority(s) feel secure. If they cannot do that, then they cannot complain if the minority breaks away - be it an ethnic, ligusitic, religious etc. minority.

What else is the minority supposed to do? Continue to feel insecure, while living with the majority? This rule is not even followed, in a marriage and divorce. A husband cannot force his wife to stay with him, if she feels insecure. Nor can he over-ride her desire to leave, with a veto.

All unions are voluntary. None can be forced...........

This puts Jinnah and Advani, actually at opposite poles. It is actually people like Advani, who create the need for people like Jinnah. Jinnahs of the world are a minority`s reaction to an insecurity they felt due to a religious majority. Advanis of the world are the causes of the insecurity.............

If Jinnah were to, after independence, create an atmosphere where, say, the Christians in Pakistan were threatened, because they were a religious minority, then one could compare Jinnah with Advani. And any Christian leader, who would subsequently emerge, would then be compared with the Jinnah of 47.

This is why comparing the two individuals along the lines of secularism and religion, is incorrect. Along those lines, both actually did appeal specifically to one religious group, and both actually did attach religion to politics (albeit in differing capacities). But one did it as a representative of majority political party trying to suppress a minority. The other did it as a representative of a minority party trying to defend itself against a majority............

The former did it for all the wrong reasons. The later for all the right ones........(other than the situation the Indian Muslims ended up in)

So the question anyone in a religious majority (be it Pakistan, India etc.) should be asking, themselves, is not, ``Why do minority religious groups produce political leaders, specifically for the religious minority.`` The majority should actually be introspecting and asking themselves, ``Why in the world do the religious minority(s) feel threatened by us (the religious majority)``

Mantolives,
Ramrajya is used as a synonym for a good rule. Rama was supposed to have listened to his people, and that`s what `Ramrajya` tends to mean - a period when people were part of law making process. Nothing religious about that, is it.

Re: # 387

P-mishra

This would have been a balanced article if two things would have happened:

1) The writer would have taken into account the 30 years (the best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity) that Jinnah remained committed as a secular Nationalist of India despite disappointments calling all separatists and people like Rahmat Ali ``imperialist stooges`` in the same fashion you chaps do today.

2) The writer would have attempted to understand how and why a man who was committed to an ideal i.e. secular and United India so passionately (as passionately say as a patriot of India or Pakistan can be today) would all of a sudden turn into a champion of a communal interest and demand?

Had the writer attempted to answer these questions he would have found any and all comparisons to Mr Savarkar (who represented majoritarian communalism throughout his adult life without fail) wrong as I am sure you would too.

The devil is in understanding the details. Thats all I wish you people would. Ayesha Jalal`s book and H M Seervai`s book are a good start. I think if anything Irfan Habib and Asgharali Engineer should give the whole thing a fresh perspective.

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Vivek :

``rule of rama`` .... and so that is not religion? I find your view quite amusing if you don`t mind my saying so.


Ballu Khan,

I am just pointing to the double standards ...

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More views:


http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13868583

Jinnah was both secular and communal: Paswan


Thursday, 09 June , 2005, 17:06

New Delhi: Lok Janshakti Party leader and Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Thursday said BJP President L K Advani`s remarks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah were in national interest and would promote India-Pakistan unity, and would be an issue in the coming Bihar Assembly polls.


``Mr Advani merely quoted what Jinnah said in his August 11, 1947 speech.... The speech is a historical truth which nobody can deny,`` Paswan told reporters.

Paswan called the RSS and the VHP ``intolerant,`` as they created a furore without going into the context in which Advani made the remarks.

``These very people who are taking objections to Advani`s remarks are dividing the country on communal lines,`` he said.

The controversy, he said, would go against the BJP in the Bihar Assembly elections as the party would be divided into two groups-- those who support Advani and those who don`t.

``But BJP as a party is finished,`` he said and added that the NDA would also be finished if it continued to align with the `communal` BJP.

On whether he thought Jinnah was secular, as stated by Advani, Paswan said Jinnah had two faces-- one of a secular who fought for the freedom struggle, and the other of a communal who played a big role in the partition.

``But he (Jinnah) must have had a change of heart after seeing so much bloodshed during the partition,`` Paswan said.

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http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/09advpak8.htm

Advani was not inaccurate on Jinnah: Singh

Onkar Singh in New Delhi | June 09, 2005 21:12 IST


Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manvendra Singh on Thursday defended his party chief L K Advani`s remarks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

Talking to rediff.com at the party headquarters in New Delhi, the Lok Sabha member from Rajasthan said that Advani`s comment was not illogical.

``If you read the Indian history you would realise that Jinnah`s disillusionment from the Congress started because of the Nehru family`s attitude,`` he said.

Asked if he would describe Jinnah as secular leader, Singh said that this was a historical fact and there was no need to repeat it. ``Advani`s statement is not inaccurate,`` he added.

According to him the trouble arose because the Indians have been taught Nehruvian concept of India.

``Dr Murali Manohar Joshi was trying to correct these distortions which is not appreciated by the Congress,`` he said.

He termed the statements of VHP leaders Giriraj Kishore and Pravin Togadia as totally unnecessary and unwarranted.

``We fully support Advaniji,`` Singh said when asked if the party backed the party president.

Advani`s comments during his recent Pakistan visit received a lot of flak from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He had described Jinnah as the secular leader.

-YLH

Ballukhan - I think you will enjoy this article from the hindu. It reflects your intuition that ``advani and jinnah share some similarities`` which I agree with.

I do disagree with the articles excessively positive view of Nehru and Gandhi though. There has to be accountability for Gandhi`s pandering to many islamic fundamentalists and some of Nehru`s (Congress) interactions with Jinnah.

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http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/09/stories/2005060904701100.htm

Advani`s Karachi speech decoded

Suhas Palshikar

The RSS has failed to understand the line of legitimation Mr. Advani has opened up; and the Congress, in its enthusiasm to mock him, has chosen to neglect the challenge this speech has thrown up for it.




LAL KRISHNA Advani`s resignation from the office of president of the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have overshadowed the issues raised by his June 5 speech in Karachi. In that speech at a function organised by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law, Mr. Advani did three things. He projected himself as a statesman and approved of the ongoing peace process. He formally accepted that Pakistan was a reality and that there could be no going back to history, so the goal of Akhand Bharat, so dear to the diehard follower of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, was now redundant. He also obliquely reminded the Pakistan state authorities of their responsibility towards the minorities. All laudable things indeed.

However, Mr. Advani did more than that through his speech. He said Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a secular leader and had a vision of a secular Pakistan; in fact, he quoted extensively from Jinnah`s speech of August 11, 1947 in Pakistan`s Constituent Assembly. While both the Congress and the RSS have failed to grasp the significance of this, the media are playing this up as the great Indian political soap opera.

Two features of the speech have been less noted. One is the invocation of the goal of secularism. The other is the implicit legitimation of the politics of the BJP over the last two decades. The RSS has failed predictably to understand the line of legitimation Mr. Advani has opened up; and the Congress, in its enthusiasm to mock him, has chosen to neglect the intellectual challenge that this speech has thrown up for the Congress.

The evaluation of Jinnah as a secular leader must be seen in the context of Mr. Advani`s own contribution to the lexicon of Indian politics: pseudo-secularism. He has been making a distinction between ``secularism`` and ``pseudo-secularism.`` It may be recalled that two issues are at the heart of the controversy about secularism in India: one is the basis of nationalism, and the other is the role of religious identity in public life. On these and some other aspects, Mr. Advani would share common ground with Jinnah.

Jinnah and Savarkar


Jinnah was a non-practising Muslim but used religious sentiment as the tool for mobilisation and ultimately upheld religion as the basis of nationhood. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar`s position was closest to Jinnah`s during that period. Savarkar, too, was a non-practising Hindu, in fact a rationalist. However, he too, like Jinnah, approved of religion as the basis of nationhood. Savarkar strongly believed in the mobilisational potential of religion.

However, he fudged the issue by confusing between the Hindu religion and Hindu culture (Hindutva). Although there were differences between the two, (Jinnah was brought up on the staple diet of liberalism while Savarkar operated on the continuum of patriotic nationalism and Hindutva), both Savarkar and Jinnah were products of the modern Western political tradition and knew the limits of religion as the basis for running the state.

Their position was that religion could be the basis of the nation, and once the nation attained statehood, a secular state structure must evolve, though, the cultural ambience could still be dominated by the religion of the majority.

Textbook cases of communalism?


Their understanding of the majority-minority question was mired in the colonial context and, in the case of Jinnah, was situated at the outdated recesses of the liberal democratic framework. Thus, the issue was the sharing of power between the majority and the minority.

On the other hand, the issue was that of representation. Both Savarkar and Jinnah argued that it was possible and necessary that the majority and the minority communities should be politically represented through separate political outfits. This ensured proper representation, sharing of power; and above all, this constituted democracy.

It is in this sense that Jinnah and Savarkar operated in the framework of majority-minority. The politics of both Jinnah and Savarkar represented the distortions possible within the liberal democratic framework. For both, competitive politics meant legitimation of religious identity as the basis of politics.

In this sense, Jinnah and Savarkar would constitute the textbook of communalism in the subcontinent. Mr. Advani and the BJP are the additions to this textbook in its late twentieth century edition.

In order to understand the former Deputy Prime Minister`s approving remarks on Jinnah, it is necessary to keep in mind his own ideological position. Mr. Advani, like Jinnah and Savarkar, is not a devout person in the religious sense of the term. It may not be an exaggeration to say that he belongs to the Savarkar school of Hindu nationalism. Not only Mr. Advani, but a majority among the present day Hindutva politicians would want Hindutva to be the basis of India`s nationhood, also the main influence on India`s public life.

Yet it would be foolhardy to imagine that all of them want to establish a non-secular state in India. Thus, Mr. Advani represents and extends the Savarkar legacy in the context of contemporary India. His remarks about Jinnah incontrovertibly situate him as the representative of Savarkarite Hindu nationalist position.

Mr. Advani and the BJP have always believed in Hindutva as the basis of Indian nationalism. They have used religious identity as the basis for political mobilisation and as a lever for political power. Mr. Advani`s politics ever since his Rathyatra has relied on a majoritarian framework and communalised the political terrain.

His remarks about Jinnah seek to justify all these positions as secular. True enough, the BJP has never challenged the official secular structure of the Indian state. This confusion arises because ``secularists`` are not clear about the meaning of secularism. Many of them are in fact unaware that in the Indian context secularism is challenged not so much by theocratic ideas as by communal ideas.

According to this idea, the state can be secular, yet the texture of politics, the basis of political competition, can be communal. In praising Jinnah, Mr. Advani has underlined this version of secularism with which he and his party would have no problem.

Congress` folly


It is unfortunate that the Congress does not understand this link between Jinnah-Savarkar, on the one hand, and Mr. Advani and the present BJP on the other. More unfortunate is the Congress` complete amnesia about its own history. Ironically today, in their haste to welcome Mr. Advani`s remarks, sections of the Congress have unknowingly approved Mr. Advani`s (Savarkar`s) conception of secularism. This is not a moment for settling political scores or creating confusion in the ranks of the adversary.

The Congress would do well to remember that its secularism, until recently, was based on the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It hinged on tolerance, liberal sentiment, and respect for diversity. In reacting to the Advani episode, the Congress must remember that the Savarkar-Golwalkar-Advani conception of ``We`` or ``Our Nationhood`` defined is in direct contrast to the Gandhi-Nehru conception of Indian nationhood anchored in ``We the people of India``.

(The author teaches Political Science at the University of Pune. His email id is suhas@unipune.ernet.in.)

Mantolives,
`Ramrajya` refers to a just and prosperous rule as was under Rama. It does not mean religious rule.

``he said something like politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt``

I think he was right about this. Politics involves laws regarding everyday life of a common man and religion is a very important part of that. But doesn`t make Gandhi not secular.

Dear YLH,

I think you unnecesarily choose to bring in Gandhi while discussing Jinnah because this is one issue Advani would certainly agree with you...........

Anyway, the issue to my mind was whether Advani`s utterance in ``Indian context`` are relevant or not, although I can agree that in the ``Pakistani context`` it may be significant on the two counts you mentioned earlier.

Good, we do agree to disagree.

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Re: # 381

addressed to Ballu Khan 380!

I disagree with your comments as they presume too much that is too false. Jinnah`s positional utterances on Islamic principles of equality fraternity and social justice are few and far between and don`t contradict secularism... Gandhi`s utterances on Ram Rajya are numerous but you consider him secular. Furthermore your comment about shifting is just wrong because I can quote several instances from Gandhi and infact Azad (who had given the famous fatwa to move from India because it was darulharb.

But I`ll let it go at this... by saying ``let us agree to disagree``.

Re: # 374

Dear YLH,

It is good to see you admit that I have proved my point that Jinnah`s secularism is not the right pill for IM-s, I have always maintained that Pakistani muslims require those parts of his philosophy that selectively endorses secularism and pares down his attraction towards religious principles in matters of state governance.
So it would boil down to a political decision by the Pakistanis as to which part of his utterance is to be overemphasised............remember, the right wingers are also justified in quoting Jinnah selectively to prove their point the Jinnah wanted a non-secular state. But, IM-s do not require any endorsement of Jinnah by Advani!!

Ballu : You still haven`t answered the question:

Why has Irfan Habib become a BJP chamcha as per your claim

Jaswant Singh supports Advani:

``Meanwhile, Advani received a shot in the arm when former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh sent him a message from Israel, where he is on tour, saying that he fully agreed with the statement of Advani on Jinnah. ``That Jinnah is secular is a historical fact,`` Singh is supposed to have said in that message.``

My take.....

Jinnah was secular but communal while Gandhi was neither (he said something like politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt)