Ban on Play Mr. Jinnah

This has got to be a very disappointing thread in term of the level of interacts here.
I would totally agree with #144 ``You let your prejudice, hatred, insensitivity etc. for alternate viewpoint bubble up in many of the interact you wrote. ``

Re : `` the minute they open their mouths they aptly display their parentage and upbringing and sometimes race and caste as brightly as neon lights blinking on their heads. `` - that is a cheap shot.

I could be mistaken but it looks like Veeresh & Kaal were only asking questions without any hidden agenda.

With all the name calling going on - the main objective has been lost, i.e. why has Delhi Police banned this play? Apart from posting this article on Chowk, have Mr Gaur and Asmita presented their viewpoint to the media in Delhi?

a) I have received direct eMails from Arvind Gaur, apologising for the behaviour of anonymous people claiming to be his well-wishers. I have told him that he need not apologise, the question here is of freedom of speech so his friends are entitled to it, even if they feel I am not.

In any case, the mask of anonymity is not one that works very well on the Internet anyway.

b) Sanguine/Sangeeta Das and Bottle-Neck are best ignored, for failing in syntax and grrammarr, not to mention speling.

c) baron_snoopy:- the only reason I called Sanguine a Bengali female is because she said so in one of her own interacts as a sort of badge of superiority. The fact that she claimed to be superior in intellect and gene pool over ``gutter North Indians`` has been ignored. Please look at things within that context.

Good luck to Arvind Gaur and his theatre group, I guess the Irfan Habib supported Sunni Wakf Board`s claim over the Taj Mahal currently being countered by the Shia Board and the ASI should give them more material.

First mr. Besharam

You have now written a very tame posting compared to your first posting which stated, ``I am cautious of the Govt. types but at the same time life has taught me to be cautious of Gaur type too who are ready to play with sentiments and sensationalize everything just to earn something (Money, Name, invitation to international forums etc.).``

read posting number 87 In which I clearly requested you with a please That the play ``Mr.Jinnah is not a communal play, so refrain from calumnizing about it.``

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{{{Mr.Jinnah is about Mr. Jinnah and his family, friends, ambition, fears, hopes, dreams, and hatreds... And not totally about partition..... please don`t assume things and don`t spread it around read the latest article. Whatever he was he was after all a human being. the play is about the human being Jinnah and not the demon that the Indian historians have made him to be. Hitler, Mussolini, Osama, or even Conunt Dracula were human beings. I am sure plays and movies on these people will never be banned, then why Jinnah?}}}


Agreed that you may not know us as well as you know yourself, but that doesn`t give you a right to assume that all that you don`t know is bad. FACT IS YOU DON``T KNOW US. so don`t make humiliating comments. If you do, then expect the reaction. My earlier reply directed to you was based on this. What you think in your mind is never reflected in yout posting but what we read is that an extremely narrow minded and cliched viewpoint that ``we were cheap publicity seekers.``

Obviously its not true and we would react to it, and so we did, but nowhere will you find that I was abusive until my last mail where in I was pushed too far, by personal attacks and abuses.

Re: # 145

As for mr. Subroto -- You have writely raised the same question that we have been asking since 21st june.

I think you have got into the lop a little late and probably you didn`t check the papers of the past 20 days. Each and every paper in delhi and across India have been reached and they are continuously covering the matter. Most TV channels were present when the play was not allow to happen. Ven now papers in mumbai chennai etc are writing on this. Last sunday Times center page had a huge article. What more media attention could we ivoke?

But we consciously warn the reporters not to write on an individual play and ASMITA but the colletive Artists viewpoint and taking tha Ban as a action against the entire artist group. Or else if we kept the cause to our micro level it would seem we were only worried about our own play and our own success.

AS for what you have written about my prejudice is not my prejudice... you obviously haven`t read the entire 140 postings of the forum and only reacted to my posting. Because i am getting a feeling that if you werereading it you would know that right from the beginning ASMITA members didn`t write anything to anybody. It was only after we got some queries that we decided to write from posting 85 onwards.... and nowhere will you find that we I or Arvindji was impolite to anybody.....
but when it got too much and people were actually referring to us as idiots and what not then I did retaliate.....

just because they don`t know us doesn`t give them the right to think that they can say whatever they want which could be hurting our sentiments..... and yesterday was too much for the past 5 days I have been ignoring the personal attacks on th eteam, the director, me and there was rampant character assasination happening.....
that I am bengali and communist and what then I did react... and very sharply and I am not ashamed of it.

At first i thought

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as they say in hindi -- hati chalte hai to peeche kuchh bhaunkte hai.....

But I also know that if the barking gets intolerable then all I had to do is turn around and pick a stone even if I don`t intend to throw it.....

Jinnah Bhi Do, Yaaron

by Keval Arora

theatre Publication: TOI ,Delhi Jul 10,2005, Section:Pg 13,Culture


‘Defer’ is such a sweet word, is it not? It sounds so ominously sensible, so brimming over with the milk of human decency, that the Delhi police must surely be wondering what all the fuss is about. I mean, they haven’t actually ‘banned’ (oh, that dreaded B-word!) Asmita’s latest play Jinnah, which was to have opened at the India Habitat Centre on 22nd June. They only ‘requested’ (another sweet word, that!) the group to ‘defer’ its performances so that their experts get time to examine the script.

Can anything be more polite and decorous than that! Ok, the police asked for the script with only a week to go for the shows, despite the fact that the application for performance had been submitted to them a whole month earlier. But that’s only bad timing, no? Hardly the kind of

thing that should get people worked up. So, it’s unfortunate that members of Asmita theatre group, along with others who believe in these silly things like freedom of speech, freedom of artistic creation and the free exchange of ideas, have not truly appreciated how difficult it must have been for our police to adopt such a phrasing, unaccustomed as they are to refined expression.

The poor police have also had other problems to contend with. Like, reading scripts, for instance, to determine whether the play should be performed. Whether the police should be doing this job is another matter altogether. (Incidentally, do you think you and I aren’t safe on our roads any more because they are busy reading playscripts?) That an entire script should be tarred as suspect because they couldn’t decipher an actor’s handwriting — which constituted, oh my God, a full FIVE percent of the typewritten script — must surely have been a tough decision for the police to take. So tough that even today, a full twenty two days since they first laid hands on the script, they still haven’t said a word about the text.

Who do the police think they are fooling? Do they really think anyone’s swallowed their sanctimonious platitude that they haven’t banned the play but simply requested it be deferred? When auditorium bookings don’t happen at short notice and a production that is deferred can take months to get on the boards again, when the police seem quite content to let things linger in limbo, it’s plain that this ‘deferment’ is in effect a ban. (Either that or the experts that the police have cobbled together have been laid low by some mysterious reading-disability!)

Actually, from the point of view of the police, deferring a production is far more convenient than banning it. Deferring s o m e t h i n g they have the gall to declare they know nothing about (because, after all, they claimed the script was illegible) discharges them from the obligation to see the production, negotiate its meaning and then give reasons for a ban. Perhaps that’s too much work. Perhaps, it may also over-strain our police force if it is expected to conduct itself in a logical and reasonable manner.

Some months ago, the Police Commissioner had himself read the script of The Vagina Monologues and cleared it for performance, after consulting with his female colleagues.

Notwithstanding my skepticism regarding their qualifications for this task, I wonder if Jinnah will even get similar attention. For, this is no high-flying production visiting Delhi but a home-grown play by Arvind Gaur, a stalwart of the local theatre scene.

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I humbly suggest that while we wait for the police to ride out a storm of their own making, ordinary English users can use this event to brush up their language skills. All ye hopefuls out there, repeat after me: the word ‘BAN’ is henceforth to be spelt as ‘D-E-F-E-R’ — By Order (sorry, ‘Request’): the Delhi Police Handbook of Convenient Phrases

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FOR one and all -- I demand a writen apology from Veeresh, Kaalchakra and burpinder for the continuos insult that he has been dishing out to me in good english punctuated with abuses and threats. They have gone out to call me a joker an idiot and what not. the list is endless so I don`t seemyeslf wrong if I say that ``the minute they open their mouths they aptly display their parentage and upbringing and sometimes race and caste as brightly as neon lights blinking on their heads.``

Because the minute they start talking about ASMITA they started abusing.. they have directly abused me and arvindji.... namely 1st posting from burpinder, several postings from Kaalchakra and all postings of veeresh.

So now they have to face what they gave out.... everything in the world has a boomerang effect.

good behavoiur and respect is taught at ground level that is at home. I also respected their views for some time then I realised that they are still misbehaving and that is when I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine... and boy are they bristling under their skin..

But all of those guys know what kind of language and syntax and attitude they have shown in their pervious postings... so you don`t have to fight for them mr.subroto. Unless of course you consider them in your league.


As for the assumption that I claimed to be bengali or superior in any way is once more just an assumption and nothing more..... I can`t change the mindsets of people even if I scream my lungs out.
For eg. No matter how much we have been saying that ASMITA is not into seeking cheap publicity those who have to believe will have to believe that.....

And please go thru all my postings and quote or name a single abuse that I have used and I will list down the numerous abusive galis, assumptions, calumnising and direct threat and insults by the very same people whom Mr.subroto is lauding.

AS for my spelling grammer or syntax..... well this is not an english class and they can`t brand me wrong.... I realised quite early in the forum that to address the postings I don`t need to be impeccable in my language.

If this was a very well mannered forum I wud have behaved likewise... jaise ko taise.... if a person doesn`t undertand your language then we have to use his language to talk to him.


AS for claiming superiority in terms of genepool all i remember writing is that I am not from the same genepool as the delhipolice. never have i said that I belong to a superior genepool, its just a figment of a very fertile imagination.. in hindi it`s called do aur do panch karna. my exact words were......

``Sorry. I don’t share the same gene pool as the Delhi Police. And I don’t think foolishness and cowardice are genetic, it comes from upbringing and community and social conditioning.``

Mr.subroto if I refered to crass language then pls go down to the few first postings and you will see for yourself the MC, BC and Other choicest abuses by the people on this forum... also there are people who called us idiots... so if i refer to bad language.... then it is to refer to those people.....and rightly so.

I challenge you to read my postings and find the place where I have claimed to have superior genepool. And neither will you find in the the words ``gutter North Indians``.

So you see the insults and assumptions are still flying in.

and kaalchakra has nothing wise to say so he just manages to get a one liner and an abuse from the side... like the goon`s secretary..... Remember the three who accompanied SCAR in Lion king???

I am confident he understands nothing hahaha, he came to the forum to look for jokes and got disappointed... poor soul. bachhe you might look for some other sort of entertainment. Like playing kushti with your own shadow.

one more thing

I am a staunch Hindu..... and I don`t jump into it from anywhere. The fact that I am a Hindu and a second-generation victim of partition, I know certain things and facts which doesn`t stop me from discussing Jinnah. And that is why I don`t hate Jinnah and will fight for the ban against anything on Jinnah. Because religion has not taught me to disrespect other people and their religion or community. I am secure about my religion. And BECAUSE I am a hindu I don`t hate non-hindus. and as a staunch hindu I have been taught to see all the views of a scenario.

As for my misunderstanding no.1 -- how can I misunderstand

kaalchakra I don`t remember if QV named YOU or anyone else as a gutter resident? I think he made a general statement about some particular people. But you just LOVED the adjective so much that you picked it up then on as a prefix/signature to all your postings.

I guess you liked the smell of it too much or identified well with it. It reminded you of your home did it? as you keep saying ``us gutter residents``, ``us gutter residents``, ``us gutter residents``.
Repeat anything for a number of times and you will start to believe it.

no2 -- I don`t misunderstand poor argumentative Indians` relationship to Hinduism. I just make a view of what I think. You could accept it or not that`s your problem.

And I am confident that you don’t understand anything so I write so stop these deranged comments coming from your drunken bouts…
I think you should not exercise your brain so much.. it will go into a hang.... and please get both your eyes checked......I wrote
``MY OTHER VIEWPOINT of trying to UNDERSTAND THIS PSYCHE jinnah hatred is --``

So dear dimwit get it into your head or rather hammer it into your head….. that it`s my point of view and not a misunderstanding. It’s not wrong not right it’s JUST MY VIEWPOINT. Take it or leave it. Seeth or burn do whatever.... I am not pushing it down anyone`s throat.

But if you want to push it down your then that`s your free will. And you will do it entirely on your own responsibility.

I don’t misunderstand anything like I didn`t misunderstand that you really are what you claim to be.

this arvind sangoo bottleneck combo has not discovered unplugged as yet it seems go for it

arvind sangoo bottleneck, read this from manto ji on jinnah

Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity..



1) Jinnah had been a committed opponent of the separate electorates (the only renowned Muslim to oppose the separate electorate demand in 1906) and even his 14 points speak of their disappearance eventually

2) Even in the late 1920s Jinnah was very hesitant in calling Congress a Hindu Party...

3) On the Khilafat Question it is a fact that Congress left the Muslims high and dry... the same Khilafat movement that Jinnah had warned Gandhi and the Congress against joining?

Here is something from Ambedkar`s book ``Pakistan or Partition of India``


A study of his past pronouncement may well begin with the year 1906 when the leaders of the Muslim community waited upon Lord Minto and demanded separate electorates for the Muslim community. It is to be noted that Mr. Jinnah was not a member of the deputation. Whether he was not invited to join the deputation or whether he was invited to join and declined is not known. But the fact remains that he did not lend his support to the Muslim claim to separate representation when it was put forth in 1906.

In 1918 Mr. Jinnah resigned his membership of the Imperial Legislative Council as a protest against the Rowlatt Bill. 98[f.54] In tendering his resignation Mr. Jinnah said :

`` I feel that under the prevailing conditions, I can be of no use to my people in the Council, nor consistently with one`s self-respect is cooperation possible with a Government that shows such utter disregard for the opinion of the representatives of the people at the Council Chamber and the feelings and the sentiments of the people outside. `` In 1919 Mr. Jinnah gave evidence before the Joint Select Committee appointed by Parliament on the Government of India Reform Bill, then on the anvil. The following views were expressed by him in answer to questions put by members of the Committee on the Hindu-Muslim question.

EXAMINED BY MAJOR ORMSBY-GORE.

Q. 3806.—You appear on behalf of the Moslem League— that is, on behalf of the only widely extended Mohammedan organisation in India ?—Yes.

Q. 3807.—I was very much struck by the fact that neither in your answers to the questions nor in your opening speech this morning did you make any reference to the special interest of the Mohammedans in India: is that because you did not wish to say anything ?—No, but because I take it the Southborough Committee have accepted that, and I left it to the members of the Committee to put any questions they wanted to. I took a very prominent part in the settlement of Lucknow. I was representing the Musalmans on that occasion.

Q. 3809.—On behalf of the All-India Moslem League, you ask this Committee to reject the proposal of the Government of India ?—I am authorised to say that—to ask you to reject the proposal of the Government of India with regard to Bengal [i.e., to give the Bengal Muslims more representation than was given them by the Lucknow Pact].

Q. 3810.—You said you spoke from the point of view of India. You speak really as an Indian Nationalist ?—1 do.

Q. 3811.—Holding that view, do you contemplate the early disappearance of separate communal representation of the Mohammedan community ?—I think so.

Q. 3812.—That is to say, at the earliest possible moment you wish to do away in political life with any distinction between Mohammedans and Hindus ?—Yes. Nothing will please me more than when that day comes.

Q. 3813—You do not think it is true to say that the Mohammedans of India have many special political interests not merely in India but outside India, which they are always particularly anxious to press as a distinct Mohammedan community? —There are two things. In India the Mohammedans have very few things really which you can call matters of special interest for them—I mean secular things.

Q. 3818.—Of one community ?—Of the Sunni sect, but that is the largest; it is in an overwhelming majority all over India. The Khalif is the only rightful custodian of the Holy Places according to our view, and nobody else has a right. What the Moslems feel very keenly is this, that the Holy Places should not be severed from the Ottoman Empire— that they should remain with the Ottoman Empire under the Sultan.

Q. 3819.—I do not want to get away from the Reform Bill on to foreign policy.—1 say it has nothing to do with foreign policy. Your point is whether in India the Muslims will adopt a certain attitude with regard to foreign policy in matters concerning Moslems all over the world.

Q. 3820.—My point is, are they seeking for some control over the Central Government in order to impress their views on foreign policy on the Government of India ?—No.

EXAMINED BY MR. BENNETT

Q. 3853.—...........Would it not be an advantage in the case of an occurrence of that kind [i.e., a communal riot] if the maintenance of law and order were left with the executive side of the Government ?—1 do not think so, if you ask me, but I do not want to go into unpleasant matters, as you say.

Q. 3854.—It is with no desire to bring up old troubles that I ask the question ; I would like to forget them ?—If you ask me, very often these riots are based on some misunderstanding, and it is because the police have taken one side or the other, and that has enraged one side or the other. I know very well that in the Indian States you hardly ever hear of any Hindu-Mohammedan riots, and I do not mind telling the Committee, without mentioning the name, that I happened to ask one of the ruling Princes, `` How do you account for this ? `` and he told me, `` As soon as there is some trouble we have invariably traced it to the police, through the police taking one side or the other, and the only remedy we have found is that as soon as we come to know we move that police officer from that place, and there is an end of it. ``

Q. 3855.—That is useful piece of information, but the fact remains that these riots have been inter-racial, Hindu on the one side and Mohammedan on the other. Would it be an advantage at a time like that the Minister, the representative of one community or the other, should be in charge of the maintenance of law and order ?—Certainly.

Q. 3856.—It would ?—If I thought otherwise I should be casting a reflection on myself. If I was the Minister, I would make bold to say that nothing would weigh with me except justice, and what is right. Q. 3857.—I can understand that you would do more than justice to the other side; but even then, there is what might be called the subjective side. It is not only that there is impartiality, but there is the view which may be entertained by the public, who may harbour some feeling of suspicion ?—With regard to one section or the other, you mean they would feel that an injustice was done to them, or that justice would not be done ?

Q. 3858.—Yes; that is quite apart from the objective part of it ?—My answer is this: That these difficulties are fast disappearing. Even recently, in the whole district of Thana, Bombay, every officer was an Indian officer from top to bottom, and I do not think there was a single Mohammedan—they were all Hindus—and I never heard any complaint Recently that has been so. I quite agree with you that ten years ago there was that feeling what you are now suggesting to me, but it is fast disappearing.

EXAMINED BY LORD ISLINGTON

Q. 3892.—. ...... You said just now about the communal representation, I think in answer to Major Ormsby-Gore, that you hope in a very few years you would be able to extinguish communal representation, which was at present proposed to be established and is established in order that Mahommedans may have their representation with Hindus. You said you desired to see that. How soon do you think that happy state of affairs is likely to be realized ?—1 can only give you certain facts : I cannot say anything more than that: I can give you this which will give you some idea: that in 1913, at the All-India Moslem League sessions at Agra, we put this matter to the lest whether separate electorates should be insisted upon or not by the Mussalmans, and we got a division, and that division is based upon Provinces ; only a certain number of votes represent each Province, and the division came to 40 in favour of doing away with the separate electorate, and 80 odd—1 do not remember the exact number—were for keeping the separate electorate. That was in 1913. Since then I have had many opportunities of discussing this matter with various Mussulman leaders ; and they are changing their angle of vision with regard to this matter. I cannot give you the period, but I think it cannot last very long. Perhaps the next inquiry may hear something about it.

Q. 3893.—You think at the next inquiry the Mahommedans will ask to be absorbed into the whole ?—Yes, I think the next inquiry will probably hear something about it.

Although Mr. Jinnah appeared as a witness on behalf of the Muslim League, he did not allow his membership of the League to come in the way of his loyalty to other political organizations in the country. Besides being a member of the Muslim League, Mr. Jinnah was a member of the Home Rule League and also of the Congress. As he said in his evidence before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, he was a member of all three bodies although he openly disagreed with the Congress, with the Muslim League and that there were some views which the Home Rule League held which he did not share. That he was an independent but a nationalist ,is shown by his relationship with the Khilafatist Musalmans. In 1920 the Musalmans organized the Khilafat Conference. It became so powerful an organization that the Muslim League went under and lived in a state of suspended animation till 1924. During these years no Muslim leader could speak to the Muslim masses from a Muslim platform unless he was a member of the Khilafat Conference. That was the only platform for Muslims to meet Muslims. Even then Mr. Jinnah refused to join the Khilafat Conference. This was no doubt due to the fact that then he was only a statutory Musalman with none of the religious fire of the orthodox which he now says is burning within him. But the real reason why he did not join the Khilafat was because he was opposed to the Indian Musalmans engaging themselves in extra-territorial affairs relating to Muslims outside India.

After the Congress accepted non-co-operation, civil disobedience and boycott of Councils, Mr. Jinnah left the Congress. He became its critic but never accused it of being a Hindu body. He protested when such a statement was attributed to him by his opponents. There is a letter by Mr. Jinnah to the Editor of the Times of India written about the time which puts in a strange contrast the present opinion of Mr. Jinnah about the Congress and his opinion in the past. The letter 99[f.55] reads as follows :—.

`` To the Editor of `` The Times of India ``

Sir,—1 wish again to correct the statement which is attributed to me and to which you have given currency more than once and now again repeated by your correspondent ` Banker `in the second column of your issue of the 1st October that I denounced the Congress as ` a Hindu Institution `. I publicly corrected this misleading report of my speech in your columns soon after it appeared ;.but it did not find a place in the columns of your paper and so may I now request you to publish this and oblige. ``

After the Khilafat storm had blown over and the Muslims had shown a desire to return to the internal politics of India, the Muslim League was resuscitated. The session of the League held in Bombay on 30th December 1924 under the presidentship of Mr. Raza Ali was a lively one. Both Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Mahomed Ali took part in it. 100[f.56]

In this session of the League, a resolution was moved which affirmed the desirability of representatives of the various Muslim associations of India representing different shades of political thought meeting in a conference at an early date at Delhi or at some other central place with a view to develop `` a united and sound practical activity `` to supply the needs of the Muslim community. Mr. Jinnah in explaining the resolution said 101[f.57] :—

`` The object was to organize the Muslim community, not with a view to quarrel with the Hindu community, but with a view to unite and cooperate with it for their motherland. He was sure once they had organized themselves they would join hands with the Hindu Maha Sabha and declare to the world that Hindus and Mahomedans are brothers. ``

The League also passed another resolution in the same session for appointing a committee of 33 prominent Musalmans to formulate the political demands of the Muslim community. The resolution was moved by Mr. Jinnah. In moving the resolution, Mr. Jinnah 102[f.58] :—

``Repudiated the charge that he was standing on the platform of the League as a communalist. He assured them that he was, as ever, a nationalist. Personally he had no hesitation. He wanted the best and the fittest men to represent them in the Legislatures of the land (Hear, Hear and Applause). But unfortunately his Muslim compatriots were not prepared to go as far as he. He could not be blind to the situation. The fact was that there was a large number of Muslims who wanted representation separately in Legislatures and in the country`s Services. They were talking of communal unity, but where was unity ? It had to be achieved by arriving at some suitable settlement. He knew he said amidst deafening cheers, that his fellow-religionists were ready and prepared to fight for Swaraj, but wanted some safeguards. Whatever his view, and they knew that as a practical politician he had to take stock of the situation, the real block to unity was not the communities themselves, but a few mischief makers on both sides. ``

And he did not thus hesitate to arraign mischief makers in the sternest possible language that could only emanate from an earnest nationalist. In his capacity as the President of the session of the League held in Lahore on 24th May 1924 he said 103 [f59] :—

`` If we wish to be free people, let us unite, but if we wish to continue slaves of Bureaucracy, let us fight among ourselves and gratify petty vanity over petty matters. Englishmen being our arbiters. ``

In the two All-Parties Conferences, one held in 1925 and the other in 1928, Mr. Jinnah was prepared to settle the Hindu-Muslim question on the basis of joint electorates. In 1927 he openly said 104[f.60] from the League platform :—

`` I am not wedded to separate electorates, although I must say that the overwhelming majority of the Musalmans firmly and honestly believe that it is the only method by which they can be sure. ``

In 1928, Mr. Jinnah joined the Congress in the boycott of the Simon Commission. He did so even though the Hindus and Muslims had failed to come to a settlement and he did so at the cost of splitting the League into two.

Even when the ship of the Round Table Conference was about to break on the communal rock, Mr. Jinnah resented being named as a communalist who was responsible for the result and said that he preferred an agreed solution of the communal problem to the arbitration of the British Government. Addressing the U. P. Muslim Conference held at Allahabad on 8th August 105[f.61] 1931 Mr. Jinnah said :—

`` The first thing that I wish to tell you is that it is now absolutely essential and vital that Muslims should stand united. For Heaven`s sake close all your ranks and files and slop this internecine war. I urged this most vehemently and I pleaded to the best of my ability before Dr. Ansari, Mr. T. A. K. Sherwani, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr. Syed Mahmud. I hope that before I leave the shores of India I shall hear the good news that whatever may be our differences ; whatever may be our convictions between ourselves, this is not the moment to quarrel between ourselves.

`` Another thing I want to tell you is this. There is a certain section of the press, there is a certain section of the Hindus, who constantly misrepresent me in various ways. I was only reading the speech of Mr. Gandhi this morning and Mr. Gandhi said that he loves Hindus and Muslims alike. I again say standing here on this platform that although I may not put forward that claim but I do put forward this honestly and sincerely that I want fair play between the two communities. ``

Continuing further Mr. Jinnah said: ``As to the most important question, which to my mind is the question of Hindu-Muslim settlement—all I can say to you is that I honestly believe that the Hindus should concede to the Muslims a majority in the Punjab and Bengal and if that is conceded, I think a settlement can be arrived at in a very short time.

``The next question that arises is one of separate vs. joint electorates. As most of you know, if a majority is conceded in the Punjab and Bengal, I would personally prefer a settlement on the basis of joint electorate. (Applause.) But I also know that there is a large body of Muslims—and I believe a majority of Muslims—who are holding on to separate electorate. My position is that I would rather have a settlement even on the footing of separate electorate, hoping and trusting that when we work our new constitution and when both Hindus and Muslims get rid of distrust, suspicion and fears and when they gel their freedom we would rise to the occasion and probably separate electorate will go sooner than most of us think.

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So you see how big a lie you just put up... as you always do to mislead the people here.

Now do you deny:

1) That Congress Allies used every method in book to character assassinate Jinnah as a westernised pork eating whisky drinking Muslim?

2) Do you deny that Jinnah`s personal life and habits were used by the Mullahs to discredit him as a genuine leader of the Muslims?

3) Do you deny that every Mullah and his mother in law from Deoband attacked Jinnah as a Kafir?

4) Do you deny that the Congress Party, for whose welfare Jinnah had stood all his life, was reduced to slandering Jinnah`s dietary habits?

5) Do you deny that Congress` composite nationalist Muslims denounced the Muslim Leaguers as a secular westernised Muslims ?

jinnah hee jinnah from manto ji

Communalism exposed 1: Congress` wonderful Muslim allies...

As the raging debate in India which broke several myths about partition and the man held responsible for it ... and as the debate with Sadna on this board shows... the need to drive the dagger home continues..

Congress party with the arrival of Mohandas Gandhi sought to use religion both Hinduism and Islam to stir the masses against the British. The Khilafat Movement, to which all proponents of Pakistan-to-be were indifferent, was a movement in which Gandhi tried to use the Mullah to isolate the secular and westernised leadership from amongst the Muslims. He deliberately promoted rabidly communal elements, thinking naively that perhaps once unleashed these dark forces would some how make love to each other. The Love affair of the Congress Party with the Mullahs didn`t end there... they used them cynically and in a sinister fashion through out the 1930s and the 1940s....

To the Mullahs, Jinnah and the Muslim League were Kemalists and/or Kafirs.. because they were not particularly Islamic in their dress, spoke the language of the Europeans, had conceptions of modern nation states based on European ideas and ofcourse admired the Turkish Revolution which had brought the Mullahs of Turkey to their knees. To make things worse ... the Muslim League considered Ahmadis Muslims... oh horror of horrors..

In Congress on the other hand they saw religiousity in top gear. From the Mahatma to the Maulana to the Pandit ... it was a confederacy of religiousity. So in 1937... secular Nehru would rather side with them... thna the league.

Here are some of the parties that played a role against Pakistan and sided with the Congress...


Majlis-e-Ahrar A rabidly fanatical anti-British Party with strong Islamist overtones. It`s famous leader was Maulana Ataullah Shah Bukhari the famous cleric. It routinely attacked Jinnah for having married a parsi woman and for being a westernised Agha Khani. At one time they came to Jinnah with a proposal in 1944 (that the future Pakistan will be a Islamic state)... but he shunned them.

Later they came to Pakistan and were behind the Anti-Ahmaddiya riots of 1953...

Jamiat-e-Ulema-Hind The political face of Darul-uloom Deoband.. a religious party with sole purpose to use Mullahs and reactionary bigotry against Jinnah and the Muslim League leadership. Jamiat-e-Ulema-Hind was a staunch ally of the Congress Party... and was also famous for denouncing Jinnah as the great Kafir... an honor if you ask me. Today their Indian faction is what is behind ``Imrana Case`` while in Pakistan their progeny Fazlurrahman is busy proposing the ``Hasba Bill``.


Khaksars A militant Islamic organisation under the leadership of Allama Inayetullah Mashriqi. Believed that Islam was a Military organisation and held congregational prayers in ``drill``. Mashriqi idolized Adolf Hitler who he had met 20 years earlier. In 1944 ... the Khaksars tried to assassinate Jinnah for not coming to an arrangement with Mahatma Gandhi.


Jamaat-e-Islami Founded by an ex-congressman Maulana Maudoodi... the Jamaat-e-Islami, unlike the others, did not have any overt alliances with the Congress but aided the Congress through its actions. Maulana Maudoodi denounced Mahomed Ali Jinnah as a westernised liberal (as if that is an insult) and denounced Pakistan as a modern nation state (yeah I am really insulted).

---

While these were the allies of the Congress Party... the only political party that came to the Muslim League`s support was the Communist Party of India... the most secular of the political parties in India...

ai leyo ji, hor kinaa jinnah?

From OUTLOOK INDIA


http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=19970806&fname=cover%5Fstory&sid=1&pn=6


Two Men From Gujarat
In `Liberty or Death`, acclaimed by the likes of Philip Ziegler, brilliant, young historian Patrick French reassesses the architects of Indian independence. Exclusive extracts:

PATRICK FRENCH


IF Gandhi is your hero, it can be a deflating experience to read what he actually did and said at crucial points in India`s political history.


The authorised version of the Mahatma is very different from the real one. Far from being a wise and balanced saint, Gandhi was an emotionally troubled social activist and a ruthlessly sharp political negotiator. As India`s Transport Minister Dr John Matthai said in 1947, the final failure to reach a satisfactory settlement with the Muslim League stemmed in part from the `Gujarati mentality` of the Congress leadership—`ie that of a trader driving a hard bargain`.


Gandhi remains the most baffling and inconsistent



Proving Netaji`s Death
THREE days after the Allied victory over Japan, Subhas Chandra Bose climbed into an aeroplane that was to take him from Formosa to Manchuria.
figure in the Indian freedom movement, a man who worshipped truth yet often had trouble identifying it, who shunned adulation yet seemed to do all he could to encourage it.


A close reading of his statements on a particular subject usually results not in a sense of illumination, but of obfuscation. He often changed his mind, and many of his pronouncements amount to ental spring-cleaning rather than an exposition of ideology. His opponents during his lifetime portrayed this as hypocrisy, but in fact there always seems to have been a sincerity to his actions. To British officials he was `a twister`, and his methods were simply devious: one provincial governor described him as being as ``cunning as a cartload of monkeys``.

When Gandhi first proposed the concept of Satyagraha, Jinnah was doubtful. He was a constitutionalist and a social elitist, who did not wish to soil his carefully scrubbed hands by consorting with the masses.

The befuddlement about his aims and motives, however, extended beyond Whitehall and New Delhi and into his own head. If in doubt about a suitable course of action, Gandhi would resort to tuning in to his often arbitrary `inner voice`, and expect others to listen to its dictates.


Gandhi`s famous Autobiography, which was first published as a series



of articles in the 1920s, is indicative of his singularity. The book`s themes are apparent from the chapter titles, which include `The Canker of Untruth`, `A Sacrifice to Vegetarianism` and `More Experiments in Dietetics`. It is an elusive book, and readers in search of an exposition of India`s freedom movement will be disappointed. The autobiography is a work of Victorian moral sermonising, linked to the author`s experiences of wrestling with his conscience. Its subtitle—The Story of My Experiments with Truth—is itself an example of his approach. For Gandhi, truth was never a static reality, but always a fluid concept that adjusted according to his personal whim.

This was to cause him considerable problems as a political negotiator, since his own recollections of discussions rarely tallied with those of other participants.


One of the results of Gandhi`s experimentation with truth was that he was apt to move rapidly between different aspects of human life, and try to unite them within a



Gandhi was a great believer in the increment of human excrement. His opening question each day to female disciples was: ``Did you have a good bowel movement this morning, sisters?``




unified theory. He intertwined religion, politics and philosophy with personal health, sexual relations and dietary fads. For him there was no distinction between the public, the private and the political. As his children found to their cost, it was not possible to have a one-to-one relationship with Gandhi.In an effort to avoid deceit, he tried to be open about all his doings. Thus, when it became known that he was sleeping with his great-niece Manu, he announced at a prayer meeting that ``he did not want his most innocent acts to be misunderstood and misrepresented. He had his granddaughter (sic) with him. She shared the same bed with him. The Prophet had discounted eunuchs who became such by an operation...It was in the spirit of God`s eunuch that he had approached what he considered his duty``.



The day-by-day diaries of Gandhi`s long-term secretary Mahadev Desai (`M.D.`) are instructive. On one page, Gandhi will be instructing a follower to add turmeric to her diet; on the next he will be promoting the need for cow protection, absolute punctuality and the use of Hindi; then he will begin attacking the drink evil and the smoking of cigarettes; next he will condemn inter-caste liaisons and the remarriage of widows, only to change his mind a few pages later and vigorously promote it. The logic of some of his pronouncements is hard to follow. After the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919, he complained that the dead ``were definitely not heroic martyrs. Were they heroes they would have unsheathed the sword, or used at least their sticks or they would have bared their breast to Dyer and died bravely when he came there in all insolence. They would never have taken to their heels.``



There were many contradictions in Gandhi`s way of living. He deified poverty and condemned modern industrialism, yet relied on lavish donations from the Birla, Sarabhai and Bajaj families, whose fortunes came from just such sources. He always travelled with a giant entourage of disciples, many of whom were renowned for their cold hauteur towards outsiders, yet he claimed to dislike special treatment. He wished to live like India`s rural peasantry, but wherever he went herbs, vegetables and chaste goats would be garnered, buildings scrubbed, whitewashed and decorated in an appropriate style, and mud refrigerated for him to smear on his stomach as one of his many `nature cures`. His opponent Mohammad Ali Jinnah made the point that he spent less than Gandhi on train fares despite travelling first class, since he only had to buy one ticket.



A remarkable amount of Gandhi`s time and energy was taken up not with the fight against British rule, but with the promotion of social change. He was a great believer in the increment of human excrement, which he referred to as `black gold`. He had elaborate theories about its management and its use in the cultivation of crops, a passion that must have been aided by his having no sense of smell. His biographers tend to steer clear of his



bodily preoccupations, but they form a substantial chunk of his Collected Works, and it is hard not to see them as critical to an understanding of his personality. He had an obsessive interest in other people`s diets and internal health, and his cure for almost any ailment was a saline enema, which he liked to administer to his acquaintances himself. His letters to his followers are full of instructions on matters such as the use of hip baths as a cure for vaginal discharge, and his opening question each day to his female disciples was: ``Did you have a good bowel movement this morning, sisters?`` After he took his vow of brahmacharya in 1906, Gandhi seems to have adopted massage and purgation as a substitute for other intimate contact. In his book Gandhi and his Disciples, which explores some of the more baffling aspects of the Mahatma`s teachings, Ved Mehta makes the interesting point that despite his detailed reading of contemporary ethical and social writers, Gandhi was unaware of the emotional or psychological implications of his `experiments`.There are numerous reports of the distress caused to members of his entourage by being separated from him, and of the `hysterical` reactions of his bedsharers when he showed the slightest sign of rejecting them.


WHEN Gandhi`s Bengali interpreter Nirmal Kumar Bose told him his sexual experiments were unwise, and that according to Sigmund Freud people ``are often motivated and carried away by unconscious desires in directions other than those to which we consciously subscribe``, Gandhi replied that he had only once heard mention of Freud`s name and knew nothing about his writings. This gap in Gandhi`s understanding is not to suggest that a Freudian or even a psycho-biographical analysis is the only way to understand him, but it is ironic that the man whom many regard as the embodiment of human wisdom should have shown such naivete about his own motivation.



In his Autobiography, Gandhi presents himself as a shy, inward, nervous boy who sipped cocoa alone in his London bedsit for three years. In fact he made many contacts when he was in the city, meeting among others Cardinal Manning, the Theosophists Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant, the Parsi politician Dadabhoy Naoroji and the cricketing prince Ranjitsinhji. He enrolled at the Inner Temple and moved to Bayswater, took lessons in elocution, violin and ballroom dancing, put on a silk top hat, stiff collar, patent leather boots and spats, and carried a silver-topped cane. Rather than concentrating on work like most other Indian students in London, he consorted with a host of cranks, moralists, high-fibreists, Darwinians and utopian communitarianists. Before long he was preaching vegetarianism and pacifism house to house, and writing articles for a paper called The Vegetarian Messenger. His dietary obsessions were already apparent, as he progressed from bread, oatmeal and cocoa to milk, cheese and eggs, and then to fruit alone before reverting to vegetables and nuts.



...Gandhi`s time in South Africa represents the most influential period of his life, as it was there that he formulated the moral strategies for which he later became famous. He practised as a lawyer, although never with great success, and realised that his real skill lay in political organisation. Gandhi`s spiritual and social ideas were also being developed during this time, and he set up successive idealistic communities called Phoenix Farm and Tolstoy Farm. He began to preach his new morality to those around him; when he thought a friend was too emotionally attached to an expensive pair of binoculars, he threw them into the sea. His aim was to live as wholesome and simple a life as possible, regardless of the wishes of his wife and children.



Kasturba Gandhi was small, strong-willed and conventional. She remained orthodox in her religion, disliked hearing the Gita except from the lips of a Brahmin, and at first objected to wearing hand-spun cloth. She rebelled quietly against her husband, insisting on having private sleeping quarters and her own spending money although it was against his regulations. One of her rare known pronouncements was, ``Men are not blessed with the kind of common sense that women have, for we understand the language of sorrow better than they do.`` It is apparent that they disagreed over the upbringing of their four sons, who were denied any formal education because of their father`s theories. In later life they had continual worries over their son Harilal, who drank and gambled and briefly converted to Islam.Gandhi felt this was the result of his having led a ``carnal and luxurious life`` while the boy was a child, but Kasturba thought there might have been a more prosaic explanation.



In 1906 Gandhi told his wife that he was taking a vow of brahmacharya, believing it would help to conserve his `vital fluids` and raise him to a higher spiritual plane. His decision is said to have stemmed from the fact that he had been having sex with Kasturba while his father lay dying. Whether or not it was the deciding factor, Gandhi`s attitude towards sexuality remained troubled throughout his life. He saw it not as a creative result of human desires and emotions, but as a repellent bodily function through which men became `emasculated and cowardly` and women were defiled. His ambition was that sexual intercourse should be eradicated from human relationships altogether, except for the specific purpose of reproduction. Although there were elements of Hindu mythology in all this, there was also a good chunk of the prudish Victorian schoolmaster.



In January 1915 Gandhi and his family returned to Bombay. With funds from some Gujarati mill owners he set up an ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati. At Sabarmati Ashram, he was continually taken up by squabbles between the inmates over spinning, stealing, seductions, food, and worries when practitioners of brahmacharya began to engage in sexual experimentation. Adolescent groping among boys in the ashram school resulted in the already skinny Gandhi going on a week-long fast, a traditional form of Indian protest.



At this time he still believed in the benign nature of the British Empire. At the outbreak of the First World War he had raised an ambulance corps staffed by Indians in Britain. When the Theosophist Annie Besant founded a `Home Rule League` he refused to support any agitation, since he believed the British Empire was the best framework for India and that self-rule within the Empire was bound to be granted once the war was over. ``Mrs Besant,`` he said, ``you are distrustful of the British; I am not, and I will not help in any agitation against them during the war.``



At a crucial Delhi war conference in 1918, Gandhi supported a resolution proposed by the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford encouraging Indians to join the army—an action that he subsequently tried to wriggle out of in his Autobiography. Shortly afterwards he asked the Congress politician Mohammad Ali Jinnah to join the recruitment drive, on the bizarre grounds that it would encourage Indian nationalism. Even by the strange logic of Gandhi, his letter to Jinnah was peculiar: ``Seek ye first the Recruiting Office and everything will be added unto you.``



THE truth about Mohammad Ali Jinnah is that his political ideology developed and matured in a gradual and complex way over fifty years, and that the founder of the homeland for Indian Muslims remained a secularist of sorts to the end. In Pakistan itself he has been an uncomfortable father of the nation, and it was not until 1993 that the first volume of his papers was published. (The collected works of Gandhi, by comparison, run to ninety lovingly prepared volumes.) Yet his achievement, however flawed it may be, was phenomenal.



While a student in England, he enjoyed strolling around the streets of London, visiting the British Museum, and developed an interest in politics, going to the House of Commons to listen to the maiden speech by Britain`s first Asian Member of Parliament, Dadabhoy Naoroji.Unlike Gandhi, who undertook a remarkably similar voyage into London life, (he) does not seem subsequently to have been troubled by shedding the outward trappings of his cultural heritage. Before long he had forsaken his Sindhi tunic and turban for smart hand-tailored suits, starched collars, two-tone shoes, spats and a monocle, apparently in emulation of Joseph Chamberlain. In later life he owned over three hundred exquisite suits, and was said never to wear the same silk tie twice to court.



Back in India success came quickly, one colleague remembering him as `omnipotent` as soon as he came into a courtroom, partially because people were afraid of his precise, powerful, aloof manner. He combed his jet-black hair, grew a tentative moustache, and was said to scrub his hands scrupulously throughout



the day. Jinnah attended a meeting of the political campaigning organisation, the Indian National Congress, in Bombay in 1904, and was immediately marked out as a promising newcomer. Two years later he travelled to a Congress session in Calcutta, acting as secretary to the ageing and respected Dadabhoy Naoroji. Before long he gained a reputation as an uncompromising but resolutely non-communal politician. He must have realised that if he were to succeed in Congress like Naoroji and G.K. Gokhale (a mentor whom he shared with Gandhi), it would not be by virtue of his Muslim origins, but through a secular appeal.



IN 1913 he decided to join another political organisation, the Muslim League, while insisting that such action did not ``imply even the shadow of disloyalty to the larger national cause``. As the Congress activist Motilal Nehru told his friends, ``unlike most Muslims (Jinnah is) as keen a nationalist as any of us. He is showing the community the way to Hindu-Muslim unity.`` Jinnah became well known in the years leading up to the First World War as a promoter of religious unity, insisting that Hindus and Muslims should battle together for an end to colonial rule.



He remained a Congress stalwart, and in 1913 sailed to Liverpool with Gokhale for an official meeting with Lord Islington, the Under-Secretary of State for India. On return, he put forward a sensible proposal that the India Office should be funded by the British exchequer, rather than from India. He was also adamant that Indians should be allowed to become officers in the Indian army—after all, they were ``good enough to fight as sepoys and privates``. His political method was to campaign on small but important constitutional issues of this kind. The notions of revolutionary terrorism or a mass popular uprising were anathema to him.



Although the families of Jinnah and Gandhi had at one point lived little more than thirty miles apart in Gujarat, the similarities in their origins did nothing to unite the two men. The fatally antagonistic tenor of their relationship was set at their very first meeting. It took place in January 1915 at a garden party organ-ised by the Gurjar Sabha (Gujarat Society) of Bombay to celebrate Gandhi`s return from South Africa. Jinnah was the chairman of the society, and in response to his speech of welcome, Gandhi said he was ``glad to find a Mahomedan not only belonging to his own region`s Sabha, but chairing it``.



This would be a little like a British politician commenting pub -licly on a colleague`s foreign racial origins, in a situation where such matters were entirely incidental.



THE FORCE OF TRUTH



By now Jinnah was married.During the First World War he had begun wooing Ratanbai, or `Ruttie`, Petit, the young daughter of one of Bombay`s richest Parsi merchants. They courted in Darjeeling, and Jinnah was soon pursuing Ruttie, although her father, Sir Dinshaw Petit, was adamantly opposed to the marriage, even taking out lawsuits against his former friend and barrister. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, characteristically, would not let go, and Ruttie married when she was just eighteen at his luxurious house on Malabar Hill in Bombay. She had converted to Islam a few days before, and taken the name of Mariam, which is what Jinnah`s more orthodox Muslim colleagues now called her. All links with her family were severed until her separation from Jinnah less than a decade later. Their first and only child, a daughter called Dina, was born on the night of August 14, 1919.



Jinnah was now in his early forties, and Ruttie had a flamboyance to her character that, initially at least, inspired and stimulated him. His wife was beautiful, shocking, with long hair, bejewelled headbands, and she smoked cigarettes in an ivory and silver holder. She was intelligent but unhappy, taking refuge in a rather dippy kind of mysticism of the type that was fashionable at the time. At a dinner given by the Governor of Bombay, Lord Willingdon, Ruttie wore a low-cut Parisian evening dress, and Lady Willingdon promptly ordered a servant to bring her a `wrap` on the grounds that she might feel cold. Jinnah was so insulted that the couple left at once, and never saw the Willingdons again socially.



When a public leaving party was held for Willingdon by some eminent Bombay Parsis, Jinnah organised a disruptive boycott, shouting down a speech by the esteemed moneylender and opium trader Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. Jinnah and his supporters were hustled out by the police, and he became, rather to his surprise, a hero on the streets of Bombay. A memorial hall was built in his honour following spontaneous fund-raising, and named People`s Jinnah Hall. Now, with the founder of Pakistan effaced from the history of Indian nationalism, it is referred to anonymously as `P.J. Hall`. This was the only time that Jinnah ever became physically involved in direct action to make a political point.



When Gandhi had first proposed the concept of Satyagraha, Jinnah was doubtful. He abhorred the notion of abandoning his elegant legal chambers and European clothes. Despite the similarity of their social origins, the two men offered diametrically opposed prototypes of leadership. Jinnah was a constitutional-ist and a social elitist, who did not wish to soil his carefully scrubbed hands by consorting with the masses. As he told Gandhi, a non-cooperative strategy would in his view appeal mainly to the young, the ignorant and the illiterate. He was right of course, but it was precisely this spread of the freedom movement to new levels of Indian society that was to put the British authorities on the back foot.



At Christmas 1920, with Gandhi`s radical tactics in the ascendant, there was a meeting of Congress at Nagpur. Membership was rising fast, and a new type of activist was emerging. Not only was Gandhi generating huge excitement among Hindus, but he was also gaining Muslim support through his backing of the Khilafat movement. For the first time, a nationalist leader had successfully appealed to workers and peasants from both communities. A resolution at Nagpur endorsing Gandhi`s strategy was greeted by `deafening, prolonged cheers and applause`, and seconded by the once-deported Congress hero Lala Lajpat Rai.Jinnah, resolute as ever in his opinions, opposed the mood of the meeting, determined to state that he believed such radicalism would be counterproductive. His feelings towards the new hero of Congress had never been warm, but the fanaticism with which Gandhi was now being hailed must have made things worse. Earlier that year Gandhi had irritated Jinnah by writing a letter to Ruttie, making a dig at his European appearance and saying, `Do coax him to learn Hindustani or Gujarati.`



Jinnah thought Gandhi`s tactics were turning a political campaign into `an essentially spiritual movement`. As he stalked up to the platform he was howled down with cries of `Shame, shame`, and berated for referring to his opponent at `Mr Gandhi`. `No,` howled the audience, `Mahatma Gandhi.` It is notable that there is no report of the Mahatma rebuking his disciples. So it was that the proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity and author of the Lucknow Pact was hounded from the Congress meeting. As his biographer has written: `He left Central India with Ruttie by the next train, the searing memory of his defeat at Nagpur permanently emblazoned on his brain.`



(By arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers, UK. Pages: 467, price: £20)

manto ji nu salaam

sanguine

I appreciated your post # 151, wherein you expanded more on the quality of my home and my love for the gutter. You were insightful and to the point, unlike in your discussion of Hinduism, as in # 141.

Let me explain the logic of Mr. Jinnah as I understand it:

Muslims of India constituted a separate nation with a distinctly separate identity
British India should be divided into a ``Pak`` Muslim Pakistan and a non-Muslim (or Hindu) India
The Land of the Pure should consist of UNDIVIDED Punjab and Bengal even though it would have huge Hindu and Sikh minorities, who then would no longer be that distinct from the ``Pak`` Hindus
Fully one-third of the Muslims of British India will not be able to reside in Pakistan, Land of the Pure and Homeland for Indian Muslims.
Some Indian Muslims could migrate to Pakistan (Jinnah Sahib included), but the vast majority would have to live as Indian citizens (but now resented by other Indians and dubbed as a fifth column due to the partition of the motherland)
The TNT was only used to obtain partition, after partition, Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan beome ``Pak`` and Muslims in India therefore by elimination are ``Na-Pak.``
So, a Punjabit Rajput named Chauhan, living in Rawalpindi, is more Pak Muslim than a Rajasthani Rajput named Chauhan, living in Ajmer.
Even more ridiculous is the notion that a Sindhi Muslim named Soomro is more Pak Muslim than a Lucknowi Shia whose ancestors came from Iran.
...and here is the height of absurdity,

Jinnah (or Jinna) who was descended from Gujju Hindu converts to Islam, had more right to a Muslim homeland for Pak Muslims than Abu Kalam Azad.

I am just baffled by the sense of logic used by the Muslim League chauvinists to obtain the Land of the Pure. I think the Aryan theory of the Nazis was almost as sensible.

Salim

thank you mog. Where were you all these days..... ha ha ha...
some writers of this forum with their insightful contributions have won a place in our website and so have you. We respect your interest in this subject and the fact that you have spend so much time to share so many things things with us. I will take printouts of these for our entire team to read. We often have sessions of debate/discussions on great characters, events and writers.
you know as sensitive theatre artists Manto is our favourite writer and so are all those writers who have survived partition.... In fact he happens to be one of my favorite writers, apart from Qurratul ain Haider, Ismat Chugtai etc.
Have you heard of Krishna Sobti. She is a good friend, so whenever I meet her we have long talks on these writers.
In our play we have a dialogue of Toba tek singh..... Opar di gargar di mung di daal..... it`s such a powerful dialogue... most of our audience of Mr.Jinnah get tearful during this dialogue.

I spoke to Antaradi (Amartya Sen`s daughter) we might soon have an open public debate on Jinnah. the exact date is not yet finalised. But when we have it you can come and participate.

ciao

Re: # 149

It`s amusing that an article that supposedly defends the play doesn`t even get its name right. It`s ``Mr.`` Jinnah, isn`t it?

Hypothetical question: if I declare I want to stage a play tomorrow called ``Mr. Hitler``, even if it showed the nice compassionate vegetarian progressive side of the late great dictator, I`d assume somebody from the authorities would worry about it. Would that be unreasonable (them worrying I mean). Or how about, even better ``Mr. Bin Laden``. Huh? Think the FBI won`t wanna snoop in if I tried to stage that beauty on Broadway?

Mocking the police with one`s superior writing skills is such a futile exercise. As if they care. As far as they are concerned, ``reading scripts`` IS as important as managing traffic or fighting crime, especially since in our bloody country, lives have been lost and massive property damaged for far less reasons. If that isn`t comprehensible to ASMITA and their supporters, so-called proponents of free speech, nothing that a bunch of anonymous interactors on some obscure website can do will change their mind.

Yo freakshow ``sanguine``

Get a life.

Arvind Gaur is quite capable of defending himself without your help. I have made my peace with him anyway. I think you can just crawl back into the nasty little hole you emerged from and sulk now.

As for apologising to your lot, HA! The cheek of it, check out this gem from your friend/alternate nick, watever ``bottleneck``

``darling peabrain burpinder under his turban was getting sarcy? ha hahaha well your jokes are sikher than you..... ``

All I did was called your bunch ``buggers`` (harmless enough if you`ve ever lived in India) and ``idiots`` (which is not that big a deal). ``Abuse`` is bad, ``racial abuse``is OK?

Anyway, this is my last post. Your bunch is incorrigible. You claim to stand for one thing and then display the exact opposite. All the best for your play.

PS>> We still have no clue what the whole thing is about, so I satnd by my first post, and all the others that follow. Have a nice life.