He refused to assign the Indian Prime Minister to plan the Kashmir attack: Rumors and facts about Jinnah on his birth anniversary
When Gandhi offered Jinnah the position of Prime Minister
A common rumor during the turbulent years leading up to India’s independence and partition was that Mahatma Gandhi offered the position of Prime Minister to Jinnah, and if Nehru had agreed to it, Pakistan might not have been created. There are two things wrong with this theory – the offer was made not once, but several times, and it was Jinnah, not Nehru, who scuttled it.
The most quoted example is from April 1947, when Gandhi suggested to the new Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, that he be offered the wing of the interim government. Gandhiji had made the same suggestion earlier as well.
But as American historian Stanley Wolpert wrote in his book Jinnah of Pakistan, “Such an offer would have tempted Jinnah if he had believed or trusted Gandhi.” But he believes that “Mr. Gandhi’s concept of ‘independent India’ differs fundamentally from ours… Mr. Gandhi by independence means the Congress Raj.”
This is the same language that Jinnah used in a speech on December 6, 1945. “First, Hindus and Muslims are two major nations living in the Indian subcontinent, and there are Muslim provinces and Hindu provinces, which are of high status. The time when the British Government emphatically applied its mind to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan and Hindustan, which meant freedom for both, while a united India meant slavery to the Muslims and complete domination of the imperialist Hinduraj class throughout this sub-continent, and this is what the Hindu Congress seeks to achieve… “.
Did Jinnah plan to attack Kashmir?
Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India was forced because his kingdom in Jammu and Kashmir was attacked by tribesmen from Pakistan in October 1947. India maintained that the tribesmen were acting with the knowledge and assistance of the Pakistani establishment, while Pakistan insisted that they were acting with the knowledge and assistance of the Pakistani establishment . They act on their own initiative to “revenge atrocities” against Muslims. But did Jinnah plan the attack?
In her book Kashmir in Conflict, British author Victoria Schofield wrote, “According to George Cunningham, and on the basis of information given to him by the Defense Minister, Iskandar Mirza, on 26 October: ‘It is clear that Jinnah himself heard for the first time what was going on. About 15 days ago, but he said, “Don’t tell me anything about it. My conscience must be clear.”
However, other commentators said Jinnah was well aware of the plan.
When he promised religious freedom for all in Pakistan
Jinnah died in 1948, before the modern state of Pakistan could take any form. However, after fighting all his life to secure a nation built on sectarian lines, Jinnah seems to have envisioned a state where people enjoyed equal rights regardless of religion. This can be seen in his speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August 1947.
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this Pakistani state. You may belong to any religion, sect or creed – and this has nothing to do with the affairs of the state,” the Quaid-e-Azam said. .
In the same speech, he said: “If you change your past and work together in the spirit that each one of you, regardless of the community to which he belongs, regardless of the community to which he belongs, and regardless of the relations he has with you, in the past, regardless of his color or sect or his creed, he was first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges and obligations, and there will be no end to his progress.
Jinnah, Nehru, and Mountbattens
In her book Indian Summer, British historian Alex von Tunzelmann wrote extensively about Nehru’s relationship with Lord and Lady Edwina Mountbatten. She writes that in May 1947, the Mountbattens invited Nehru to Mashobra in Shimla for an “informal weekend getaway.” Here, Mountbatten showed Nehru a draft of the power transfer plan.
Whether Jinnah knew or suspected that Nehru had shown him the draft plan would have influenced his attitude towards Lord Mountbatten and his proposals – Tunzelman says Jinnah had strong reasons to suspect that Mountbatten had it “wrapped around Nehru’s finger”.
However, according to Tunzelman, Jinnah was very close to the Edwina-Jawaharlal dynamic. She wrote that according to S.S. Pirzada, later Foreign Minister of Pakistan, in June 1947, Jinnah was handed over some letters allegedly written by Edwina to Nehru. Pirzada claimed that Jinnah discussed what to do about these letters with Fatima (his sister) and his sister Zulaam. Ultimately, Jinnah concluded that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion, and returned the letters.
