JINNAH: India Partition Independence

By Jaswant Singh

‘Lord Mountbatten: I tried every trick I could play… to shake Jinnah’s resolve….Nothing would…move him from his consuming determination to realise the dream of Pakistan…The date I chose (for Independence) came out of the blue. I was determined to show I was master of the whole event.’

This is paralysing in its insensitivity, the sheer horror of mountbatten’s casual untruthfulness, in how trivial this last viceroy’s approach was to a grim and unprecedented tragedy.

The partition of India, has been the most wounding trauma of the twentieth century. Who was/is responsible – Jinnah? The congress party? Or the British? Jinnah’s political journey began as an ambassador of Hindu – Muslim unity, yet ended with his becoming the ‘sole spokesman’ of Muslims in India; the creator of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam.