New Delhi, August 17: Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh may have put the party in a fresh spot with his comments that Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was “demonised” by India even though it was Jawaharlal Nehru whose belief in a centralised system had led to the Partition.
Jaswant, whose book “Jinnah India, Partition, Independence”, will be released on Monday, also said Indian Muslims were treated as aliens.
“Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly stood against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn’t really like him… Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don’t we recognise that? Why don’t we see (and try to understand) why he called him that,” Singh said, when asked by Karan Thapar in an interview whether he viewed Jinnah as a great man. Singh said he did not subscribe to the popular “demonisation” of Jinnah.
A severely embarrassed BJP on Sunday refused to comment on Singh’s book and some of his recent observations.
All the three authorised party spokespersons Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Prakash Javdekar refused to comment on his observations. Party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi too refused to comment.
All the four leaders said they would say something only after the book was released and that “they were presently more concerned about people’s issues”. The BJP was earlier in turmoil after L K Advani’s 2005 Pakistan visit and his speech on Jinnah.
Singh came in for severe flak from the ruling Congress for his reported praise of Jinnah and criticism of Nehru.
“He and his party have further proved their patriotism by denigrating India’s first prime minister while eulogising Pakistan’s first head of state. No one is surprised since the BJP has become the Bharatiya Jinnah Party,” said AICC spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
“Jaswant Singh’s flights of fancy reflected in his book excerpts are likely to be no less hallucinating than his earlier mythical mole (in Prime Minister’s office during P V Narasimha Rao’s time, as alleged by Singh in another book in 2006).
Despite repeated challenges, he never produced his mole. Only the BJP and Jaswant Singh can condone Gujarat carnage and give homilies about Muslims being treated as ‘aliens’ in the same breath. He should know because his party does treat Muslims as so,” said Singhvi.
-Agencies