New Delhi, August 16: Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has said 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 tomorrow, also said Indian Muslims are treated as aliens.
“Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly he 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. He said he did not subscribe to the popular “demonisation” of Jinnah.
Singh, a former external affairs minister, feels India had misunderstood Jinnah and made a demon out of him. Contrary to popular perception, Singh feels it was not Jinnah but Nehru”s “highly centralised polity” that led to the Partition of India.
Asked if he was concerned that Nehru”s heirs and the Congress party would be critical of the responsibility he was attributing to Nehru for Partition, Singh said, “I am not blaming anybody. I am not assigning blame.
I am simply recalling what I have found as the development of issues and events of that period.” .
-PTI