With reference to the whole Jaswant-Jinnah episode, one thing no one bothered to do is actually read the book. C.M. Naim of Outlook India does that, and now I just feel sorry for him !

I spent 695 good rupees and therefore felt I had to get my money’s worth. However, after a couple of attempts to read the book serially, I decided to cut my losses. I began to read the book in patches—50 pages here, 10 pages there, often letting the book fall open and then reading whatever fate dictated. I feel no shame in saying that the responses I offer below are based only on a partial reading, and resolutely subjective.

My first response: it is an embarrassing book to read. I felt foolish when I found myself trudging through such awful expository prose as this :

“The League had claimed that it was the true upholder of Islam’s ideological authenticity; also of representing a substantive Muslim consensus, therefore, it demanded, rather presupposed, just a single Muslim medium – and asserting its identity as a different conceptual ‘nation’, claimed a separate land for itself which is why this agonizing question continues to grate against our sensibilities: ‘Separate’ from what?”

This part almost made me laugh my head off :

“For one, such an assertion—[Muslims are a separate nation]—though entirely illogical, is fundamentally of an insatiable nature, it will always remain so, forever, as it never can be quenched being born of a peculiar Indian phenomenon ‘minoritism’, endlessly it will continue to give birth to more destructive minoritism, being politically contagious for, Pakistan is doubtless Muslim, but ‘theocentrically’, it is not a ‘theocratic’ state, indeed there is no such state other (sic) perhaps than the Vatican, but then who, other than Gandhi and a few others was to advise caution as we rushed headlong (and unheeding!) down this destructive path.”

All this while, the joke was on the BJP, Congress and everyone who didn’t make anything out of the whole controversy (which naturally excludes the media).

I can only imagine that Jinnah, excitedly opens up his netherworldly e-copy of the book and after a few pages goes, “WTF !”.

Link via Mukta.

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