Monday, August 24, 2009

Jinnah was more effective politician than Gandhi: Jaswant Singh

Jinnah was more effective politician than Gandhi: Singh
The News, August 24, 2009

NEW DELHI: Jaswant Singh, who was recently expelled from the Bhartia Janata Party (BJP) on declaring Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a great man, on Sunday said Quaid-i-Azam was more effective than Gandhi in Indian politics.

In an interview in Karan Thapar’s programme of CNN-IBN, Jaswant Singh said Jinnah’s entire politics was parliamentary and in the early years he was more effective in putting pressure on the British than Gandhi.

“Jinnah had successfully kept the Indian political forces together, simultaneously exerting pressure on the government,” he said.“Jinnah believed in the strength of logic; he was a Parliamentarian; he believed in the efficacy of parliamentary politics. Gandhi, after testing the water, took to the trails of India and he took politics into the dusty villages of India,” Singh said.

When asked about his observation “Gandhi’s leadership was an entirely religious, provincial character” and Jinnah was “doubtless imbued by a non-sectarian nationalistic zeal,” Singh replied: “Jinnah was non-sectarian. Gandhi used religion as a personal expression. Jinnah used religion as a tool to create something but that came later. For Gandhi religion was an integral part of his politics from the very beginning.”

He further said Jinnah’s fear was that if the whole question or practice of mass movement was introduced into India then the minority in India would be threatened. To a question about his expulsion from the BJP, Singh said the party was narrow-minded. “I didn’t think the party is so narrow-minded, so nervous about Jinnah and Patel and to get so railed at what I have written. I have a feeling, which I voiced also, that perhaps my former colleagues had not really read the book when they passed the sentence,” he said.

Related:
Jaswant Singh Covered BJP's Advani on Khandahar - News Blaze
Jaswant Singh’s graceless, baseless expulsion will haunt BJP for long - Indian Express

No comments: