Jinnah’s Indian fans

Ashwin Shuddha Pratipada, Kaliyug Varsha 5111

By Dr Jay Dubashi

Mohammed Ali Jinnah died sixty years ago but his ghost still haunts India, or at least some Indians, who, for some reason, seem to have fallen under his spell. One of them once described Jinnah as a secular man, and another has written a book in which he holds not Jinnah but Nehru responsible for India’s Partition. Jinnah as a secular man is a big joke and so is the laboured attempt to absolve him of responsibility for the division of India. But I suppose you have to make a living and Jinnah is as good a peg as any to hang your shredded clothes on.

But most people who feel they simply cannot discount Jinnah as one of the main villains behind the Partition have almost certainly never seen him, let alone met him, and what they write or say is what they have heard or read about him from others, that is, at second or third remove. Jinnah died in 1948, a few months after Gandhi’s death. I must be among the very few people alive who not only saw him, but also met him and had tea with him. This was four years before he died, and three years before he left India for good. And all this happened in Bombay (or Mumbai), at the height of the so-called Gandhi-Jinnah talks, which came to nothing, and which ultimately sealed the fate of India-and also of Gandhi.

It is not clear why Gandhi was so keen to meet Jinnah-they met in August or September 1944-and what he proposed to achieve through such a meeting, in the absence of all his colleagues from the Congress Party, including Nehru and Patel, who happened to be in jail. Gandhi had been released earlier but he was somewhat at a loose end. The war was going in favour of Allies, which may have been another factor. Gandhi apparently must have decided to take a final plunge in political waters and have it out with Jinnah once for all.

I was a student then in Bombay and used to go to Malabar Hill with friends for a walk almost every evening. The newspapers were full of Gandhi-Jinnah talks and there were front-page picture in newspapers everyday. Gandhi used to walk from Birla House, where he stayed, to Jinnah’s bungalow across the road known as Mount Pleasant Road. This was the same road, which was more like a lane, which we normally used to go down to the sea from the ridge. Gandhi’s short walk to Jinnah’s bungalow was almost like a mela, with scores of newspapermen and press photographers in tow, and often some of us joined the circus.

The newspaper pictures were always the same taken at the gate, of Jinnah’s house, with Gandhi on one of the lower steps and Jinnah towering above him on invariably the top step. Jinnah had to bend to shake hands with Gandhi for Gandhi was always on a lower step and Jinnah on an upper one. Jinnah was always in his immaculate three-piece linen suit and Gandhi in his usual trademark knee-length dhoti. It looked as if Gandhi was begging for something from Jinnah; Gandhi was the supplicant in sack-cloth and ashes and Jinnah was the giver. They were an odd pair.

Gandhi used to come to Jinnah’s house on foot and walked to and from Birla House. Jinnah was never seen walking with him, although he could have walked with Gandhi to Birla House to see him off. But he never did. It was as if Gandhi was the beggar and figuratively on his knees before Jinnah. Jinnah was dealing with Gandhi as an equal, maybe even his superior, and those of us who watched them for days together, Gandhi always looking up to Jinnah on his steps, felt humiliated. Whether Jinnah was doing it purposely I do not know, but whatever it was Gandhi was doing, he was dong it the wrong way. He was losing the game even before it had started.

We used to see Jinnah outside his gate several times but he rarely spoke to us or to pressmen. It was Gandhi who did the talking, and we watched as the reporters scribbled. Jinnah spoke only once and that was on the last day. Unfortunately, I do not now remember what he said.

One day, after the talks were over for the day, we decided to meet Jinnah for we used to see him everyday pacing to and fro on the first floor verandah of his elegant house on the hill. He used to walk in his three-piece suit, rarely looking down at us, even when there were crowds on the street below. That, I think, was his only exercise, and as far as anybody could make out, his only activity.

But how to meet the great man? We approached his Gurkha at the gate to let us in, but he said his boss would not see anybody without an appointment. Day after day, we pressed him to fix an appointment-we did not known how to fix appointments and none of us had a telephone-and he kept saying no, and one day there were loud and angry words on either side. Jinnah must have heard us for he asked his clerk or servant to find out what the trouble was about. It was about five in the evening and the sun was about to set. Suddenly, we were told that Jinnah would see us, provided we did not bring up politics.

Four of us trooped in like good boys. The bungalow was surrounded by a large well-tended garden, though not as big as the garden in Birla House. We walked through the garden to the bungalow and were asked to sit down and make ourselves comfortable. It took us some time to settle down, for we had never been in such sumptuous surroundings before, and neither our Hindi nor our English was up to the mark.

Jinnah entered the ground floor lobby through a side door, past a room that looked like a library. We were told later that this was the room where he met his clients. He towered over us-just as he did over Gandhi-and had to bend down to shake hands with us. Since I was doing most of the talking, he thought I was the leader of the group, and he fixed me with his eyes as we sat down, Jinnah on one side, and the rest of us facing him on the other. There was a big table between us, and on the table, some newspapers.

I do not now remember what we talked about but the talk was mostly about the war. The Japanese were being pushed back in the East and the Germans in the West. Jinnah said that the Allies were winning and would end up winning the war, but he said, that was his personal view, and he was not a military expert.

We were then served tea and biscuits, in fine imported China, but the servants did the pouring. Jinnah himself didn’t take tea, though a cup was placed before him.

From where we sat, I could see the garden and the creepers on the trellis near the gate. There was a big banyan tree in the compound-or was it pipal-and crows were coming in to settle in its cavernous trunk. There were two gardeners removing dead branches and leaves from the lawn. I noted they wore Gandhi caps and no shoes. Someone, a female voice, shouted from the verandah and they stopped working. Within a few minutes, they were gone.

As I said, I was doing most of the talking and the discussion turned out to be a dialogue between Jinnah and ourselves. Jinnah treated us like schoolboys, a little patronising perhaps, but also polite and good-humoured. We were not supposed to discuss politics but the meeting was so friendly I thought I would take a chance and ask him how the talks with Gandhi were going. Just when he was about to reply or say something, I asked about Pakistan.

That did it. The P-word upset him. Within seconds, he was up and turning his back on us, he flounced out of the room. Anyway, that is how we felt. We were absolutely shocked but there was little we could do and sheepishly trooped out of the room, slowly and quietly, as errant schoolboys do when the teacher asks them to leave. Jinnah was behaving with us exactly as he behaved with Gandhi. It was Jinnah who was calling the shots and nobody dare question him, whether they were schoolboys or the Mahatma. It was Jinnah who was laying down the line, and neither a Gandhi nor a Dubashi could cross it. He was the boss and he would remain the boss until he got his Pakistan.

And three years later, he got it. And we are still paying the price!

(The writer can be contacted at 301, Manikanchan Apts, Kanchan Galli, Pune. Phone: 020-25452395)

Source: The Organiser

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