Dialogue With A Giant IV

 

(Interview continues)

SELF(BN): And does that also apply to defense?

JINNAH: Of course it applies to defense. Once again I will ask
you a question. How is Afghanistan defended? Well? The answer
is not very complicated. By the Afghans. Just that. We are a
brave and united people who are prepared to work and, if neces-
sary, fight. So how does the question of defence present any
peculiar difficulties? In what way do we differ from other
nations? From Iran, for example? Obviously, there will have to
be a transition period. We are not asking the British to quit India
overnight. The British have helped to make this gigantic muddle,
and they must stay and help to clear it up. But before they can
do that, they will have to do a lot of hard thinking. And that
reminds me I have something I would like to show you.

He excused himself and left the room. I lit a cigarette and
waited. And suddenly I realized that something very remarkable
was happening, or rather was not happening. I was not losing my
temper. Jinnah had been almost brutally critical of British policy
(though I have not quoted his remarks in the above dialogue),
but his criticism had been clear and creative. It was not merely
a medley of wild words, a hotchpotch of hatred and hallucination,
in the Hindu manner. It was more like a diagnosis. The difference
between Jinnah and the typical Hindu politician was the difference between a surgeon and a witch doctor. Moreover, he was a
surgeon you could trust, even though his verdict was harsh.'The British must realize,' he had said to me before we tackled
the problem of Pakistan, 'that they have not a friend in the
country. Not a friend.'

A Hindu politician would have said that at the top of his voice,
with delight. Jinnah said it quietly, with regret. Here he was
again. In his hand he carried a book.

JINNAH: You will remember I said, a moment ago, that the
British would have to do a lot of hard thinking. It's a habit they
don't find very congenial; they prefer to be comfortable, to wait
and see, trusting that everything will come right in the end. How-
ever, when they do take the trouble to think, they think as clearly
and creatively as any people in the world. And one of their best
thinkers at least on the Indian problem was old John Bright.
Have you ever read any of his speeches?

SELF(BN): Not since I left school.

JINNAH: Well, take a look at this. I found it by chance the other
day.

He handed me the book. It was a faded old volume, The Speeches
of John Bright, and the date of the page at which it was opened
was June 4th, 1858. This is what the greatest orator in the House .
of Commons said on that occasion:

'How long does England propose to govern India? Nobody can answer
that question. But be it 50 or 100 or 500 years, does any man with the
smallest glimmering of common sense believe that so great a country, with
its 20 different nationalities and its 20 different languages, can ever be
bound up and consolidated into one compact and enduring empire confine?
I believe such a thing to be utterly impossible.'

I handed back the book.

JINNAH: What Bright said then is true to-day ... In fact, it's far
more true though, of course, the emphasis is not so much on the
20 nationalities as on the 2 ... the Muslim and the Hindu. And
why is it more true? Why hasn't time brought us together? Be-
cause the Muslims are awake . . . because they've learnt, through
bitter experience, the sort of treatment they may expect from the
Hindus in a 'United India'. A 'United India' means a Hindu-dominated India. It means that and nothing else. Any other
meaning you attempt to impose on it is mythical. 'India is a
British creation ... it is merely a single administrative unit
governed by a bureaucracy under the sanction of the sword.
That is all. It is a paper creation, it has no basis in flesh and blood.



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