Empire: World History - 14. Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Listen as William and Anita discuss the life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. They will discuss the pivotal role he played in the creation of Pakistan, his rivalry with Gandhi, and the vision he had for his nation's future. Plus, we are very fortunate to be joined at the end by the wonderful Ayesha Jalal. To get your free two week trial for Find my past, go to www.findmypast.co.uk and sign up. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire Twitter: @Empirepoduk Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. Greetings. I'm not saying hello and welcome to Empire because that would just be a bit of overkill. This is not, this is a full start to the podcast. That's what this is. because events, dear boys and girls have overtaken us. We are very shortly going to hear an excellent podcast with our special guest, Aisha Jalal, about Muhammad Ali Jinnah. But we needed to tell you that we know this is a momentous occasion in the history of empire,

where a man of Indian origin is being anointed the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Rishishish Sunak. So we are going to, I promise, return to that subject in the future. But first of all, here's the programme we recorded. Can you tell a little bit earlier? Welcome to Empire with me. You are really annoying. Actually, you know what? There's been a tweet about it.

Okay, who are you? Who are you, first of all? Me? You're William Dalrymple, who's being very naughty. Aaron is going to be delighted because he says, absolutely loving Empire. However, I am missing William Dalrymple's enigmatic pauses. Is this something that can return?

Is this why you are being like this? It's going to be so quick. It's going to be such a long recording. Anyway. Thanks very much for staying with us. Amazingly. Putting up without nonsense. Idiots.

So what are we doing today, William? Pull yourself together. What are we doing? Why are we here? Why are people listening? We did a wonderful episode a while back now before the Queen died and before we veered off our chronological progression from the East India Company through the Raj,

to Jolly and Wallabar. Then we did this wonderful one with Gandhi. Oh, yes. With Ram Guha. Yeah, that was good. And now we, in a sense, need to go back to that mainline story, the story of how we've done how British rule developed in India, how it reached its peak, how resistance began.

And we did Gandhi, but we didn't do, already glancingly touched on, Mohamed Ali Jinnah, who's the figure who, in a sense, in many ways, one of the most remarkable men in the 20th century. How many people personally push through an entirely new country onto the map of the world who develop an entire movement that involves millions of people? And yet he's someone who is very little known in Britain, who is turned into a one-dimensional hate figure in India, who is revered equally one-dimensionally as this sort of Islamic austere figure in a Karakul hat in Pakistan who sits on the banknotes. But who, who,

humanity is lost. And when he appears in movies, like we kept going back to talking about the Richard Atenborough, the Attenborough Gandhi movie. And there, he's this kind of caricature figure. And he says, he mutters around saying, I will have India divided or I will have India destroyed, which of course is completely, never do that. Unhistorical. She's scary. I'm doing my Tom Holland moment. Never ever do that again. Bad invitation. So he's not singing Marilyn Monroe. But you're right. So there was the Attenborough. There was the Attenborough version of him. And then there was a later version of Jinnah, which was played by Christopher Lee, famously of the hammerhouse of her own Dracula. So, you know, this is a man who is either unknown here in this country or if he is known, it is not in a positive light.

But yet, as we say, actually, whether you approve of the idea of Pakistan regarded as the saving grace, the saving grace, that saved Indian Muslims or whether you regard it as one of the great disasters of the 20th century, this is a man who altered history in a real and tangible way and we need to know more about him. We absolutely do. So let's talk about the beginnings of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. So he was born in 1876 in Karachi. Correct. Which is the, so he's the eldest of seven children.

His father is a merchant. His mother, Mithyba is a huge influence in his life. I'm not a big merchant. He's two or three rungs down the social economic pecking order from, for example, Neru, who was his great rival later in life. He's born in a rented apartment. His father runs boats up and down the Sindhi coast. And crucially, differently from almost all the other major figures who shepherd India towards independence,

he is a Muslim and not just is he a Muslim but he's a very particular sort of Shia Muslim from a small minority sect. So listen, those who don't know, I mean a lot of people will know Shias and Sunnis but just speak a little bit about what the difference is between Shias and Sunnis and why it is remarkable that a Shia Muslim becomes such an enormous figure in Pakistan. So most Muslims are Sunnis but there is a minority within Islam, the Shia faith, which looks to Ali as its figure of great reverence and there were Shia states in Indian history, particularly the Deccan at various points, but it was in 17th century Iran that you have the Safavids converting the entire Iranian nation to Shiaism and suddenly it becomes a major player.

But Jinnah is not even just part of this minority Shia faith. He is a Kodja Muslim, which is like a minority within a minority. Ironic because these are now the people, of course, which are getting it every time there's a communal upsurge in Pakistan. It's the Shias who are getting it in the neck. And only this year we had more bombs in schools. In Shia schools, in Shia Madrasis.

Yeah. Places of worship. So this is a man who's born into a modest background, trading background. His father is this figure in a turban in the only black and white picture I think that survives of him looks very unlike his son because we're so

used to seeing his son yeah so those who who don't know he's angular I mean the picture if you do have a picture in your head and the picture that's on the banknotes and things in Pakistan is of a very striking angular almost lupine face who wears sometimes thin

frail sometimes wears a monocle so just going back to the beginning so you know from all accounts of his birth he was a very fragile infant. That's what we are given to believe. Weighed only, weighed a few pounds less than normal, we're told. And I love this description of him by his sister, Fatima, who is a massive figure in his life. And the only member of his family who is at all close to. Absolutely right. So Fatima Jinnah says, even in the playground, my brother had a sense of

superiority. Although he may not have been, you know, ostensibly born to greatness, he believed there was greatness in him. And then he has this odd education where he goes both to a madrasa and a Christian missionary school. So throughout his life, he maintains in the sense this odd bipolarity between on one hand

being very much a Muslim, although he is a secular Muslim. He drinks. He doesn't go much to mosques. He doesn't play out the religious side. He's still a kid at the moment. Come on he didn't. He's just playing marbles in a superior way.

From this basis, he has this double identity. On one hand, culturally at least, very strongly, a Muslim. And on the other hand, he embraces Western culture much more than say Gandhi ever did. He is, he has famously in his peak in the end of his life, I think 200 Savile Row suits. He never wears the same silk tie twice when fighting a law case. he has dapper correspondent shoes and he wears this monocle which you know makes us look like sort of Bertie Worcester or something I don't know whether this is true and someone doubtless is going to tweet us or email us

but I heard that he modelled that on Chamberlain that he liked the way Chamberlain looked in his monocle so anyway there he is he's going to these two different schools these two different cultures but at the same time when he's really a little kid he's only sort of barely a teenager his father is pulling him into the family business so he has to be good at math he has to be good at arithmetic he is helping in the trade business as well. He has to grow up pretty quickly. And then he has this extraordinary break. At the age of 16, a business associate, a British business associate of his father,

offers him an apprenticeship in a London law firm. This is a complete life-changing moment. Douglas, Graham and Company. And he moves to London, age 16, on his own. And he is transformed by this. He very much takes to London. He goes to the British Museum. He loves the stage.

Is it the old Vic or the young Vic? But he starts acting. It's the old Vic. Yeah, so I mean, I didn't know this until we started sort of looking into his history. But he loved, he was a performer. He had it in him. He used to like going to Hyde Park Corner and watching the orators and watching how they could command the attention of hundreds of people. And he actually went to the old Vic and said, look, I'd like to get a job here as an actor.

And they liked him. They took him on. They took him on for a period of time. Very good speaker. Yeah. But at the same time at all, this is going on. He's also proving himself in the legal department. And only three years later, age 19, he's called to the bar, becomes a barrister.

And that is, I mean, this will make him, this is an extraordinary leap from this minor trader's son. Because by the time he goes back to India, this will make him literally the only Muslim barrister in Bombay. I think he has the accolade of being the youngest Indian call to the bar when he has actually called to the bar in. 1896, which is, you know, a very big deal. And again, whatever else you think of him politically, he has this rapier mind. He is famous for his precision, his attention to detail, and a kind of rapier wit when he's on his feet. And has this joy of acting shows an extraordinary ability to communicate.

So, yes, in a cut glass English accent, by the way, I mean, because he has absorbed the the accent in a way that he's able to use it as, as you say, like a rapier. Again, I go to Sister Fatima, who I just love her descriptions of him. She said, he wanted to discover himself on the highways of eminence and fame. You know, so again, I don't know whether deliberate or just inherent, but he thinks that there is greatness ahead of him. And he becomes interested in politics in London. and he associates himself with Dada by Noroji

and who's being elected to the British Parliament Yes, the first Indian ever to be elected I believe it was Camden that he represented Earlier that been one other was elected, Dysomber, the son famously the adopted son of the Begham Samru but that election was cancelled due to corruption This is in the 18th We don't talk about him, why did you talk about him?

We don't talk about him. Fascinating character, a different story. I've written a long piece of them, observing. friend who wants to go look it up in the Observer website. Right. Okay, so here is cut glass accent. He's learned, can I just say something? Hang on a minute.

Gujarati. Rape your wit. Very clever. Call to the bar. Sounds a bit like somebody else. He sounds like Gandhi. He is destined to never ever to go to the Gandhi. But they do really have sort of parallel trajectories in many ways.

And also the son of a merchant, you know. Wonderfully when we did Gandhi, if there was a dating. app in the 1890s quarantine ginner wouldn't be bad. I know, looking back, talking to the preeminent historian in the world on Gandhi saying that, I'm an idiot

but I guess I don't think he'd like it, but he loved it. I do stand by it. Anyway, when does politics start to figure in his life, William? So he takes an interest in politics in London, but in 1896, age 19 again

only, he returns to Bombay. And this, I say, you know, three years later, he's transformed from this minor trader's son to one of the, in a sense, you know, he's got the highest accolade that an Indian of the time could have. He's not only gone to London, studied there, not only done well in law, in law, but he's actually been called to the bar younger than anyone else, aged only 19. And in Bombay, he's now a super eligible, very dashing figure. He comes back already with these extraordinary ties and Salvo's suits. And he is immediately caught up in politics and just a bit of context here. We kind of sometimes talk about

both Gandhi and Neroon Jinnah as sort of entering the Congress Party. The Congress Party had only been set up 10 years earlier. 1885, the Congress Party is set up by a Scotsman, Alan Octavian Hume. Yes, that's right. And initially it's little more than the sort of debating society for London returned Indian Toffs, but it's beginning to get up momentum. Ten years later, 1896, Jinnah is back in Bombay, the only Muslim barrister in the entire city. But he has been, I mean, we're sort of forgetting that he was all married off at quite a young age as well, but then he loses his first wife. His first wife sort of dies, and so does his mother die and leaves him rootless, which sort of explains the migration from his home place in Karachi to Bombay, you know.

So again, like Gandhi, again, parallel with Gandhi, he's married off. He's a child's bridegroom. Yeah. But unlike Gandhi, his wife dies. That's right. So there he is now. He is an eligible young man in his very smart suits in Bombay, which is a hip happening town, even back then. What happens to him in Bombay?

He suddenly actually becomes noticed. You know, he becomes a man of substance in his own right, the man people talk about. So you get, I think in letters of this time, the first thing, the first hint of what becomes his defining feature later on, which is this sort of harsh, precise legal mind that can actually be quite wounding and be quite cold. He can, in the same way that in a law case, he's famous for being able to sort of trap his opponents in a legal. corner. So you see for the first time in a sense the steel. The steel. The steel is exactly the right word. Aggressive, precise, very brilliant, but not a warm man. And this coldness is something which people will remark on more and more as his life goes on. Sorosje Nainaydu, who's very much on the Congress camp and very much with a really interesting woman by the way, Serozni Nidu, yeah. But she says that you almost need a

her coat when Jinnah walks into the room. So look, he's so in Bombay, Indian National Congress takes him in, he's practicing law, he has got a position in the chambers of John McPherson. And he's elected to the imperial legislative council in 1909. Yeah, and soon after that, soon after that, and he sort of does play some really important roles there. You know, he joins also the All-India Muslim League soon afterwards, then becomes its president in 1916. And the crucial thing here is that this is unusual to be part of both Congress and the Muslim League. And by 1916, he's actually brought the two together into something called the Lucknow Pact. And he's hailed remarkably in retrospect as the apostle of Hindu Muslim unity.

So not only is he's someone who is not telling the Muslims to go their own way. He's actually saying, do not believe those who tell you this. We are one people. We will go forward together. We must not be divided. The British want us to be divided. We must fight together. We will lose if we're divided.

It's funny, we've been talking a lot about unity candidates and British politics lately. Anyway, so there he is. The unity candidate, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Then something extraordinary happens to him again, 1980. There are some really very powerful and interesting women who pass into this man's life because he marries his second wife, a paris woman, daughter of a very rich industrialist, called Rattan by Petit. Now Rattan by

who becomes Rattan by Jinnah is an extraordinarily young, 16 I think when they may 16. They meet in Darjeeling. Right. Jinnah is staying with her father and sees this beautiful young creature and they secretly begin correspondence.

Yeah. But when finally Jinnah says in a very illusory way, I wondered what you'd feel about your daughter marrying someone from another faith. And Petit says, oh, I think it's a splendid thing. You know, we all need to hang it together. And then Ginner basically is talking about himself. It's me.

And he's a lot older. He's about 40 at the time. He's 14. She's 16. But she is a stunning woman. I mean, the pictures of her, she's just beautiful. She looks like one of those matinee idols for the silver screen. Does she know?

And again, you know, this is something that's so far from the Jinnah of the Pekistali banknotes, he at this point is they've actually run off together they elope without the father's permission as soon as she's 18 years old two years later they have an open top sports car they drive up and down marine drive with her hair flag behind and she's famous for her low cut and revealing saris and they are the it couple they are absolutely it couple so you know it it seems as if the world is at their feet and again again against the stereotype of him uh in in in modern Pakistan, you know, there's this famous occasion which Patrick French got into trouble for mentioning in his book. Patrick French is a historian of, yeah, and a friend of us, yeah.

And which we will probably get into trouble to bring up. But allegedly, Ruttie turns up, let's bring it up. Let's bring it up. Routty turns up into section rally and says, Jay, as she calls him, but you know what I brought you for lunch? And she says, he says, no, I don't know. It's like ham sandwiches. And he looks absolutely horrified because certainly in public, of course, as a representative of the Muslim, you do not want to be seen eating either pork or drinking whiskey, both of which he does. So glad you didn't mention it.

So Rati is, though, sort of deemed to be a bit of a firebrand as well, isn't she? She's not your typical Indian wife. She's not quiet. She doesn't like Gandhi's wife, you know, Kassarabai, who's like five feet behind him walking, doing whatever it is that he wants to do. That's not Retti, is it? It's not.

And as the post-war post-pals. period gives way to the 20s, they begin to find difficulties in their relationship. Because Ratti sounds like a sort of proto-hippy. She's into crystals and seances and sort of mumbo-jumbo. And quite quickly, she actually moves out and takes a suite in the Taj Mahal Hotel. It's not slum, is it? It's a tough life if you're a parisierrez. And this coincides with a downturn in Jinnah's political life. It's a really pivotal moment in 1920 and it revolves around Gandhi.

I mean, so these two, these two are really unfortunate twins because they are, you know, it's everything on paper says they ought to get on, but this cements an enmity that some argue may have divided a continent. So, yes, talk to this. So they've actually met earlier in 1914 when Gandhi's on his way back from South Africa, he stops off in London where there's parties given to him, where indeed our lovely Princess Sophia. Is that one of those parties? So at this extraordinary party that we mentioned in the previous part,

not only do we have Gandhi and Sophia, but as I've just discovered from my research this morning, Jinnah is also there. This is the place where Jinnah meets Gandhi at this party. I didn't know. Celebrating Gandhi's return in London in 1914. Right. I didn't know that. And they talk fairly, they talk very briefly and perfectly amicably.

Do we know what they talked about? They talk presumably politics. This is a political moment. And Jinnah is in London because he's come back as part of the, I think, Imperial Legislative Council. And he's already negotiating with the British. And this is all. So he's already an established figure in the Congress, in the freedom struggle. I'm just trying to just visualize that because he's a tall chap.

And there's Gandhi who's a slight sparrow of a man. So there would have been a physical sort of looking up, wouldn't there, from Gandhi to Jinnah. Andy at this point, of course, is not yet wearing his homespan. No, he's not the home span. And he's finding his feet. He's finding his feet. Absolutely. And Gandhi very much would have been the junior partner, I think, in that conversation even.

But then two years later, they meet again in India. And they've both got the same patron who's Gokli. So Gopachshna Gorkli, again, we've mentioned him before, but I think he's just such an important, interesting character. He is a man who is trying to hold Indian opposition together and make sure that they don't resort to violence. because increasingly there are calls to kick the British out by any violent means necessary. And particularly, he's struggling for the soul of the Indian National Congress,

him and a man called Lajbethrae, Lajbethrae, who is a much, he's a firebrand, who says, you know, look, we've tried nancy, nancy, it's just not working. People like Puget Singh are starting to bubble up and solidify their own strategies for getting the British out. And Gorkle is like, no, we just need peace. And Gorkla has written will be the man. He hasn't done it yet. But he will be the man who writes to Gandhi to say, come here.

You have successfully and non-violently overturned past laws in South Africa. Now we need you over here to teach Saturday the same. And I might be wrong about this. But I think when Gandy and Jinnah meet next on Indian soil, Gokli is giving the party. Gokli is giving the party. I believe it's at Jinnah's house. But it is Gorklu is the very first hint of unise.

Because Jinnir is a very first hint of unise. Because Jinnah is the host. Yeah. Jinnah makes a speech. It's his house. And Gandhi, in a sense, takes a microphone, if there is a microphone, suddenly takes the stage. Yeah. And he says, I'm so pleased to see that not only is a Muslim part of the Congress, but that he is in charge of this branch of it.

And this is not something that Jinnah likes. And apparently his face is a bit condescending. It is. He's the big guy. He's already established. From Gandhi come lately. He's just arrived. It's a little.

little bit rude, yeah. And, you know, there are so many things about Jinnah in a sense that are remarkable that he's this great lawyer, that he's already in the legislative council, that he's thin-skinned. He's a great one for taking minor details and showing up the hypocrisy of the British court, which he does very well. And Gandhi doesn't say any of this. He doesn't say any of it. He just says, you're a Muslim. And also, this gives us an insight into the fact that actually Jinnah and others have pointed this out, it's thin-skinned. He doesn't take this kind of jive and then just forget it. He's not the kind of man who forgets it. I think almost all these characters at this point are very thin-skinned and Neru is notoriously thin-skinned later in life. And all these people,

you know, are in a sense the celebs of the time. They're glamorous figures. They've got enormous followings. And like as so often the case with famous celebs do not like criticism or opposition. I can't remember. Wait. So Gandhi does another little jive at him at some point where Ginner is speaking. And Gandhi says it would have been really lovely if you would have spoken in Gujarati. Why don't you speak in Gujarati? And Jinnabai. He doesn't speak. No.

And so again, shall we take a break and come back? I don't know time for break. Because what we're about to turn to is the moment when this relationship, which is initially cordial, but is now... Chilling, a little bit. Actually breaks into. Yeah. Welcome back. You're listening to Empire with me Anita Arnon.

And me, William Drupal. Right. So, okay. before the break we were talking about this it's almost a dance that's going on a passadoblay between Gandhi and jinnah where they are sort of on the same page but they are slightly rubbing each other up the wrong way it seems but then this turns into attrition at what point when you want does it? 1920 there is a big congress meeting in nagpole and jinnah the established figure who's already there on stage has his nose completely put out of joint by Gandhi, who's done, returned to India now

and gone round India in a train in a third class carriage. He's donned homespun. And has in a sense now become for the first time the figure that we know. He's no longer the lawyer in the in the starch collar. He's in homespun. He's in a dutti. This is post-Janee-a-Barck. So he's now cemented his position as somebody who says no more to the British. And the Indians listen to him. I think he's already gone to Champa Run, and he said to the indigueruers, you do not have to live like this. These landlords are treating you very badly. They're not going to pay you any more rent. So he's proving himself to be a very successful political agitator.

And the whole style of Congress is changing. It's no longer the gentleman's club at which Jinnah was very happy in. Instead, you've got crowds of guys in White Homsman turning up and sitting on the ground. Well, this is a point when Jinnah is going to be shouting at his batman for giving him the wrong cuff link. Right. Gin is not going to sit on the ground. He's not going to wear white homespun. He's got 200 several suits.

He does not like this. But also, and again, this is something which goes against the established stereotype. The thing that Jinnah particularly does not like is, according to him, it's Gandhi who introduces religion into politics. Because he brings with him a lot of his ashram stuff. There's going to be prayer meetings. There's going to be vegetarianism. There's going to be a lot. lot of a lot of talk about God and religion.

He describes the free India that he wants as Ram Raja, as the as the, as the, as the realm of Lord Rama, as in the Ramayana, as in the idea of, I suppose the British equivalent would be Arthur's rule, but it's divine. It's a perfect, divinely sanctioned Hindu world. Do you not find this really weird, actually, that he did do that? Because, you know, in later life, we'll know Gandhi is somebody who eventually dies because he's supposedly cutting too much slack to the Muslims by the hand of a Hindu fundamentalist who thinks he's not actually making India a Hindu country.

He does so much to say this is a country for all different faiths. And yet here, he's doing something that is quite obviously going to rub up Jinnah and other Muslims up the wrong way. So Jinnah, who only four years ago has been called the Apostle of Hindu Muslim unity, finds that Congress is simply for his taste becoming not only to common in the sense of the ordinary people are turning up sitting on the ground but it's becoming too Hindu

and that he from this point makes it his life's mission to build minority rights into whatever New India is being built because I think the thinking is if it's going to be Ram Rajah where do Muslims fit into that? If it is a Hindu paradise

what do you do with a fifth of the population which is no a quarter of the population at this point before Pakistan, which is Muslim. And he's not on his own. I mean, there are other Muslim intellectuals who are equally worried about this. People like Li Akhadi, people like Alama Iqbal, who's a poet, who are, they sit there

and they are having conversations about where do we belong? And important point here, because on the same 1920s Nagpur Congress meeting, religious titles are used. Not only is Gandhi called the Mahatma, which is not, incidentally, a traditional Hindu title. It's one that Annie Besant and the theophist, and more specifically, Madame Blavatsky, comes up.

Oh, you talked about her brilliant. She's nuts. It's this wonderful kind of central European mystic who claims that she's receiving astral messages from Himalahmahs, who are these old masters. And part of this whole sort of soup of late Victorian, early Edwardian spirituality and mysticism, Gandhi gets given the title Mahatma, great soul. And for Jinnah in his correspondent shoes and his spats, this is all, and his monocle, this is all far too, washy, fluffy. So Nagpur is where this kicks off because he refuses to address Gandhi as Mahatma

and just keeps referring to him as Mr. Gandhi. And he also refuses to give another Muslim leader the title Molana, which is a Muslim. Honorific. And then this is an important point. What his word is not only is, you know, there's going to be too much Hindu stuff going on. He doesn't want to awaken a specific.

Islamic thing going on among India's Muslims. And this is something is often forgotten, particularly in Indian historians who are talking about Jinnah. He is genuinely a secularist. He genuinely wants a secular thing to be replacing the British. And in

his view, by stirring up this stuff, by bringing religion into politics, you're letting this very dangerous tiger out of the cage. And in a way he's proved right, because you get the Calafat movement, which is this the Ottoman Emperor's just been deposed in in Istanbul and sent off to Nice a lot of Indian Muslims are very upset about

this and you get one of the first examples of really vicious Hindu Muslim fighting breaking out as part of the Calafat movement and Jinnah can say I told you so look what you've done now but previously on this in Nakhua let's get you back to Nāpa just minute so he there he is saying I'm not going to say Mahatma and actually something very interesting goes on at that meeting because a lot of followers of Gandhi start saying sit down Jinnah sit down he's called the Mahatma Call him the Mahatma. They start heckling him. He is not used to this kind of treatment from supposedly those who should be supporting him, following him. And this is a crucial point. You're quite right. We were veering off. So he's hecled. He's humiliated. Gandhi is the triumphant figure of the Nagpur meeting in 1920.

And clearly, this is the moment when clearly the God abandons Anthony, so to speak. This is the moment when Gandhi becomes the darling of the Congress and Jinnett goes off in a terrific huff. Yeah. And not only does a girl from a terrific half, his whole personal life is darkening fast. By this stage, Ratti is drinking. She's in a very bad way. She's still at the targe. They're not. She's still in the charge. And indeed, in, I think, um, 1929, she dies in that room, in the suite, in the targe. And according to one of her relations, this is highly disputed. And again, people may be offended by it, but there is good primary source evidence for this. She committed suicide. They do have a child together And Dina who interestingly And I know we're leaping about a little bit But interestingly because we may forget to tell you We're just so bursting with things we want to tell you

But Dina after partition chooses to stay in India And becomes part of a very prominent Indian Bombay Party family Yeah The Wadi is Anyway so

Gandhi, triumphant Jinnah in the process of eclipse Fuming Fuming personal life falling apart Ratti doesn't like that this guy has fallen from grace. You know, the glamorous figure that she fell in love with is now a fallen angel. And all sorts of things. I mean, his enemies will say that it's at this point that Jinnah becomes hardened, embittered.

And this already very steely lawyer becomes now the chilly figure we talked about that you need a... He's beginning to hear. He smokes 20 cigarettes a day. He's very frail. but I don't think he's actually... He hasn't got the TV that will eventually kill him. Not yet. Okay.

But his life is darkening. So at this point, having fallen out with Gandhi, having also, we haven't mentioned it, he opposes Satyagraha. Yeah. So again, this slightly sort of religious thing that Gandhi brings in, this non-violence, ahimsa, it's all with Sanskrit terms. This is after sort of the massacre, where he is calling a de facto strike, general strike,

but giving it the name of Satyagraha, people are going to just have a day of worship, they're going to pray. But in effect, he's calling a nationwide halt. And exactly the thing which makes Gandhi's message so popular with so many simple, conservative Indians, the fact that it's got the Sanskritic sounding, we're talking Ram Raja, we're talking Ahimsa, all these terms which are familiar from the epics and so on, is exactly what makes the secularist, tweed-suited, monocle, jinnah, unhappy. And he actually says satir has a way for anarchy.

Right. Okay, okay, so things are going very, very badly wrong. And he actually goes off in a half back to England. And what does he do in England? That's where he sort of sits with other like-minded Muslims. 1930 he goes to London. So they're in London and they are dis... Now, he's found a lot of sort of like-minded individuals.

He's sort of either lawyers or, again, Oxbridge graduates like him who are Muslim. And they're all worried about what might become of them. That's right. And until the 1930s, most Indian Muslims, had imagined that there would be a unitary state of India. But you're beginning to get ideas now of people talking about a separate Muslim homeland. Do they have a name for it? They have a name for it, but it's not properly defined.

The name sort of is a measure of quite how woolly it is. Because Pakistan, Park means pure, but it also is an acronym. And I think it's Punjab is the P. Yeah. Afghania. Afghanistan, right. And so again, sort of slightly geographically woolly version. Kashmir.

Yeah, okay. The Sindh is the S. And I think Balochistan. But the Tarn, Pakistan. The Pakistan. Okay. So the person that comes up with this is a man called Chardry Ramat Ali, who produces a pamphlet in 1933,

which puts this acronym together. But already you've had in 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal calling for a state for Muslims in British Indian. So this is the idea, is a new idea. It's coming out of Indians in Britain, interestingly at this point. And Iqbal is, by the way, poet for those who don't know, it's very celebrated.

Everyone in Pakistan knows who he is. But Alame Iqbal is a celebrated philosopher and poet. Exactly. So, you know, this is the dream of dreamers happening in London. So while Gandhi is triumphant among the freedom struggle supporters in India, you have this other stuff going on with Indian Muslim leaders in London. Okay, so there he is. He's with largely Cambridge.

intellectuals, is that right? Hang out with lawyers. He is on the fringe of politics. Now he goes to two of the roundtable conference, which is when Congress starts negotiating with the Maharajas and with the British and there's various ideas now for, is it going to be dominion status?

Is it going to be independence? What kind of independence? He doesn't go to the third. So this guy who had been very much at the centre of things in the immediate post-war period is now right on the edge. And 1934, he's called back to India because the Indian Muslims now want him to be their leader.

And for the first time you see Jinnah take up this specifically Muslim League identity. So that is the birth of the Muslim League is then. He left the Congress party. And initially, I think in the 1920s, it started trying to float another independent party called the Swaraj Party, which doesn't go anywhere. Right. So he's back. He's got the Muslim League. He's tried to build the Muslim League into a significant political force in India.

It's hard work. It's hard work. The Muslim League is not doing well in elections. And Gandhi is triumphant. I mean, you know, Satya Graha is a very effective weapon. It's a very popular weapon. People can see that it works against the British. And Jinnah has nowhere to go.

He's also quite isolated because you've got other figures like Nairu, who are completely drawn into Gandhi's orbit. And again, Nairu is another thrusting young, Oxbridge-educated lawyer. Trinity College, Cambridge, very, very brilliant. from a rich UP family. So Neru and Gandhi are this extraordinary double act. They're very different.

Neru is young, handsome. He, in years to come, we know we'll embrace big dams. Dams will be the new temples. He's very secular. He doesn't use specifically Hindu language in his speeches. He's suave, clever and very glamorous. but a very different figure. Yes.

Very, very, he's a huge, huge fan of Gandhi and loves Bapu, as he calls it. So that's right. So Bapu, the other moniker that Gandhi now goes by, which again is going to put Jinnah's back up again, because it means father. And a lot of people now are calling him Bapu, which is a grassroots word that has come up. And so Jinnah is left out of all this and comes back in 1934. And his big moment comes only in 1939 when the idiotic, frumpy, conservative, Scots, Toff, Lord Lin Lithgow, goes ahead and declares war on behalf of India without even bothering to call in the Congress leaders or any of the Indian Muslim leaders and conferring with them. And this leads to a situation where in 1942, when the Japanese have done this huge blitz-creeps to Southeast Asia,

and are on the very gates of India, Gandhi and the Congress leaders declare quit India and are immediately jailed. And this creates a major opportunity for Jinnah because two years before quit India in 1940, for the first time you get a formal demand for a separate homeland, Pakistan, in the Lahore Declaration. And many historians, particularly Aisha Jalal, who will be joining us in a minute, thinks that this was just a bargaining tool, that he didn't actually want. He didn't mean it to break. He didn't mean it to break. He wanted to use the threat of this and use this declaration as a means to pressurize both the British and the Hindus to give minority rights encoded for the Muslims so that they would never be endangered by a Hindu India, which even then was being. beginning to embrace the ideas of Hindutva and... Hindutvah being a hardline political, political Hinduism.

So this is the period when Savarka is coming up with ideas. He's looking at what's going on in... Again, Veer Savarka is a militant leader who spent time in London. Actually, sort of creating a bomb factory in Muswell Hill. Very interesting story. We might come back to it later. Oh, yes. So, yes, Via Savarka is, again, believes in violent overthrow.

So that is, that's historical. Which, of course, further worries the Muslims because they think they're going to be marginalized, they're going to be right on the edge of things. And it's partly this which accelerates the Muslim demand for a separate. But also, they've got a seat at the table now, because what happens is a difference now that happens. So after World War I, where Gandhi was fully involved in, we must fight for Britain. Britain's cause is just. I will go and fight myself if you give me the uniform, you know, all of this kind of thing.

and is so severely let down by the end of the war when nothing is delivered. No, in fact, they just get the Raul attacked, which we talked about in the episode on Jali Anaberg. This time round, Nehru, Gandhi, Indian National Congress are not having it. You do not declare war on India's behalf without talking to us. Who gives you the authority? We are Indians. This is India. You don't get to make that decision.

So the Indian National Congress leadership is against the war. They are telling people not to help Britain. They are telling people it's a complete opposite of what they said during World War I. And as a result, they are entirely scooped up and thrown into prison. So you have the whole decapitation of the Indian National Congress and hundreds of people are picked up and thrown in prison, which leaves the field clear for Jinnah and the Muslim League. And Jinnah already is now, not only has you got this,

if you take Isha Jalal's version of it, certainly, because obviously this is highly disputed territory. Oh yes, we're going to hear from what she does. She is to Jinnah, by the way, what Ram Goua was to Gandhi. Absolutely, you know, we've got the Rolls Royce of historians on that. And this fantastic book, The Soul Spokesman, that remains the great work on Jinnah. And so not only according to Aisha is Jinnah using the 1940 Declaration to pressurize for Muslim minority rights and saying that this is, and he's telling his friends privately that, you know, we don't really want this.

We're just going to use this as a bargaining chip. But this begins to go out of hand because the Muslims now, many of them do decide that they, whatever Jinnah thinks that they want this separate homeland with the growing RSS. They think they're not safe in India. And you see a massive increase in support for the Muslim League. Earlier, Congress was really the only game in town and the Muslim League. pick up very few votes in the elections. But with the Congress leaders in jail with increasing polarization,

you now see the popularity of the Muslim League increasing enormously and Muslims now decide to vote en masse for the Muslim League and not for the Congress. And those who believe in divide and rule, so part of the Muslim League success is that Britain has four years been fostering this idea of a Muslim identity. So for the first time ever, people are asked to fill in forms where they tick, are you a Hindu or a Muslim?

or a Sikh, whereas, you know, once people were Indians. And this has been going since, what, the 1916? I mean, since around the time of the First World War, you've had these separate electors. And this is something that Jinner, yeah, yeah, that's important. And this is something that Jinnah initially strongly opposes. Yeah, but now it's actually helping him. It's helping him because there is now an identity going. When he first got elected in, was it 1916, to the electoral council, I think it is as a Muslim member.

So although he actually opposes this, it is something which, which acts obviously in his favour. So Jinnah is making hay while the Congress is in prison. And when the elections finally happen after the war, the Muslim League enormously increases its vote share. And many, many Indian Muslims who previously supported Congress have gone over to the Muslim League. That Jinnah has worked very hard during the war

while Nero is sitting in prison writing his memoirs. Their wives are, their mother parents, everybody is. Everyone's a prison. Except, except. And Jinnah is also sort of cozing up to the British. And he's talking about the idea of a Pakistan, which will, he hints, be somehow in alliance with the British, with Great Britain.

And he's reaching out to people like Churchill and floating the sort of idea that somehow, you know, all these sort of anarchic congressman may not be against you, but we're loyal, even if there is independence, you can depend on us, the Indian Muslims, for support. So all these ideas are beginning to be floated. But again, privately, Jenner is apparently telling his supporters that this is a bargaining chip, that he's going to use it to shore up minority rights, and to frighten the congressman into conceding things that otherwise they might not concede.

So I know when Aisha comes on very shortly, describes his legal mind that these are all strategies that a barrister would use to win a case. But I've also heard him described as a chess player that he goes, you know, if I move this here, this will go there and then I can move this way. Exactly that. And where things begin to get wrong is in 1946, when Jinnah, who has had his nose put out of joint by various things that the Viceroy has proposed, says that we're going to have to respond with direct action day. And this is the 16th of August, 1946, and this is the moment that serious, large-scale communal environments begins to break out. in India. And in that sorrowful vein, I think we ought to bring in Isha Jalal because this is almost it's a precursor to what will become partition. It's the kind of communal violence on a scale

massive scale that gives you an indication of what is around the corner. And what is new about it is that you have suddenly a population that has lived cheek by jowl in areas that are mixed all over India. Suddenly now you find such violence that Hindus begin to move into Hindu areas, Muslims begin to move into Muslim areas, and you get horrors for the first time. The book I always, I remember being horrified by when I was first reading this was Niroad Chowdhury's memoir. And he talks about a group of Hindus tying down a Muslim to the railway tracks in Calcutta. This is a deeply upsetting listen to story. So if you'll scream, it should skip forward 30 seconds. If you don't like, if you don't want, excuse me, but just to give a measure of the sort of horrors.

And they say that there was, there's this engineer there and he's got a drill. And he drills a hole in the guy's skull so that blood will drip out slowly and he will die slowly. And he times it on his Rolex watch. That's the sort of Nirad Chowdhury precise observation that makes you horrified. He also talks about when he goes to Delhi later on, he sees these middle class women breaking into a looted Muslim cosmetic shop. and just helping themselves to hand cream. It is a strange way to introduce our guest. But Aisha Jalal, thank you so much for joining us on the Empire podcast.

We were just talking about Direct Action Day. We're just trying to get our head around Direct Action Day. Perhaps tell us from your perspective, why did that happen? After the 45, well, 45, 46 elections, the Muslim League got the largest number of votes in Punjab, some 70 odd. but it was locked out of power because the Akali, the panthic Sikhs, would not forge an alliance with them. And so the Congress and the rump of the British collaborators in Punjab, unionists, they formed a ramshackle government. And the Muslim League party was incensed and they took to direct action.

The direct action in Calcutta got out of hand. Could you, again, for those that don't know, what do you mean by out of hand? Oh, what happens in Calcutta is that there is the city's gangs try to use the day, which has been declared a holiday, and there's a carnage that has carried out. And it's the underworld. Calcutta underworld plays a very crucial role and things get completely out of hand. What's the sort of scale of the bloodshed on that day? Thousands and thousands and thousands of people are killed. I mean, sort of. And Jena, and it's laid, the blame is laid on Jena's door by many. And I mean, all I can say is that I don't believe that Jena was directly responsible.

He was responding, I mean, he didn't expect this to happen. I mean, it was certainly not something that he was calling for. Some historians blame Surawadi, the Muslim leader in Calcutta. Do you think he must bear responsibility for the beginning of this bloodshed? I mean, insofar as he, it was under his, you know, watch, he has to take some. responsibility, but my understanding is that it wasn't necessarily his goons who were going and doing it, but it was the Calcutta underworld. It was a circumstantial situation that led to this. The direct sort of the political marches that then turned violent, the numbers that we have,

the estimates that we have of people hurt, 15,000 injured, an estimated 10,000 people killed, five days of violence. The British don't come out for five days to quell it, and then this violence spreads like a wildfire to other parts of India. And for men, Than Punjab. Punjab, indeed. And for many, this is the first indication, or even just a precursor of what might happen if there is partition.

This is the very first time that on this scale, Hindus and Muslims are fighting and life is lost in this way. And killing each other in a massive... And killing each other for politics, you know, for this notion of what will come after the British leave. So that is something very new to the consciences on both sides, is what I'm saying. And it should, I mean, surely, I mean, this is, you know, for people who are younger like myself,

we look back and go, my God, you saw all of that bloodshed on both sides. You both saw this. Did it not make you stop? Did it not make you think there must be another way because it will just be amplified, as you quite rightly say, to the nth degree, if this country is partitioned? Well, I mean, that's the point, that's the question that was asked of Nero. How could you do this? And he said we were very tired.

old men. That's what Neru famously said. But you know, from another perspective, I do think that we read into the situation and assume things that were perhaps not there. I mean, I believe that despite the violence, there was also always an opportunity for some reconciliation and some sort of an agreement. I mean, when people say, when did partition become inevitable, I say, well, it never did. It's Just sort of, you know, if you look at the situation closely from Punjab's perspective, where nobody thought their province would be partitioned, I mean, what we haven't discussed is that, you know, 1945, 46 elections were held without clarification that a vote for Pakistan could result in the partition of Punjab and Bengal.

So, I mean, it's really dubious basis on which elections are held. And once the Muslim League wins the elections, it's clearly demanding undivided Punjab and Bengal for Pakistan. So that's the real problem. I mean, and when people found themselves on the wrong side of the divide once June 3rd plan is announced, I mean, if you were a minority, you became a victim. And if you were a majority, you somehow could have become a perpetrator of the violence. So that's the tragedy at the end of the day.

But I would sort of complicate the problem. I mean, you've ascribed all the ills to the violence and not. sufficiently to the political failures that led to the violence. So Radcliffe comes in, begins to draw his line. What's Jinnah's reaction when he realizes that he's going to receive much less than he'd hoped for? Well, I mean, it's kept a secret, isn't it? I mean, the decision to partition he's opposed to in principle, but he's never told

what he's getting until after the 14th of August, because Mountbatten delays the, I mean, publicizing the Ratcliffe Boundary Award in Punjab. And what is his reaction when he sees it? He's furious because Guadaspur is awarded to Congress, even though Kurdaspur had a Muslim majority, because they wanted to give the India access to Kashmir. Mountbatten is on, his papers make it clear that he told Nehru he couldn't have Kashmir, and Nehru wept.

So he had to be given Kashmir. And he calls it, Jyna calls it a mutilated mothetan. Truncated mutilated mothetan, Pakistan. And he used that that word first in 1942. And that's exactly what he does get eventually in 1947. And he tells Manbatten, he wants an award. He wants undivided Punjab and Bengal to be awarded to him. And Manbatten says, nothing doing.

And he says, well, I can't accept. And he says, if you can't accept, then I'll accept on your behalf, Mr. Jinnah. So that's a squeeze play for you if there is one. And by this stage, violence is spreading in all directions. Violence spreads, I mean, after the Calcutta killings of August 46, the real violence begins when with the announcement by Attlee, the British are quitting by June 1948. The first casualty is the unionist government in Punjab.

Khizhar Hayat resigns and there's violence in Ravlpindi. absolutely horrific violence that sort of combs through Punjab. So I mean, I talk about different cycles of violence, but the one that really, I mean, after June 3rd, the violence is much greater. Is it inevitable this violence, do you think, or is it organized and actually provoked? That's really an excellent question. And I think that I will say that nobody can take away the discursive aspects

of Hindu-Muslim differences, political differences, and what people made of them. But the evidence is overwhelming that it was not organized violence by the high commands of either the Congress or the Muslim League, or for that matter. I mean, at some level, you can say the RSS and the Muslim League National Guard

can be implicated in certain locales. But this was not a planned arrangement. What did happen, on the other hand, is that when you demarcated certain areas as going to India and certain as going to Pakistan, minorities who found themselves on the wrong side were targeted. Their properties were taken over. By who? By men who I call not, I mean, I call them banded individuals. They were frequently demorb soldiers because the demobilized soldiers of the

Second World War who were disaffected played a very crucial role in the heightened violence of Punjam. Because they've got guns. Guns and training. Homemade bombs, homemade bombs. So, so what basically happened was, that in certain locales where they were armed, where men acquired ammunition, they were able to bring about a change in the balance of power. They could go anywhere, grab the properties, grab whatever they wanted. That's what happened. And there was no one to counter them. The Boundary Commission was wrapped up. So that's basically what happened.

The British troops are kept in barracks. The British didn't want to get their hands dirty in what they regarded as India's periodic communal violence or communal madness, as they called. They didn't want to get implicated. As it was, the bureaucracy and the police had got thoroughly politicized during the war years by Congress and lead propaganda. And the British didn't want to get involved. I mean, the references being made to the level of the bureaucracy and the army in the 40s was that they reached oriental standards in terms of bias. So the British were really, really concerned not to get involved. But that only made things that much worse.

The turmoil that's going on in the country, there is also sort of turmoil going on within Jinnah's body. At this point, when does he discover that he's a very ill man? Oh, he knows, I think, much earlier. I mean, you know, I know that there are people who think that if Mr. Jinnah had died before 47, there would have been no partition. But I really think that this is again putting everything squarely on Jinnah's personality and forgetting that.

Mr. Jinnah was a vakeel, a lawyer, representing the interests of certain Muslim interests. Those interests were not going to die away with Jinnah. So I think this is a rather unfortunate presumption that had we known that Jinnah was dying, we would not have partitioned. I think they would have to have arrived at a different kind of arrangement for this to happen. You can't just sort of think that Jinnah was the only reason for partition. I think that's a very myopic view. Sure, but many people who were there at the time and who were not ill-disposed to the aspirations of the Muslim League or were interested in preserving minority rights,

maintained that if you'd had a more pliable, you've had a more warm, less tired, less ill, if you had Liacatali Khan, for example, that there wouldn't have been the bitterness, there wouldn't have been the level of hatred which there was by this stage. Do you think that's wrong? I think Jinnah not being there would have created a slightly different dynamic, but it would not have wished away the Muslim demand for a Pakistan. Now, to say that Mr. Jinnah was only bargaining, I mean, here again, I feel that this again suggests that it was only Jinnah's, you know, evil presence that did this, which ignores a whole history of political dynamics in South Asia, I mean, in the regions. It just ignores regional politics, all.

together. When partition takes place, Jinnah keeps his house on Malabar Hill and obviously thinks that he can go still backwards and forwards and that it's going to be an open border and that maybe even India and Pakistan will be friends. When do you think that the reality begins to dawn on him that it's going to be a very, very bitter divorce? Well, I think that he never thought this would come to, I mean, it would come to that. Let me give you some examples. People that I interviewed at the time I was writing this old spokesman told me, who knew him very well and his sister, Fatima Jena, that this one woman told me that she interviewed Fatima and asked her. So what are you going to do with this Orange-Lebe Road house in Delhi? And she said, oh, we'll keep it. We'll keep coming and going.

And then in 1945, he's buying a house in Shimla. In 1947, he calls, he wants to call the first meeting of the Pakistan Constituate Assembly in Delhi until Nehru says there is no room for Mr. Jana here. And his vision of his Pakistan is one where Hindus can live, where Sikhs can live, where they can practice their own faith. And that's something that's, you know, I think forgotten a lot. What does he actually say about the pluralism of the new Pakistan? This has nothing to do with the business of the state.

You're free to go to your temples. You're free to go to your mosques. And he says, in time, this will cease to matter anyway. this is what he says in his famous 11th August 1947 speech the first it gives to the Concession Assembly. And finally, finally, when we speak to Ramachandra Gha, he was, and I said something which startled a lot of the British listeners to this podcast, that in India, were it not for his international reputation, there is a great move to try and wash the collective memory of Gandhi by the present incumbent. He's inconvenient. His ideas of

pluralism and nonviolence and well pluralism mostly and and everything else that comes with it are an anathema to some people in power. In Pakistan, I've heard you say and I'm going to say it in the way that we might understand it, that there's almost a bracelet of what would Jinnah do, he would do what I'm doing. You know, it's a sort of rush to claim Jinnah as a trump card for every action that goes on. Can you just speak to that and just wrap us up with what would he think of Pakistan if he looked at it today? I think he'd just be appalled and he would just be lost because there's nothing there. I mean, the biggest tragedy for the man who liked to project himself as a defender of minority rights, Pakistan's dismal record on minority rights would appalled him. He was a man who was known to be a stickler for constitutional law and rule of law.

he fathered a country where the rule of law is a joke, where whoever comes defines the law. So I think at every level, Jena, I mean, this is a country that has turned its back on the vision of the man of what he wanted, a moderate democratic country. But that said, everybody still uses him for their purposes to claim that they are the best representatives of Jinnah's dream. So that's the kind of paradox that Pakistan is facing. I see it actually as hopeful.

It's only when they completely abandoned Jinnah, which I thought they would under after Zia. It hasn't happened. So there's clearly some tension still there to be resolved. And that gives those of us who think that we understand Jena or what he wanted, some hope that the struggle is still on. But in that sense, is he a tragic figure that someone who worked so hard to create something that would now appall him?

Well, I don't know. I mean, it's how you look at things. But my own sense is that the way Pakistan has disappointed him, I mean, in every way. People criticize him. They point out that he took draconian measures against the frontier ministry. But I do make the distinction about Jinnah doing things as Governor General in the immediate aftermath of a devastating partition. And yet still doing things through.

the rule of law, something that his successes have completely abandoned ever since. I think that's the bigger tragedy than the fact that Jinnah died as soon as he did. I think it's the vision and what he wanted that is the bigger tragedy. Isha Janelle, thank you very, very much. From me, William Dalrymple. And from me, Anita Arnden. We'll be back with Empire. Same time next week.