Review Article Review on Jinnah Papers

Abstract

Jinnah Papers, Edited by Z. H. Zaidi, First Series, Volume VIII: The States: Historical and Policy Perspectives and Accession (2003), pp. xxxix, 434, Rs. 500; First Series, Volume IX: The States: Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir (2003), pp. xliii, 654, Rs. 650; Second Series, Volume X: Quest for Political Settlement in India (2004), pp. xlviii, 775, Rs. 750; Second Series, Volume XI: Consolidating the Muslim League For Final Struggle (2005), pp. lxiii, 793, Rs. 750; and Volume XII, The Verdict For Pakistan (2005), pp. lv, 788, Rs. 750. Distributed by Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector-15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi 74900. In his review of Wolpert’s Jinnah of Pakistan,1 John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. envoy to India during J.F. Kennedy’s administration (1961-63), refers to the skewed impression sought to be created by the biographies of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and other Indian or proIndian accounts. In essence, it was that ‘Jinnah, by comparison [with Gandhi], seems a petulant, self-centered figure, who, out of pride, arrogance and ambition, exploited ruthlessly the Islamic grievances and obsessions of his followers to destroy the dream of one great unitary commonwealth on the subcontinent’. After poring over Wolpert, however, he felt that ‘This highly competent book by a major historian of modern India does something to alter the foregoing impression, especially as regards Jinnah’s early career’. And he concludes by saying ‘I read this book with gratitude and the wish, as regards my own education, that it could have been written much earlier’2