Book Review: Ishtiaq Ahmed's "Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History" attempts to understand Partition

Mohammad Ali Jinnah has been praised and dispraised for the partition of India. In his book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx says: “Men make their history, but they do not make it just as they please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past.” Core questions After bringing in Georgi Plekhanov, the author of the book The Role of the Individual in History, Ishtiaq Ahmed lists the core questions he would be addressing: If the Indian National Congress had categorically rejected the partition of India, would Jinnah have still been able to create Pakistan? The author’s ability to think contra-factually will be admired by the reader who might have expected him to raise one more question: After Jinnah called for Direct Action in August 1946, resulting in the Great Calcutta Killing with a grim toll of 4,400 dead, 16,000 injured, and 100,000 homeless, did the Congress have any choice but to agree reluctantly to partition as Jinnah’s clear message was that unless he got Pakistan, he would set fire to India? Ishtiaq Ahmed divides Jinnah’s political life into four stages: first as an Indian nationalist; then as a Muslim communitarian; next as a Muslim nationalist; and finally, as the founder of Pakistan. -It is nothing less than the pulling back of sixty-two millions of people from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition.” Ishtiaq Ahmed speaks of “the Congress’s blunders and Jinnah’s embrace of communalism”.