It is not often that an 80-year-old portrait makes front-page headlines and dominates political discourse.
However, when the portrait is that of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, emotions will always run high. The upheaval at Aligarh Muslim University is not the first time Jinnah is causing a ruckus in India decades after his death in 1948.
Ironically, the last time Jinnah hogged the headlines in India to this extent was in 2005 when then BJP chief L.K. Advani described the founder of Pakistan as “secular” and an “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.”
What happened to Advani is well known, but less well remembered is the fact that the Congress also heavily criticised Advani' comments, lest we assume paranoia toward Jinnah is purely the preserve of the rightwing.
It's not hard to understand why there is so much anger toward Jinnah. From being a vocal proponent of Partition, in which an estimated 2 million people lost their lives in a communal frenzy, to calling for a 'Direct Action Day' that saw thousands losing their lives in days of communal violence in Kolkata in August 1946, Jinnah's record in the time leading up to Partition will find few supporters in India.
After the formation of Pakistan, Jinnah, more or less, brusquely pushed aside Lord Louis Mountbatten to become Pakistan's first governor-general, though his poor health made him woefully inadequate for such a role in a fledgling nation. Some historians argue that Jinnah's misplaced trust in an Islamic identity did not factor in ethnic differences and point to his decision in 1948 to make Urdu the state language of Pakistan as having laid the roots for the secession of East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) in 1971.
So, it appears, we have enough reasons to hate Jinnah, but was he the sole architect of Partition? Did Jinnah create the demand for Pakistan? These questions are pertinent to ask in a country like India, which had a median age of little less than 27 years in 2017—which means the majority of Indians were born 40 years after Jinnah died.
The first arguments for two nations, or the two-nation theory, were raised by the educationalist Syed Ahmad Khan, who in 1875 founded Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, which would later become Aligarh Muslim University. Khan argued that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist after Hindus in Benares (later Varanasi) sought to replace Urdu as the official language with Hindi in 1867.
The first 'formal' demand for a Muslim state was made at the 25th session of the All-India Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930 by the poet and philosopher Muhammed Iqbal.
Iqbal then said, “I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.”
Iqbal had been a proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity in his early days. Iqbal had mixed feelings for Jinnah. In his seminal work The Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru records Iqbal telling him, “What is there in common between Jinnah and you? He is a politician, you are a patriot.”
In later correspondence with Jinnah, Iqbal—who died in 1938—argued for self-determination for Muslims. There were other forces such as the landed classes, which were in favour of a Muslim state, much before Jinnah publicly espoused the demand for Pakistan at the Muslim League's annual session in Lahore in 1940.
Even if we argue that Pakistan wouldn't have emerged if it weren't for these handful of historical figures, we would be ignoring the role of the British Raj in instituting separate electorates to weaken the Independence movement and, of course, Hindu outfits such as the Hindu Mahasabha, which espoused a communal identity, alienating many Muslims.
Arguably, the widespread resentment of Jinnah is anchored in India's tenuous relationship with Pakistan and the sins of Jinnah's successors. However, what is lost in the din is the fact most of these key architects of Pakistan evolved in their political positions. For example, Jinnah was lukewarm to Mahatma Gandhi's espousal of the Khilafat Movement of the 1920s against the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate as it involved supporting an overtly religious cause. Jinnah even defended Bhagat Singh's actions before his execution.
India, and Pakistan for that matter, have not come to terms with the wounds of Partition. Merely removing an 80-year-old portrait will not help India better understand what Partition was, why it happened and whether religious wounds can be healed.
The larger question Indians must ask is whether popular resentment of Jinnah is based on his personal role or the larger ideology he espoused? If all symbols associated with the architects of Pakistan are to be removed, perhaps we should do away with the most famous work of Muhammed Iqbal, the man who first called for a separate Muslim state: Sare Jahan se Accha!