Disservice to truth

Jinnah Papers: Pakistan Battling Against Odds 1 October-31 December, 1947; First Series Vol. VI; Editor-in-Chief Z.H. Zaidi; Quaid-I-Azam Papers Project, Government of Pakistan; Oxford University Press; pages 805, Rs.750.

THIS is the volume one had long been waiting for. The first volume of Sardar Patel's Correspondence 1945-50 appeared in 1971, containing Lord Mountbatten's detailed account of his meeting with Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Lahore on November 1, 1947, including the text of an offer he made in writing to his host plebiscite in Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh. Jinnah rejected it. A quarter century later, on November 27, 1972, President Z.A. Bhutto told a tribal jirga at Landikotal that Patel had, at one stage, offered Kashmir to Pakistan in exchange for Junagadh and Hyderabad; but, "unfortunately" Pakistan (read: Jinnah) did not accept the offer with the result that it lost not only all the three princely states but East Pakistan as well.

Hasan Zaheer was a bureaucrat by profession but proved himself to be a genuine scholar by sheer achievement, unlike some bogus scholars who are essentially scheming bureaucrats. His book The Times and Trial of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951 (Oxford University Press; 1998) is a masterpiece of its kind. There was considerable progress in talks on Kashmir on the sidelines of the meetings of the Joint Defence Council in New Delhi on November 8 and 26, 1947. Even a draft agreement was prepared by V.P. Menon, Mohammed Ali, Secretary-General of Pakistan's Cabinet, and Ismay, Mountbatten's aide. By November 27, the proposals had acquired a clear shape. Hasan Zaheer rendered high service to historical truth by revealing (page 120) a cryptic entry, dated November 30, Jinnah had made in the Notebook which reads: "Kashmir - no commitment should be made without my approval of terms of settlement. Mr. Liaquat has agreed and promised to abide by this understanding" (emphasis as in original). Hasan Zaheer rightly noted that this entry "can only be related to the November 27 Delhi negotiations".

Another entry of December 16 "lays down the absolute position" withdrawal of all the Indian troops from Kashmir and replacement of Sheikh Abdullah's government "by an Independent and impartial" regime; with "International police and military forces to restore peace" and maintain order. "It is only then that the question of plebiscite will have to be considered" (page 120). Zaheer cites the source in a footnote (188) on page 159 "Jinnah Papers, Notebook F-42". No Government of India could have accepted those terms and survived for a day. Jinnah was dictating surrender terms when he had all but lost Kashmir.

Neurosis and paranoia are natural companions. Governor General Jinnah did not trust Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Zaheer recorded: "The Cabinet had decided on 30 December 1947 that no question of policy or principle would be decided except at a Cabinet meeting presided over by the Quaid-I-Azam and that in the event of any difference of opinion between him and the Cabinet the decision of the Quaid would be final and binding" (page 121). This not only undermined the authority of the Cabinet; it destroyed parliamentary democracy. The Governor General was not responsible to the legislature; the Cabinet was.

No other issue has absorbed Pakistan's attention as much as Kashmir has. The dispute, simmering since the Partition, erupted in October. Hasan Zaheer's disclosures whetted appetite for this volume. It is altogether silent on Kashmir. Worse, of all the volumes in the series it is the least informative while retaining all the failings of its editor, Zaidi a passion for trivia and incompetent editing.

No bureaucrat could have improved on this obfuscation in his foreword: "In order to facilitate integrated projection of the subject, and given its especial (sic.) importance in the context of the partition, documents relating to the princely states have been grouped to form a separate volume due to appear later." When was this decision taken? To have a separate volume on the princely states "to facilitate integrated projection of the subject". For Volume V, published in 2000, had documents on Junagadh (see the writer's review "Jinnah and Junagadh"; Frontline, October 12 and 26, 2001). Previous volumes had records of his talks with representatives of Hyderabad. Either Zaidi or the government developed cold feet when it was time to publish the Jinnah papers on Kashmir.

Jinnah protested to the Nizam of Hyderabad in a letter of October 15 for "maintaining equality" between India and Pakistan while donating Rs.2 lakhs to each. Muslim Pakistan deserved more, he argued. This letter figures in this volume.

Sardar Patel's Correspondence, the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad's correspondence have a remarkable array of documents on Kashmir which critics of official policies quote freely. When will Pakistanis face the truth about the mess which Jinnah a great man, doubtless left behind?

Zaidi writes: "Documents of repetitive character such as requests for interviews and messages, congratulatory letters and applications for jobs have not been included." The volume has a rich sprinkling of them (pages 22 and 223, to cite only two).

But there is a fundamental flaw. These, after all, are Jinnah papers. Why then include correspondence between others - Mountbatten and Ismay, Liaquat and his envoys and the envoys to the Foreign Office? Or the details of Pakistan's parleys with Afghanistan? Most of the documents do not relate to Jinnah.

The division of the Muslim League was decided by its Council at Karachi in December 1947. All that we have are published documents; surely Jinnah had some papers of his own on the matter.

The only real disclosure and one of truly historical significance is the little known correspondence between Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru and Suhrawardy in October 1947 on the question of the minorities. It is not drawn from Jinnah's papers but from the U.S. National Archives. Suhrawardy gave it to the U.S. Consul-General in Calcutta, Charles O. Thompson.

Unlike S. Gopal and other editors of papers, Zaidi himself discovered the Jinnah Papers braving all odds. But he latched on to them and carved out a fiefdom for self-promotion. This volume, uniquely, has his photograph with Dina Wadia, Jinnah's daughter whom the author describes as Dina Jinnah. He extracted from her a line of thanks, which is reproduced in photostat.

Zaidi's services as a discoverer are not in doubt; nor his incompetence as editor. This one confirms suspicions of self-promotion, widely aired in Pakistan. His greatest service to the truth lies ahead of him. For, nothing will promote the project more than that he should relinquish his hold over it.