What were some of the effects of the partition of India?

Did people read "Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence" by Jaswant Singh and what are your comments and/or ideas about it?

• Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence is a book written by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaswant_Singh, a former Finance Minister of India and an External Affairs Minister, on Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the politics associated with the partition of British India. It is currently the latest book written by an Indian politician on the life of Jinnah. The book was released on 17 August 2009 and soon became the subject of controversy, subsequently leading to Singh's expulsion from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). It contains controversial opinions of Singh, claiming that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's centralized policy was responsible for partition, and that Jinnah was portrayed as a demon by India for the partition.

• Answer:

  I did read it and even wrote a review of it somewhere which is lost in the sands of the internet. Since it has been a while, some brief thoughts: First, it's not so much a biography of Jinnah - it's more of a book about Indian independence and partition. Since Jinnah is so central to both, and Jaswant feels Jinnah regularly gets short changed in Indian history the book has Jinnah in it's title, but it's definitely not a biography of Jinnah. It's well worth reading, especially if you've grown up being drip fed the standard Indian view of Jinnah, which from my Indian friends I can sort of summarise into "Meh. Jinnah. Whatever. Gandhi and Nehru are the giants of Indian history". Jaswant Singh makes the point that Jinnah was a tremendously important figure in Indian politics and perhaps more than any other Indian figure contributed to pushing India towards Independence. Jaswant says Jinnah was instrumental in pushing the entire Indian leadership towards Independence - including Gandhi, who is viewed by many today as someone who sprung forth fully formed, homespun clothing and all, and didn't need any urging and guiding in his politics. Jaswant Singh has done his fair share of hate mongering in the past, but in his book he basically says Pakistan is a country, and it was India's to loose and India should take some responsibility for Pakistan rather than always viewing it as this 'other' to be reviled and hated. About Muslims - Jaswant talks about that it wasn't just Jinnah who independently decided to create a Muslim state, there was a lot of collusion and ill will by many others which led Jinnah to demanding a separate state - which almost to the end Jinnah didn't want, rather he was seeking more representation for Muslims in India - and that too only after ill dealing by members of the Indian National Congress, particularly Nehru, lead Jinnah to drop the very idea of Hindu-Muslim unity. Jaswant agrees with Jinnah that Muslims were a oppressed minority in India and further Jaswant goes on to blame many of the Indian leaders for not leading the war forward in equality - for to deal with equality of minorities you also have to to think and deal with the Hindu caste system. I have read some of Nehru's writings, and he is a tremendously intelligent human and though some of Nehru's ramblings in say, his letters to his daughter from prison telling the story (story, not so much history) of the world are laughably incomplete and sometimes wrong the sheer knowledge and firepower Nehru lights up world history with is incredible. Jaswant's opinion of Nehru is that while Nehru was super smart, he was a slimey operator who was vain, egotistic and didn't let little things like the good of all India stand in his way to power. He puts a lot of blame on Nehru for not making any real efforts to work with Jinnah, and instead concentrating on building his own power base. Even Gandhi, who normally is spared in Indian books, gets some scorn for basically stepping out of politics when he could have been instrumental in preventing mass bloodshed during partition, and allowing Nehru to do whatever he wanted. Jaswant points out that Gandhi was such a powerful figure that part of Nehru's power came from Gandhi's blessing - but even when Nehru took steps which Gandhi wasn't ok with - like pushing for a separate state just to get rid of Jinnah so Nehru would finally be all powerful - Gandhi only made a couple of half hearted attempts to restrain his former prodigy and never withdrew his blessings from Nehru. Jaswant was a fan of Jinnah's idea of a weak center with strong states, and blames Nehru for wanting a strong central state and driving Jinnah to the point where he demanded a separate country altogether. This is a key takeaway from the book - that it wasn't Jinnah alone who created Pakistan, it was very much the Indian National Congress as well, assisted by the British who saw Pakistan as a millstone which would hold back India. For if there is one thing the British didn't want, Jaswant says, it was a strong independent India. Last but not least, Jaswant makes the point a few times that Jinnah didn't hate Hindu's. Which seems obvious considering Jinnah was the leader for Hindu-Muslim unity for many years, but that part has been forgotten by many in the BJP. There's lots more. It's an interesting book through out, though Jaswant is no writer and it's a hard slog to finish.