Thank you... Mr Jinnah

Mr Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, has been in news recently in India, thanks to Mr Jaswant Singh, whose book on Jinnah has raised a furore in the subcontinent. A huge debate has started again on Jinnah's character, where some claim he was an opportunist who caused the partition of India on religious lines and called for 'direct action' leading to the carnage of thousands of Hindus, and others claim he was a learned barrister of elitist and secular view, who fought for the rights of muslims in pre-partition India. For whatever Mr Jinnah stood for, matters not to me in the current times.. but I do feel greatful to him for causing the great "vivisection" of India in 1947. The way I see the partition of India in 1947, with all its horrors and human tragedy, it was the fire from which emerged the sapling of the modern day nation of India, destined for glory as a great example for democracy, tolerance and achievement by human enterprise.

India before independence, did not seem to exist as a nation/entity; rather it was a neighborhood of states and nationalities, bound together only by geographical proximity and some common strands of religion, faith and race. Over 2000 years of foreign rule marked by repeated destruction at the hands of barbaric invaders, infighting amongst princely states ruled by unworthy hereditary rulers, and perpetual exploitation of the masses at the hands of the the rich and powerful by means of caste, creed and race, had mauled the very soul of this great civilization to its very core, that even today is marred by a general apathy amongst its people for everything that does not concern them directly and has bearing on their survival.

What Mr. Jinnah did in 1947, resulted in the "creation" of a strong and united entity called India from the amalgamation of erstwhile British colonies that comprised of the Indian subcontinent, by amputating the divisive and fundamentalist forces (read people who chose to create Pakistan) that did not believe in its history, culture, and soul, and bringing together the majority Hindus (and other non-muslims) - from all across India, making them shed their regional and linguistic associations and unite as one to create India. The horrors and human tragedy inflicted by the partition only made our founding fathers (read every citizen of independent India) ever stronger in their resolve to build this nation from their sweat and blood.

Had we not had to taste the horrors of partition in 1947, freedom would have seemed to come too easily and cheap, and with the mutually untrusting populace of Hindus and Muslims living in one country would only have Balkanized India, and we might have had to face a Kashmir in each and every state of India. How better could we have convinced so many sub-Indian nationalities to co-exist as one Nation, if not for the common threat from our ill-willed neighbors who were our so called brothers before partition.

Let me be clear that I do not intend to state that Hindus and Muslims can't coexist or that all Muslims belong to Pakistan and do not belong in India. I strongly believe that Muslims who chose to stay in secular India and consider it their motherland, are equal citizens of India. Partition however, did separate the majority of fundamentalist Muslims and those who did not associate themselves with the notion of a united India, from those who did.

What would have been even more horrible than partition, is to share a border with Iran and Afghanistan - home to the Taliban... Imagine, we could have been the fighting ground for the West against the Jihadis, and someday a nuclear missile targeted for Iran might have missed its target and fallen on Indian territory. Aren't we better off today??

Pakistan, although has been a pain in our a** throughout, but at the same time it has been a key motivation behind a lot that we have achieved so far as a nation, be it the strategic military might that we have established or the nuclear bomb, or just learning from them how not to be. :)

To summarize, with all my heart, I Thank You... Mr Jinnah.