Click to play videoNew Delhi: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former finance and foreign minister Jaswant Singh has called Mohammed Ali Jinnah "a great Indian" and admitted that he has been "attracted by (and) drawn to" Jinnah’s personality.
In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate Jaswant Singh, who is presently a BJP MP from Darjeeling in West Bengal, spoke about the founder of Pakistan and also made his views clear on India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
When asked during the interview if he subscribed to the popular demonisation of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in India, Singh replied, "Of course I don’t. To that I don’t subscribe. I was attracted by the personality which has resulted in a book. If I was not drawn to the personality I wouldn’t have written the book. It’s an intricate, complex personality, of great character, determination."
Jaswant Singh credited Jinnah with creating Pakistan and claimed that he was the only one who challenged Congress party’s monopoly during the pre-independence days.
"Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly he stood against the might of the Congress Party and against the British who didn’t really like him ... Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don’t we recognise that? Why don’t we see (and try to understand) why he called him that?" said Singh.
"Oh yes. He fought the British for an independent India but also fought resolutely and relentlessly for the interest of the Muslims of India … the acme of his nationalistic achievement was the 1916 Lucknow Pact of Hindu-Muslim unity," Singh added.
Singh also said that what he admired most about Jinnah was his character and the fact that he was a self-made man.
"I admire certain aspects of his personality. His determination and the will to rise. He was a self-made man. Mahatma Gandhi was the son of a Diwan. All these (people) – Nehru and others – were born to wealth and position. Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved in Bombay, a metropolitan city, a position for himself. He was so poor he had to walk to work … he told one of his biographers there was always room at the top but there’s no lift. And he never sought a lift," he said.
In another startling claim, Singh said that the view held by many in India that Jinnah hated Hindus was a mistake.
He claimed that Indian leaders had not only misunderstood Jinnah but made a demon out of him. According to him the demonisation of Jinnah was a direct result of the trauma of partition.
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