Coalition governments and compromise policies

"Proportional representation is often defended on the grounds that it leads to coalition governments and compromise policies. But compromises – amalgams of the policies of the contributors – have an undeservedly high reputation. Though they are certainly better than immediate violence, they are generally bad policies. If a policy is no one’s idea of what will work, then why should it work? But that is not the worst of it. The key defect of compromise policies is that when one of them is implemented and fails, no one learns anything because no one ever agreed with it. Thus compromise policies shield the underlying explanations which  do at least seem good to some faction from being criticized and abandoned."

The voters are not a fount of wisdom

"In this view, any interpretation of the democratic process as merely a way of consulting the people to find out who should rule or what policies to implement misses the point of what is happening. An election does not play the same role in a rational society as consulting an oracle or a priest, or obeying orders from the king, did in earlier societies. The essence of democratic decision-making is not the choice made by the system at elections, but the ideas created between elections. And elections are merely one of the many institutions whose function is to allow such ideas to be created, tested, modified and rejected. The voters are not a fount of wisdom from which the right policies can be empirically ‘derived’. They are attempting, fallibly, to explain the world and thereby to improve it. They are, both individually and collectively, seeking the truth – or should be, if they are rational. And there  is an objective truth of the matter. Problems are soluble. Society is not a zero-sum game: the civilization of the Enlightenment did not get where it is today by cleverly sharing out the wealth, votes or anything else that was in dispute when it began. It got here by creating  ex nihilo . In particular, what voters are doing in elections is not synthesizing a decision of a superhuman being, ‘Society’. They are choosing which experiments are to be attempted next, and (principally) which are to be abandoned because there is no longer a good explanation for why they are best. The politicians, and their policies, are those experiments."

The unseen cemetery of invisible consequences

"Governments are great at telling you what they did, but not what they did not do. In fact , they engage in what could be labeled as phony “philanthropy,” the activity of helping people in a visible and sensational way without taking into account the unseen cemetery of invisible consequences."

Jinnah - out-manoeuvring of his opponents

"Jinnah's main concern during this period was to bring Hindus and Muslims together politically. He felt this would ensure him a more secure place in India's public life. He worked hard to see that the coming annual sessions of both the Congress and the League took place in Bombay. To create the right atmosphere for unity he persuaded the President-elect of the League Mazhar-ul-Haque to take the lead and extend a hand of friendship to the Hindus. For this move Jinnah received wholehearted support of the Congress but some sections of the League were strongly opposed to it for they feared that it would destroy the independence and importance of their organisation. Despite Haque's assurance that there was no question of the League merging with the Congress, Hasrat Mohani and others mounted a virulent attack on Jinnah. They denounced him as an agent of the Hindus. They said he neither looked nor behaved like a Muslim nor did he speak their language; they accused him of lacking in knowledge of the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet. How could such a Muslim speak on their behalf, they asked. Haque was aghast at the intensity of their attack; it was followed by violent demonstrations against Jinnah. In the commotion Haque adjourned the meeting; this was then held the following day behind closed doors at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay. Jinnah mobilised his supporters and managed to get a resolution passed authorising the President of the League to appoint a committee to formulate a scheme of political and administrative reforms in collaboration with the Congress. It was to be then jointly presented to the British. In the game of power politics he was able to show that he could easily out-manoeuvre his opponents."

Jinnah and public

"Subsequently during his election campaigns he cultivated the Muslim voters belonging to different sections. All of them were much appreciative of his sincere efforts for the welfare of the community. Jinnah was courteous and considerate to them but not easily accessible to anyone on a personal basis. He always kept the public at arm's length; he was happy to plead for them but did not want to mingle with them. Once one of his colleagues requested him to shake hands with people at receptions. Jinnah was irritated: "If I shake hands with one I shall have to shake hands with all. And there is no time for that.""

Jinnah–The opportunist

"Despite his resolute opposition to the introduction of separate electorate for the Muslims, Jinnah did not hesitate to take personal advantage of it and contested the election to the Viceroy's Executive Council from the reserved Muslim constituency of Bombay and got himself elected. The voters disregarded his opposition to reservation and were carried away by his brilliant advocacy at the bar and his arresting personality. He was the first non-official Muslim to sit on the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1910."

Jinnah–condemnation of the provision of reserving separate seats for the Muslims

"However despite the protest by the Congress, the provision for separate electorate for the Muslims was made by the British in the Indian Councils' Act of 1909. In the twenty­ fifth session of the Congress at Allahabad in 1910, Jinnah moved a resolution condernning the provision of reserving separate seats for the Muslims, especially in its application to municipalities, district boards and other local bodies. He said it would sow the seed of division between the Hindus and the Muslims and keep them politically apart."

Jinnah’s animosity towards League

"The Aga Khan. who was elected as the first President of the League, pointed out subsequently that Jinnah was "our doughtiest opponent in 1906". He had publicly denounced the League's . communal move. In the words of the Aga Khan, "Jinnah came out in bitter hostility towards all that I and my friends had done and were trying to do". He opposed the League's stand of favouring separate electorate for the Muslims and described it "as a poisonous dose to divide the nation against itself ". He collaborated with the Congress and actively worked against the Muslim communalists, calling them enemies of the nation. He had been much influenced by the speeches of Naoroji, Mehta and Gokhale whom he adored. Naoroji as Congress President had emphasised the need for "a thorough union of all the people" and pleaded with Hindus and Muslims to "sink or swim together. Without this union, all efforts will be in vain," he added. Jinnah was in full agreement with this view. He deprecated the contrary separatist policy advocated by the League."

Jinnah and question of separate electorate for Muslims

"The Muslim leadership of that time was, however, not in tune with Jinnah's unqualified nationalism. They did not like the idea of uniting with the Hindus without obtaining the maximum safeguards for the Muslims. They carved out a separate political path for the community. On October 1, 1906, over fifty Muslim leaders from all over India met the Viceroy Lord Minto in a deputation and presented him a memorandum incorporating their special demands. In his reply the Viceroy assured them that ". . . I am as firmly convinced as I believe you to be that any electoral representation in India would be doomed to mischievous failure which aimed at granting a personal enfranchisement regardless of the beliefs and traditions of the communities composing the population of this continent." Minto assured them of separate electorate which goaded them to form the All-India Muslim League in Dacca on December 31, 1906. Jinnah reacted strongly against it. He organised, along with a few friends, a countermove in · · Calcutta at the same time to warn the Muslims not to succumb to the British policy of "divide and rule" which was being endorsed by the newly formed League. He said it would eventually harm the Muslims and deprive them of participation in national life."

Jinnah: Opposition to All-India Muslim League

"The partition of Bengal by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, had led to violent agitation in the province; it had also spread to other parts of India. Muslims favoured the divide since they were in a majority in the Eastern part but Jinnah took a stand against it. He stood solidly by the agitating Hindu Bengalis and denounced Lord Curzon for his unpatriotic action which had generated discord between the Hindus and the Muslims. Strangely, in 1947, he was the person mainly responsible for partitioning Bengal on the ground that Hindus and Muslims could not be lumped together. They needed separate homelands, free from the domination of each other. In 1906 Jinnah even refused to join the All-India Muslim League, founded in Dacca as a counter force to the Congress. But much later, he made the same League the instrument for dividing India and lorded over it as its supreme leader for almost a decade from 1937 to 1947. Earlier Jinnah used to be, in fact, horrified at the sycophancy exhibited by the Muslim aristocrats to the British and publicly opposed the need to form the League. He criticised its leaders for the hostility they displayed against the Hindus and the divisive stand they took in politics."

Jinnah’s dislike for Sir Syed Ahmad Khan

"Jinnah too felt more comfortable with the westernised Parsis than the orthodox Muslims involved in politics especially since they were guided by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan whose politics he disliked. He was particularly disturbed with their subservient attitude to the British rulers. He found the Congress, which the Syed opposed bitterly, more to his liking."

Early Jinnah and Indian Muslims

"Along with law, political developments in London also began to interest Jinnah. He admired the British for their sense of fair play and their adherence to the democratic system. All through those years Jinnah showed no interest in the Muslims ·of India or the difficulties they faced. In fact their loyalist stance. in politics appalled him. He was then all for the Congress; its non-communal, nationalistic stand enthused him. In private conversation he often bitterly criticised Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the pre-eminent Muslim leader, for his opposition to the Congress and for his exhortation to the Muslims to keep away from it. That is why in the early twenties when the Muslims started a movement for turning the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, founded by the Syed at Aligarh, into the Muslim University, Jinnah took no part in it, condemning it as a sectarian move to which he refused to subscribe."

Jinnah and the great law givers

"Many years later, when Jinnah was anointed Quaid-i-Azam (or the Great Leader) by his Muslim followers in the late thirties, he gave a different reason for his choice of Lincoln's Inn. He said it was because he saw a portrait there of Prophet Muhammad in the company of great law makers. The occasion was a reception to felicitate him which was organised by the Bar Association of Karachi; "I joined Lincoln's Inn," Jinnah declared, "because there, right at the entrance, I saw a picture of the Prophet included among the great law givers of the world." In fact there is no such picture in Lincoln's Inn. What is more shocking is that Jinnah did not know that any representation of the figure of the Prophet is strictly prohibited in Islam. Books showing any such depiction have been burnt by zealous Muslims. But by then Jinnah had cast such a spell on the Muslims that they overlooked his heretical pronouncement without even a murmur of protest. There is a fresco in Lincoln's Inn painted by G.F. Watt depicting great law givers; in these, some Pakistanis have recently discovered a figure which they claimed represented Prophet Muhammad, but it bears not the slightest resemblance to him as he has been described in the Books of Traditions. This was only a contrived attempt to justify Jinnah's statement."

M.A. Jinnah

"At the time of seeking admission to Lincoln's Inn, Jinnah wrote in his application the family name ''Jinnahbhai". Although he had changed it to Jinnah in the school register, his passport carried the name Jinnahbhai. He was not comfortable with it; it did not fit into the western style which he was so keen to adopt. Hence just before he was called to the bar he wrote a letter to the masters of the Bench of Lincoln's Inn, requesting them to change his name from Mohammed Ali Jinnahbhai to M.A. Jinnah. After some hesitation, relying on the entry in the school register, his request was granted. The document of qualification, therefore, bore the corrected name, as he desired. And so he became M.A. Jinnah ever since."

Jinnah: early education

"Jinnah's date of birth as given by his father in the application for admission to the primary school was October 20, 1875; in the school register he was named Mohammed Ali, son of Jinnahbhai. After a few years, his aunt Manubai Peerbhai who resided in Bombay took Jinnah under her wing; she got him admitted first to Gokuldas School and later to the well­ known Anjuman-i-Islam. He was however not serious about his work at school and spent a great deal of time wandering in the affluent and elegant areas of south Bombay where the British had built some magnificent Gothic buildings. He also enjoyed going to the beach with friends rather than attending classes at school. The result was that his father grew apprehensive about his future; he brought him back to Karachi and admitted him in the Sind madrasa. But Jinnah's indifference to formal education persisted. Fin-ally he was sent to the elitist Christian Mission High School where he became so anglicised that he soon changed his name in the school register to Mohammed Ali Jinnah discarding the "bhai" from his father's name. It however remained Jinnahbhai in other records. He arbitrarily altered his birth date to December 25 in order to coincide it with the birth of Jesus Christ. Even the missionary school could not make him overcome his aversion to studies and he dropped out without appearing for the final matriculation examination."

Jinnah’s religiosity

"Muslim children are taught to read the Quran in Arabic at a very young age; they also learn many verses from it by heart; they are taught to pray namaz and to fast during the month of Ramadan by the time they turn seven. Jinnah could neither read the Quran, nor did he say his prayers nor fast in Ramadan. Even in the heyday of his communal leadership he said his prayers only on the occasion of Eid, and that too, merely as a demonstrative gesture. He did not perform the Haj either which is one of the cardinal articles of the Islamic faith."

Jinnah; change of sect

"No one knows when Mohammed Ali Jinnah was born; there are no reliable records to testify to his date of birth. The Karachi Municipality did not maintain a register of births and deaths until 1876; Jinnah was supposed to have been born in the city in or about 1870. His father belonged to the Khoja community which owes its allegiance to the Aga Khan. This sect is technically Shiite but observes several Hindu ceremonies and customs. In fact even their prayer or their manner of praying does not strictly conform to Islamic precepts; there is a vast difference not only between them and the dominant Sunnis but also other Shiite sects notably the Asnasharis who regard the Aga Khani beliefs and practices as being at variance with theirs. Until recently the orthodox Muslims of various schools did not recognise Aga Khani Khojas as true Muslims. Jinnah therefore did not have a purely· conventional Islamic background and hence in order to get "proper religious acceptance among the generality of Muslims, he changed his sect' much later and became an Asnashari."

The damning argument against Pakistan

"The damning argument against Pakistan is that it took a community spread through out the subcontinent, chopped it into several communities, gave it first one country and then two and left the others dangling in mid-air. People, who once possessed the culture, customs and history of a whole subcontinent were left with neither a nation nor an idea of themselves as a community. Pakistan was a double disaster for the Muslims in India: first they lost their sense of coherence and political strength in the Indian union along with their leadership and middle classes which migrated to Pakistan by the thousands; secondly, they were forever damned in India for having voted for Pakistan and broken the unity of India."

~ Akbar Ahmed (Pakistan's former High Cornmissioner to the United Kingdom)

Jinnah Gandhi comparision

"Jinnah, Gandhi’s greatest adversary, was a complex figure, and their relationship was full of strange paradoxes. Jinnah came from the same part of India as Gandhi, shared his language and culture, and was a lawyer like him. His family were first-generation Hindu converts. ‘Jinnah’ was a Hindu name and reflected the fairly common practice among Hindu converts of retaining part of their original name. Like Gandhi, Jinnah too adored Gokhale and regarded him as his political mentor. Like him, Jinnah had spent many years abroad. And although they worked out very different responses to India, both alike retained an outsider’s perspective. Neither of them was intimately familiar with Indian history or his own religious tradition. Unlike Gandhi, Jinnah was not religious and strongly disapproved of the introduction of religion into politics. He had married a much younger Zoroastrian girl, enjoyed alcohol, and had no objection to pork. He knew Gandhi’s charm and manner of establishing personal relationships, and carefully insulated himself against them. He spoke to him in English rather than their native Gujarati, shook hands with him rather than using the traditional Indian form of greeting with folded palms, and addressed him formally as ‘Mr Gandhi’ in preference to the more respectful ‘Gandhiji’. Gandhi, who had succeeded in winning over or at least commanding the deepest respect of almost all his opponents, including such strong-minded leftist leaders as Subhas Bose and M. N. Roy, failed before a man who was closer to him in many respects than his other opponents."

Is there always a solution?

"But this may be to say no more than that the problem has now escalated beyond all feasible resolution. This need not be a defeatist judgement, simply realistic. Destructive forces which spring from remediable causes can take on a lethal momentum of their own which there is finally no stopping. Perhaps it is now simply too late to staunch the spreading of terrorism. In which case there is no solution to the problem of terrorism – a proposition that would be impossible for most politicians to voice publicly, and one that is profoundly unpalatable to most other people, not least chronically up-beat Americans. Even so, it may be the truth. Why should one imagine that when there is a problem there is always a solution?"