Book Review

Sikandar Hayat, The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Creation o f Pakistan Oxford University Press, 2014 Price: PKR 1S9S/- - PP. 520Reviewed by: Prof. Dr. Saeed Shafqat (FC College University, Lahore)

In the last four decades, particularly after the break-up o f Pakistan in 1971, d ifferent in terp re ta tions have em erged on the creation o f Pakistan. Some have argued th a t the place was ‘insufficiently im agined’, ano ther claims it was used as ‘bargaining co u n te r’ to m axim ise concessions from the colonial ru le r; o thers have equated its b ir th w ith ‘shameful flight’ o f the British and yet o ther scholars are still trying to ‘m aking sense o f Pakistan’ . W hile a m o re recen t study has characterised the creation o f Pakistan as ‘M uslim Z ion ’ -- calling the ‘re jection of old land for the n ew ’, fallaciously equating the creation o f Pakistan w ith the m aking o f Israel. T he questions on the nature, origins and circum stances o f Pakistan’s b ir th have also roused considerable in te rest on the ro le and leadership o f Jinnah- the founder and crea to r o f Pakistan.

M ost o f these studies have looked at Jinnah as som e kind o f passive b y ­stander; w hether he is po rtrayed as ‘savior’, o r driven by personal am bition to be the ‘sole spokesm an’ o f Indian Muslims, o r because th ere was a ‘vacuum ’ and dearth o f leaders, hence Jinnah could em erge as filler or the hostility o f the Indian N ational Congress and M ohandas K. Gandhi, th a t p ro m pted his rise. It is ironic and sad that, un til 1993, the first volum e o f his collected papers could n o t be published; in Pakistan itself m any continue to see Jinnah, as ‘uncom fortab le father o f the n a tio n ’ . Patrick French has incisively rem arked th a t n e ither Indians n o r Pakistanis seem keen to claim him as a ‘real hum an being’; Pakistanis have confined him to ‘an appearance on the bank no tes in dem ure Islamic costum es’ . . . his achievem ent, howsoever, ‘flawed it m ay be, was phenom enal.’

Dr. Sikandar Hayat, in an updated and revised edition o f his book. The C harism atic Leader: Quaid-i-Azam M oham m ad Ali Jinnah and the C reation of Pakistan (Karachi: O xford U niversity Press, 2014) challenges these explanations and in terp re ta tions and draws a tten tion tow ards the centrality o f Jinnah as ‘the C harism atic L eader’, w ho w ith a com m itm ent o f purpose, integrity, dedication and unflinching su p p o rt from his followers, a t the m o st critical ju n c tu re in the

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history o f Indian M uslims offered the ‘form ula o f a separate sta te ’ tha t led to the creation o f Pakistan. In o ther words, creation o f Pakistan is neither the doing of the British n o r a gift o f Grace, as m any seem to believe. H e also dismisses the no tio n tha t Jinnah used the idea o f a separate state as a ‘bargaining co u n te r’ to seek concessions from the colonial ru lers. Dr. Hayat brings persuasive argum ents and evidence toge the r to m ake us believe th a t during the distressful period of 1920s, and 30 ’s for the Indian M uslims, Jinnah, v as m an o f the m om ent; princip led and determ ined , a m an w ith a m ission, w ho had a clear vision, a sense o f pu rpose and w ho knew how to accom plish it.

Dr. Hayat m akes a persuasive effo rt to recast, re-im agine, re - in te rp re t the histo ry o f Pakistan M ovem ent (1937-47) and the studies on Jinnah’s leadership by center-staging him as the ‘Charism atic L eader’, w ho was visionary, had an eye on the goal and pursued a strategy slowly and peacefully w ith dedication, determ ina tion and personal devotion to the cause. O f course, this phase o f Pakistan’s history is well researched and studied b u t leadership o f Jinnah has begun to a ttrac t scholars only recently. W hy Jinnah m atte red then? W hy is he relevant today and for tim es to com e? H ow studying his leadership is vital for understanding the adversarial circum stances u n d er w hich he provided n o t only hope b u t a concrete form ula to the dismayed and distressed M uslims o f undivided India. Dr. Hayat has been researching and refining th e concept and theory o f charism atic leadership for over tw o decades and in the process he provides a refreshing and insightful analysis o f the final phase o f Pakistan M ovem ent.

In focusing on charism atic leadership o f Jinnah, Dr. Hayat m akes th ree im p o rtan t con tribu tions in refining, synthesizing and expanding the theory o f charism atic leadership; first, connecting charism a w ith institu tionalization, second, dispelling the no tion th a t charism atic leadership is alw ays/ m ostly irrational, he highlights the rational dim ensions o f charism a, third , synthesizing personal a ttribu tes o f leadership w ith situational circum stances. All th ree contribu tions resonate and could be instructive for leaders and political parties in contem porary Pakistan.

I have found five chapters in his book o f particu lar in te rest and theoretically and conceptually enlightening (chapters 1, 3 ,4 , S and 7). In the first chapter. Dr. Hayat takes readers in to confidence by explaining w hat charism atic leadership is and why Jinnah excels as a charism atic leader? Like m any o ther scholars he also starts w ith the original source— M ax W eber, w ho defined, conceptualized and theorized the relevance and need o f the charism atic leader.

O perationalizing the concept o f charism atic leadership th rough the lens of W eber, Dr. Hayat goes beyond it and weaves the argum ents o f A nn R uth W illner, David Apter, R o b ert Tucker and D ankw art R ustow to po in t o u t the ex traord inary qualities o f his leadership and how such a leader is able to inspire ordinary

Book Review 245

citizens to follow his calling and they exalt him . Charism atic leader has ‘p rophetic qualities’, integrity, com passion, com m itm ent o f p u rpose and w ho is able to evoke devotion am ong his followers. A charism atic leader has em otional appeal am ong his followers, w ho bond, listen and follow the leader w ith devotion. These are ex traord inary and ra re qualities, w hich establish an unbreakable bond betw een the leader and the follower, thus charism a is as m uch a function of personal a ttribu tes b u t also fo llow er-judgm ent and bonding w ith the leader. Supernatural qualities and m yths abound and fo llow ers’ allegiance and obedience to the charism atic leader progressively grows. A ccording to Dr. Hayat, am ong the M uslim leaders during th a t period (see his chaptersS and particularly 4 on Leadership Crisis) Jinnah, was the only leader, w ho had these personal qualities and could establish personal ra p p o rt w ith distressed Indian M uslims. Thus, Dr. Hayat insists th a t charism a is a function o f both, ‘personal’ and ‘ situational’ factors and th a t aptly describes Jinnah’s ro le in the creation of Pakistan.

In th a t spirit. Dr. Hayat, amplifies the concept, adding th a t charism atic leader is sober, responsible and rational, and does have ‘passions’ b u t tem pered by ‘reason ’. In his analysis and theorization, Jinnah em erges as the charism atic leader w ho steers, guides course o f history and events and the decisions th a t he makes are ultim ately the best. The m asses charm ed by this ability, flock around him and follow his call. Invoking W illner, Dr. Hayat rem inds readers th a t while an ordinary leader may be respected by the followers, the charism atic leader, like Jinnah by sheer com m itm en t o f purpose, could com pel his follow ers to act upon his com m ands and obey--- this becom es m o re m eaningful w hen one looks at chapter 4, w here Dr. Hayat has real hard tim e developing a typology o f social elites, provincial leaders and traditional leaders and ulam a, w ho in the ir ovm righ t and locality had su p p o rt am ong followers b u t n o t the degree o f devotion th a t Jinnah was able to solicit from the M uslim masses across regions tha t w ere to constitu te Pakistan. This helps Dr. Hayat to gel personal factor w ith crisis situation and p resen t a synergetic perspective on charism atic leadership o f Jinnah, how th rough personal following he was able to rescue his followers from the crisis situation.

Dr. Hayat is conscious th a t the rise and fall o f charism atic leader could be ephem eral depending on the ‘crisis’ situation and need o f people a t the m om en t (think C hurchill a t the end o f Second W orld War, N krum ah at his fall); however, he points o u t th a t Jinnah was d ifferent as he did n o t rely only on personal a ttribu tes b u t m ade consistent efforts to develop M uslim League as a political party— w hich is a hard sell. This dim ension is explained and in te rp re ted w ith rigou r and evidence in chapter 6. In chapter 7, Dr. Hayat, highlights Jinnah’s fo rtitu d e and political skills to resist C ripps and C abinet M ission Plan th rough which, according to him , the British aim ed to p reserve the unity o f India and

246 Pakistan Vision Vol. 18 No. 1

oppose ‘Jinnah’s concept ojsovereign Pakistan o j all the six Muslim majority provinces, that is, the Punjab, NWFP, Sind, Baluchistan, Bengal and Assam’. However, by m anaging and steering the factional politics o f the M uslim m ajority provinces, Jinnah was efficacious in p resenting M uslim League as the sole rep resen tative body o f M uslims, and after due deliberations w ith in the League and tough negotiations w ith the British he accepted the P artition Plan th a t paved the way for the creation o f Pakistan.

In this perspective, he adds theoretical rigo r by pointing o u t how som e ex traord inary leaders are able to ‘rou tin ize’ charism a in a social o r political institu tion and in case o f Jinnah, Dr. Hayat argues th a t som e o f his charism a was inevitably placed in the M uslim League, as the people saw it strictly as Jinnah’s party. Therefore, the a ttrac tion o f a charism atic leader becom es tw o-fold: firstly, th ere is the allure o f the ir personality, and secondly, even m o re tantalizing, is the favour o f the social positions they can confer, perhaps upon a particularly devoted follower. In this sense. Dr. Hayat has m ade an enorm ous con tribu tion on leadership studies. Such a perspective could rouse g rea ter curiosity and perhaps m o re rigorous research on h ith e rto unexp lo red facets o f Jinnah’s leadership.

Dr. Hayat’s up -dated and revised version stops at the creation o f Pakistan in 1947, and thus invites others to reflect on Jinnah as G overnor G eneral o f Pakistan, could he still be considered charismatic? May be som e younger researchers and policy analysts w ould be tem p ted to te s t if Jinnah’s charisma holds beyond the creation o f Pakistan? T he study offers a new angle to leadership o f Jinnah and opens up fresh avenues on the subject. All those w ho are in terested in understanding why political will, clarity o f purpose, a sense o f vision, mission, in tegrity and dedication to a cause is essential for leadership, will find the study invigorating, inviting and instructive to understand the past and ch arte r fu tu re d irection o f Pakistan.

Book Review

THE CHARISMATIC LEADER: QUAID-I-AZAM MOHAMMAD ALI JINNAH AND THE CREATION OF

PAKISTAN By Prof. Dr. Sikandar Hayat

Oxford University Press, 2014, Second Edition. Xvi + 503,ISBN:978-0-l 9-906920-0.

Reviewed by:Dr. IlhanNiaz,Assistant Professor, Department of History,Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Sikandar Hayat’s The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan, now available in a revised edition from the Oxford University Press, seeks to explain the creation of Pakistan in terms of structures, ideas, and personalities. Hayat has long advocated the development and application of theories to South Asian studies and what sets The Charismatic Leader apart is the employment of Weber’s concept of charisma to the study of Jinnah’s rise and the realization of Pakistan.

At first glance Jinnah may seem to be an unlikely candidate for charismatic leader status. Normally, the use of the term “charisma” conjures up images of totalitarian ideologues like Hitler and Mao, military modernizers like Mustafa Kemal, or, more benignly, the dhoti-clad liberator of the Indian realm, Mahatma Gandhi. Jinnah, in contrast, was freakishly alienated from the mainstream of Indian culture and never took the populist pretensions of the Indian National Congress (INC) leaders seriously. In a society steeped in arbitrariness, Jinnah was the arch-constitutionalist and liberal consensus builder. In an age of rising religiosity fueled by Gandhi’s and the Khilafatist’s propaganda Jinnah was decidedly out of place and would eventually be accused by his Muslim opponents of being an infidel. In a period where all manner of socialisms (from the National Socialism of Hitler to Stalinism and Fabian programs) were in style Jinnah resolutely resisted the urge to promise imminent utopia. And yet, Jinnah’s achievement as the founder of what was in 1947 the largest Muslim-majority state in the world and the restorer of Muslim political sovereignty over those territories of South Asia where they were demographically concentrated, is such that a serious explanation is in order.

Hayat’s theoretical starting point is that our understanding of Weber’s concept of charisma is flawed as it does not incorporate the post-First World War development in Weber’s thought. This development was that, disillusioned by the collapse of Imperial Germany, Weber came to regard rationality and sobriety as

231

core qualities of authentic charismatic leadership. The importance of personal charisma being institutionalized in the state or political party was equally important for otherwise charismatic leaders would be little more than demagogues with a death wish. Having clarified this important point, Hayat proceeds to provide the historical and socio-political context in which Jinnah operated and eventually emerged as the leader of the Muslims. In this Hayat identifies certain conditions that needed to be met for a charismatic leader to emerge.

The first condition is that of a crisis that has the potential to imperil the core interests of a group or a community. In the context of Muslim India this crisis had several dimensions. First, the Muslims were demographically in a minority and as India headed towards greater representation in local, provincial, and, eventually, central, governments, inferior numbers translated into reduction of the Muslims to the status of a permanent minority in most of the provinces and local government, as well as in the central government. Second, numbers aside, colonial representation was determined by educational, property, and income qualifications, and here, even in those territories where the Muslims were in a majority, they were underrepresented due to their backwardness. Third, as demands for self-government escalated during and after the First World War the question of British imperial succession became the central long-term issue of Indian politics. The Congress was quite clear on what it wanted - a British exit accompanied by handing over power to a strong central government that would operate on the basis of universal suffrage and pretend minorities were diabolical contrivances of the Raj. The local and provincial Muslim leaders had little to say about what kind of India would emerge if the British left and many hitched their wagons to the Congress hoping for some magnanimous concessions that might materialize after a centralized, majoritarian, democracy, under the Congress had come into existence. Hayat makes the case that among the Muslim leaders Jinnah alone had a long-term perspective on the evolving situation. He understood that the real question was the distribution of sovereign power and that the Muslims needed to get organized so that they too could have a say in what an independent South Asia might look like.

In terms of vision, Jinnah advocated a formula in the form of the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940 (dubbed the “Pakistan” Resolution by its critics). The formula was vague and deliberately so, but it held out the promise that sovereignty would be restored to the Muslims wherever they were in a majority. For Hayat, the ambiguity of the formula led people to read into their own preferences or fears, and it focused the attention of the Muslims, and the Muslim League, on a grand objective. Opposition to the “Pakistan” scheme served to lend it substance and turned it into a key component of Indian political discourse.

Actually organizing the Muslims to achieve this objective was a very difficult task and one in which Jinnah did not succeed as much he would have liked to. Still, the growth of the Muslim League between 1940 and 1945 was considerable, while the Second World War made it evident that the actual succession to British rule was at hand. Hayat explains in detail the mobilization strategy of the Muslim League, its activation of students, women, traditional elites, businessmen, and at least some ulema and the creation of a national coalition. The

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growth of the League was such that by 1946 it claimed all the Muslim seats at the center and nearly all at the provincial level. With such a resounding victory, the time for finally working out what Pakistan meant had arrived and here Jinnah was prepared to accept a sovereign Muslim India within an Indian confederation, or, failing that, an independent Pakistan with no constitutional connection to India. Once the Congress reneged on the Cabinet Mission Plan, which promised the former, Jinnah had no compunctions about doing what was necessary to carve an independent Muslim-majority state out of the British Empire in India and moving towards the latter option. For Hay at, the creation of Pakistan and its consolidation meant that Jinnah’s mission had been accomplished and his charisma was routinized in the new state.

So, at a structural level, the demand for Pakistan was the outcome of internal asymmetries of demography, economy, and socio-political consciousness, which had emerged during the British Raj. These asymmetries, barely managed by concessions, reforms, and repression, threatened to permanently erase the Muslims as a political community and became unmanageable as the British Empire went into decline after the First World War. The central question was of succession, and here Jinnah picked his idea and timing perfectly, which was to advocate the restoration of sovereignty to the Muslim-majority areas of South Asia. The idea resonated and connected with the anxiety and distress of the Muslim triggering the Pakistan Movement. Jinnah’s leadership in terms of organization of the League, deal-making, and negotiating with the British, the Congress, and other groups, led to extraordinary electoral success in 1946. This success meant that Pakistan would either come into existence as a vast Muslim-majority sovereign region that comprised the whole of present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh plus the Hindu- majority areas of Bengal and Punjab, or as a smaller but completely independent state. Acceding to either of these options was galling to the Congress, but Jinnah’s success was that they now had to choose between a notionally sovereign united India or an actually sovereign divided India. The Congress’s pain and confusion were evident in its dithering as it went from preferring a loose confederation and then changed its mind and went for the two-state solution.

Hayat’s The Charismatic Leader is a fine study of political leadership in South Asia. Historically grounded, theoretically sound, and argumentatively plausible, it provides a rich starting point for further debate and scholarship. What sets Hayat apart from other writers is that he seeks to explain Jinnah’s leadership in terms of phenomena, leadership and in doing so breaks new ground. Scholars, students, and the general readership can all benefit from the book under review.

Book Review by Dr. IlhanNiaz

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21 ® ® ^TheCharismaticLeader

Yaqoob Khan Bangash reviews a new book on Jinnah that challenges some fixed notions about his personality and leadership

' T

January :JFrk^^^^^nes

I he ex-cricketer turned politician Imran Khan is by definition a charis­matic leader’ writes the lawyer

Yasser Hamdani in an issue of The Criterion Quarterly. He views Imran from the oft-quot­ed perspective of Max Weber and within a space of four sentences declares Imran Khan the ‘Charismatic Leader/ While this popular notion of charisma persists, Professor Sikandar Hayat, who is currently the Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Forman Christian College Lahore, gives another view in The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-e-AzamMohammad AH Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan. Dr Sikandar notes that there was another, genuine, compelling perspective too, in his [Weber’s] later writings. In Politik als Beruf (Politics as a Vocation) he rules out the possibility of any useful transformationo f g c s c l ls c h a ft (c o m m u n ity a n d so c ie ty )through a charismatic leader who was not sober and rational. He calls any kind of specifically Irrational and “ emotional” behavior of political leaders "false charis­ma.” It is in this perspective that Hayat calls Jinnah—the undisputed leader of Muslim India by 1947, as the Charismatic Leader.

By departing from the usual narrative on Jinnah and using Max Weber's little known, but very important, second perspective of charisma on Jinnah, Dr Hayat has broken new ground in historical research. His multidiscipli­nary approach helps us to fully appreciate the importance and role of Jinnah for the Muslims of India. Hayat's arguments also enable us to

understand how Jinnah— seemingly an aloof English speaking, matter-of-fact lawyer, could claim the allegiance of the vast majority of Indian Muslims by the 1940s. This indeed was Jinnah's greatest achievement and Dr Hayat’s aides are understanding of it from both a his­torical and sociological perspective.

The first chapter on charisma is followed by a chapter on the eariy career of Jinnah so as to introduce the reader to the person and his initial forays into Indian politics. The next two chapters outline the situation of the Muslim community in India from the time of Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan and highlights its ‘systemic’ and 'leadership’ crises. It was in these conditions that Jinnah emerged as the

The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-e- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and

the Creation of Pakistan by Sikandar Hayat

Second Edition, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 503

pages. PKR 1500

charismatic leader, when no one else could assume that mantle, Hayat argues. In chapter four, Hayat systematically analyses the role and function of Muslim leadership— the social elite, the provincial leaders and the ulema— and comes to the conclusion that '...the traditional Muslim leadership, as a whole, failed to produce any far-sighted leader who could understand the difficult, distressful situation faced by the Muslims, rise above their own narrow sectional con-

TheCHARlSMAnCLeader

Q u a i d - I 'A z a m M o h a m m a d A l i J i n n a h AND THE C r e a t i o n o f P a k is t a n

cerns, and show them a way out.’ It was due to this failure, that Jinnah, in the words of the editor of his papers, Professor Z.H. Zaidi— also quoted by Hayat— ‘"wrested the leader­ship of the Muslim community,” from his ‘‘colleagues” and “ competitors” with “ an ease that baffled observers.’”

The next three chapters focus on how

OXJORD

Jinnah accepted and then realized his mission of creating a separate state for Indian Muslims— Pakistan. Quoting Jinnah himself, Hayat argues that 'He was convinced that Pakistan was “ not only a practicable goal but the only goal” for the Muslims.' Here Dr Hayat also tackles the celebrated argument of Professor Ayesha Jalal in her book The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan,' that Jinnah was using the Pakistan demand as a bargain­ing counter to achieve better concessions for Indian Muslims, and that Jinnah's acceptance of the Cabinet Mission plan In 1946 was an example of it. In return, Hayat argues: ‘ ...as a[n] astute strategist that he was,. Jinnah accepted the plan more out of tactical con­siderations than any compromise on the fun­damental principle of Pakistan. He was aware of his limitations after the end of the war... As a charismatic “ genuinely principled politi­cian,” he knew that he had to act with reason and a “ sense of responsibility and objective­ly.” ' This is certainly an alternate perspective and needs to be taken seriously.

Like any other work, this study has its limi­tations. While Hayat tackles the issue of charis­ma and Jinnah’s personification of it in an excellent manner, he does not cover the whole career of Jinnah— something which would have completed the work. In fact, Hayat himself notes that ‘. . . a greater under­standing of the problems of “ routinization” of charisma after the charismatic leader had attained his goal,’ has not been addressed in the present work. I do hope that either Professor Hayat or one of his students investi­gates this issue in the not too distant future. ■

The writer teaches History at Forman Christian College Lahore and tweets at ^BangashYK. He can be contacted at: yaqoob.bangash@gmaiicom

B O Q IL

TheCEIARBMAIIGLeader

Q u a i d - i-A z a m M o h a m m a d A l i J i n n a h AND THE C r e a t i o n o f Pa k i s t a n

O X JO R DThe book Ss available at the Oxford University Pre^s for Rsl,500.

Jinnah Revisited

Sikander Hayat skillfully addresses the nuances of Jinnah’s leadek*ship

In his latest bookBY MOHAMMAD WASEEM

46

One might question why we need janother book on Jinnah. But the distinct Iformatand approach in Sikandar Hayat's latest addition to the subject, A Charismcrtic Leader: Quaid-hAzam Mo­hammad Ali Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan is reason enough to revisit the subject The general pattern of Indian history leading to Partition is rooted in an evolutionary framework of analysis of the constitutional debates. It typically draws on a relatively unbroken line of events as well as initiatives taken by the three protagonists — the British govern­ment in India, the Congress and the Muslim League — that seem to move to an inevitable endgame in the form of Partition. In contrast, the present book deals with certain deeply endemic crises that solve the grand riddle of social, cultural, political and constitutional life of Muslims in British India. The author elaborates on this theme by focusing on the 'Muslim crisis' spread over half a century, which provides the structural context for the emergence of Muslim nationalism. However, as electoral politics took root in India, there was a dire need for a shift in emphasis from 'structure' to 'agency'. Muslim leaders at this point failed to consolidate their hold dver the community and thei-e was a dearth of leadership. Hayat makes a convincing argument about the nature and characteristic of Jinnah’s leadership beyond traditional explanations and shows how Jinnah’s role seems to be carved out by history itself when seen in the broad context of structure-agency dichotomy

In the transition from the first to the second edition of his book on Jinnah, Hayat has expanded both theoretical and empirical findings of his research on the creator of Pakistan. Not only has he refocused his study on Jinnah’s charisma from the first edition but he has also consciously and conscientiously placed himself firmly within the dis­course of Partition in general and jinnah

in particular.In the second edition of his book,

Hayat specifically seeks to address Jinnah’s new profile based on some historians' portrayal of him — for ex­ample Jaswant Singh, Ajeet Javfeed and Saleeria Karim — as a secular person par excellence. The author revisits the controversy over Ayesha Jalal’s thesis about the Pakistan demand being a bargaining counter, from which she has distanced herself in recent writings. The author finds enough ground in Jalal and her critics' positions to put aside this so-called 'revisionist' thesis. The

: new edition of the book explores the theme of nation-making with reference to some of the famous theorists of nationalism such as Ernest Gellner and Paul Brass, especially in the context of shaping an ethnic variety of nationalism based on Islam.

In the current edition, the author engages himself in a dialogue with more recent writers on the subject, agreeing or disagi'eeing with their arguments as the case may be. In the former case, he endorses the view about not mixing Partition as the finale of a long process of development of Muslim nationalism v/ith cohimunal violence that accom­panied it, inasmuch as these were two separate phenomena. In the latter case, the author confronts a writer on the controversial role of the NWFP governor Olaf Game in such matters as the 1947 referendum, and later Pakistan’s entry into the Western military alliances.The author’s willingness to expand and update his findihgs in the light of newer insights on Partition and Jinnah is com­mendable. In the matter of production of the book, one cannot overemphasise the fact that this is a high quality publi­cation worth reading for anyone inter- 1

ested in the history of the subcontinent.

Mohammad Waseem is a professor ofpoliticlnl scienceai the Lahore University of IVIanagentent Sciences. ;

SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 4 2014

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 28th, 2014.

DR HASAN ASKARI.RIZVI WSiO, toW.in

T here is an increased invocation of Quaid-e- Azaiti Muhammad Ali Jirinah in political discourse in PaMstan. In addition to political leaders and societal activists, many religious

leaders and parties talk about Jinnah while projecting the ix)litical and sodal order they wish to establish;

When Dr Tahinil Oadri used to address press confer­ences or give intemiews to TV channels froiii Canada, Jinnah’s portrait could be seen in the background. Even some Jamaat-e-Islami leaders talk positively about him. The leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (reincamation of the Sipah-e-Sahaba) r^ently invoked the Ouaid in support of his demand for establishing an Islamic political system in Pakistan. On March 23, 2614^ the Jarriaat-ud-Dawa staged a street march in Lahore for reaffirming comrmtment to Pakistan and the Islamic political system.

The increased use of a commonly shared his­torical icon should promote political harmony and consensus-building on the nature arid direction of Pakistan's present and future politico-economic and social arrangements. Unfortunately, this ii§ hot the? case. Pakistan’s social and political order is fadrig greater fragmentation and, at times, it appears that Pakistan m ight become an increasingly unmanage­able society. ■

Jirmah is not necessarily invoked in popular politl- ; cal discourse to understand what he stoodjfor w hy and hqw he b e g ^ to employ Islafnic sytnbofe and principles to articulate a nationalism to counter the Congress party nationalism's based on secular­ism and a single nation in India, there is no desire to knq\y what he meant when he emphasised the Islamic idiom in the post-1934 period. H ^ ^ b ja lk e d of a modem democratic state system, constitutional rule and equal citizenship irrespective of religious or any other considerations. -

Today, Jinnah’s legacy is often pursued to strengthen partisan political agendas. Those who wish to dominate the present and want to give respectability to their partisan views of state and society often attempt to rewrite history in order to justify what they are currently doing in the political and cultural domains. Therefore, those advocating a conservative, Islam-based religious state system only

talk of Jinnah’s Islamic discourse and give their own preferred meanings to the idioms and terms used by him. Those advocating a secular system mention those statements of Jinnah that serve their current political agenda.

However, it?- is a matter of great satisfaction that there have also been efforts to undertake a sober and non-partisan understanding of Jinnah. Well- researched and scholarly articles and books have appeared since Hie centenary celebrations of Jinnah in 1976. This has contributed to a comprehensive im- derstanding of Jinnah’s personality, political orienta­tions and political career, especially since 1934 when he returned from E n g ir d , revitalised the All-India Muslim League and led the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India: These writings have relied on official documents, personal papers of the leaders, the Muslim League’s records, memoirs of Jinnah’s contemporaries and writings on JiiHiah and the Partition. ;

The wrings of Shariful Mujahid, Ayesha Jalal; >Stanley Wolpert, W aheeduzzam ^ — to name a few accomplished works — offer a comprehensive view of Jinnah, covering his personality, role and leadership in the freedom movement. These writers place his leadership in a broader academic context of thie study of fre^omi movemerits, leadership and the nation- building processes.

A recent publication, The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-h Azam Mohammad AU Jinnah and the Creation o f Pakistan by Dr Sikandar Hayat (OUP, 2014), is an updated edition of th(5 book published in 2008. It not only maintains tlie strong theoretical framework of the earlier edition, but also adds discussioii on some issues that are patt of the current discourse on the Pakistan Movement and the role of Jinnah.

The central therne of the book is the notion of cha­risma while studying the leadership of Jirmah. The- author pulls together all the major theoretical writ- ihgs on charisma in the social sciences and combines it with a dispassionate, analytical and documented study of the political career of Jirmah to describe hiin as a charismatic leader for the Muslims of British India who had complete faith in him for securing their identity, rights and interests. By establishing

Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of British India, Jinnah changed the course of history and left a strong imprint on it. The author focuses mainly on the post-1934 period to analyse how Jinhah’s charismawas established, surpassing the attributes of charisnia as articulated by Max Weber, Edward Shills, David Apter, Dankwart Rustow and others.

The evolution of the political identity of the Muslims that became the basis for movement for a separate homelaiid can be fully understood from the, discussion; in the book on the six phases of Hindu- Muslim relations and the evolution of the Muslim political stmggle in British India (pp.135-146). This needs to be couplied y n th the analysis*of Jirmah’s po­litical transition from a champion of Hindu-^Muslim unity to an ardent advocate of Muslims’ identity, rights ^ d interests and the demand for a separate homeland (pp.88-109, 258-262).

The discussion of the political context and the text of the Lahore Resolution, March, 1940, (pp.2737283) is instructive for thos^who often get bogged down in

■p olem ic debates, on ^ for justif^ng currentpartisan poKtical agendas . The author discusses the British bpposition to the making of Pakistan, rejectiiig the airguments of many Indian writers that the c re ^ p n of P ^ s ta r i Was a British conspifa^ to w e ^ i i an iiidependent India,The fast moving po- Utical developments in 1946-47 have been dealt with some detail in ari easy-to-imderstand narrative of how arid why the AU-India Muslim League accepted the Cabiriet M^sion Plan arid then walked put on it. th is also iridudes its decisioii to join the interim goverimient in October 1^^

w Jinnah iis a nationail symbol whose relevance has iricreased over time. There is a need to pursue a non­partisan and research-based understanding of the development of Jinnadi’s political orientations, his politics and the changes therein and how he articu­lated an ^tematiye nationalism to the Congress-led secular, one-nation nationalism . '

The writer is an independent political and defence analyst. He is also the author of several books, monographs and articles on Pakistan and South Asian Affairs