In 1916-17 Mohammed Ali Jinnah persuaded the warring Hindu and Muslim politicians to sign a pact for an agreed future constitution of a united India. For this he was hailed as "Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity." Thirty years later, he brought about Partition. What was responsible for this change? Personal ambition? British intrigues or Hindu obduracy? This book questions many of the myths that have grown around India's struggle for independence and highlights many factors that have been deliberately suppressed by historians on both sides of the border.

Every generation needs to reinterpret its great men of the past. Akbar Ahmed, by revealing Jinnah's human face alongside his heroic achievement, both makes this statesman accessible to the current age and renders his greatness even clearer than before. Four men shaped the end of British rule in India: Nehru, Gandhi, Mountbatten and Jinnah. We know a great deal about the first three, but Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, has mostly either been ignored or, in the case of Richard Attenborough's hugely successful film about Gandhi, portrayed as a cold megalomaniac, bent on the bloody partition of India. Akbar Ahmed's major study redresses the balance. Drawing on history, semiotics and cultural anthropology as well as more conventional biographical techniques, Akbar S. Ahmad presents a rounded picture of the man and shows his relevance as contemporary Islam debates alternative forms of political leadership in a world dominated (at least in the Western media) by figures like Colonel Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein.

Was Jinnah the sole driving force behind the Partition of India? Or was he a champion of Islam who stood for a new Islamic renaissance? Mahomed Ali Jinnah started his political career in the Congress as a staunch Indian nationalist. He believed in secular politics and was opposed to bringing religion into it. He was known as an ambassador of Hindu–Muslim unity. So why did he, towards the end of his career, initiate the creation of a separate Muslim-state? This new biography provides the answers while casting fresh light on Jinnah's character, his personal life, his political and legal careers, his relationship with Gandhi, Nehru as well as his disagreements with their ideas. Carefully examining the major events of his life – from early childhood to his first speech as President of the All India Muslim League – Yasser Latif Hamdani presents a complex and compelling portrait of Jinnah who is often narrowly regarded as a votary of a theocratic Islamic state. Based on extensive research and a wealth of archival material, Hamdani has revealed those traits of Jinnah’s personality that made him the most misunderstood leader of his times. He also comments on how religious zealots have turned Pakistan into an Islamic Republic contrary to Jinnah's vision.

The modern history of South Asia is shaped by the personalities of its two most prominent politicians and ideologues ? Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi. Jinnah shaped the final settlement by consistently demanding Pakistan, and Gandhi defined the largely non-violent nature of the campaign. Each made their contribution by taking over and refashioning a national political party, which they came to personify. Theirs would seem, therefore, to be a story of success, yet for each of them, the story ended in a kind of failure. How did two educated barristers who saw themselves as heralds of a newly independent country come to find themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum? How did Jinnah, who started out a secular liberal, end up a Muslim nationalist? How did a God-fearing moralist and social reformer like Gandhi become a national political leader? And how did their fundamental divergences lead to the birth of two new countries that have shaped the political history of the subcontinent? This book skilfully chronicles the incredible similarities and ultimate differences between the two leaders, as their admirers and detractors would have it and as they actually were.

The Book Discusses The Controversial Role Of Jinnah In India`S Struggle For Independence And In The Process Traces The Transformation Of Jinnah As The Nationalist Into Jinnah The Protagoinst Of Pakistan

'Ayesha Jalal's book is an important scholarly account of ... the partition of India in 1947.' American Historical Review

This is the first reference guide to the political, cultural and economic histories that form the subject-matter of postcolonial literatures written in English.The focus of the Companion is principally on the histories of postcolonial literatures in the Anglophone world - Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, the Pacific, the Caribbean and Canada. There are also long entries discussing the literatures and histories of those further areas that have also claimed the title 'postcolonial', notably Britain, East Asia, Ireland, Latin America and the United States. The Companion contains:*220 entries written by 150 acknowledged scholars of postcolonial history and literature;*covers major events, ideas, movements, and figures in postcolonial histories*long regional survey essays on historiography and women's histories. Each entry provides a summary of the historical event or topic and bibliographies of postcolonial literary works and histories. Extensive cross-references and indexes enable readers to locate particular literary texts in their relevant historical contexts, as well as to discover related literary texts and histories in other regions with ease.

This book brings out with clarity the growth of separatist movement in India leading to her partition.