Customer Reviews

The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge South Asian Studies)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ayesha Jalal has delivered a highly impressive piece of work. The research is impeccable and the analysis rigorous. Contrary to most historical accounts of the creation of Pakistan, Ayesha does not engage in rhetoric or political slogans. Instead, her efforts to remain unbiased clearly come across and are admirable. She is a historian par excellence and her talent for writing clearly and lucidly about complex subjects is clearly revealed in this book. A provocative piece of work which might actually get students of India/ Pakistan interested in a subject which they have always found dull.

This is a excellent book on the history of Pakistan. Ayesha Jalal has done her home work and has presented the facts in a very logical fashion. I find this book among the few honest assesment on India and Pakistan division.

I do have substantial regard for the Father of Pakistan, Jinnah. His greatest achievement was to see the long term non-viability of a behemoth territory's multitudinous problems mainly it's intractable population: which would have been practically untenable. But, to show him as a person opposed to a partition is to deny his sagacious foresightedness and discredit his rightly earned legacy.

The preposterous proposals made by Jinnah in the pre-dawn of independence were by-any-measure-of-analysis only to preclude the possibility of a undivided British India. But, according to the Author they were "only fake threats to maintain the unity of the country".

I am sure she would throw Dan Brown behind her in "fictitious imagination".

Indeed, the premise of the book is correct, Mr Jinnah was a SECULARIST! However, by 1946, did he still want a unified India? I dont think so.

By the way, the guy who wrote the first review.. I am afraid, Bias aint gonna get you anywhere.

You say Moderate and secular Congress :

I say : "Mahatma" Gandhi and "Pandit" Nehru? Is this secularism?

You say Poisonous fruit of their efforts "A Nuclear Rogue pakistan"

I ask you which country detonated the nuclear device first? Gandhi's so called secular India or the Nuclear Rogue Pakistan?

Kindly tell me where you acquires such biases... have you even tried to read the book? Have you read about Mr Jinnah? Why is it that people like yourself wish to propagate the same false myths again and again, and not salute people like Ayesha Jalaal who have done an extremely good job in bringing out the facts..

Ayesha Jalaal mentions a very important fact... the Muslim Extremists and fanatics like the Ahrar were actually in alliance with your Mr Gandhi and the "secular Moderate Congress Party". Indeed Gandhi brought all fundamentalists and religious fanatics together regardless of religion caste or creed. Truly secular!

In her masterly work of deceit, Ayesha Jalal would have a century of research hung by the way side.

A generally well-accepted principle called Occam's Razor says that a problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. The simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected. When applied to the events in the Indian subcontinent, the picture appears like a moderate and secular congress fighting to keep India united; pitted against a brilliant political-Muslim Jinnah hell bent on breaking it. A chronic problem of Muslims with peaceful co-habitation manifesting itself into Pakistan.

But Ayesha would have us believe otherwise..... Congress a Hindu party. Jinnah and his cronies paramount examples of "secular ideals" (look at the poisonous fruit of their efforts .... The nuclear rogue Pakistan...) Gandhi .. the father of Indian partition. Even Bart Simpson won't say "I didn't do it" this innocently.........