Shri ram ji

Date : 19-8-2009
To ,
The Editor,

Sir,
Democracy would become a graveyard if there were no interesting controversies to keep it throbbing and in good heath. I congratulate BJP Leader Jaswant Singh for publishing his book on Jinnah. He has written as an honest historian exercising his freedom of thought and speech. BJP President Rajnath’s response is to say the least unfortunate. Jaswant’s two conclusions that the late Qaide Azam Jinnah was every inch a secularist and the partition of India was neither his goal nor his obsession, are fundamentally right. No one can or should question them. Every person interested in historical truth must dispassionately digest the formidable evidence marshaled by the Author. A debate is welcome but I hope it will remain at an appropriately exalted level.
Nobel Prize winner the distinguished Prof. Amartya Sen in his famous book “The Argumentative Indian” at page 51 writes:-
“ While it is often assumed that in pre-partition India the claim that the Hindus and Muslims formed two distinct nations – not two parts of the same Indian nation – was formulated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah (in the context of making a case for the partition of the country on religious lines) it was in fact Savarkar who had floated the idea well before – more than fifteen years earlier than – Jinnah’s first invoking of the idea, Nathuram Godse, who murdered Mahatma Gandhi for his failure to support the demands of Hindu politics of the day, was a disciple of Savarkar”.
Jaswant Singh is in great company.
Thanking you,
RAM JETHMALANI