Partition, India & Jaswant Singh Book Review General

I do not profess to be a professional reviewer of books. In fact during my 32 years of Army Service, I could not find time to read books needing concentration. Except perhaps, when we have to do book reviews as part of on going training in the Army, the only books I read were mostly periodicals like Reader's Digest and fiction. After retiring from the Army, I have more than made up for it in the last ten years.

In addition to reading  books on biography and history , I also had the good fortune to edit some of the books published by a famous publishing house based in India.

When a serious controversy broke out regarding a book on "Jinnah  India Partition Independence" by Mr. Jaswant Singh, I was curious to read that book. Having read already the biography of Mahatma Gandhi , his Collected Writings and the story of India's freedom struggle, I found , while going through this  book , some of the conclusions, comments and narrations by the author to be off-the mark.

I read the book again and again (a total of six times) marking on the margin, events, comments and conclusions which to my mind needed cross verification from other sources.

Having done my work, I approached the publishers of the book who hold the copy rights to grant me permission for reproducing the excerpts so as to make it easily discernable for the reader of my review.

I had even promised them that I would send them a copy of my review and they may even publish it if they found it fit for publication.

They have not agreed to give me permission to publish excerpts from the above book. Therefore, I have to find an alternate way of quoting the page numbers and line numbers of the book only.

It therefore becomes necessary that you must have a copy of the book " Jinnah India- Partition Independence" authored by Jaswant Singh to read his contents in original.

But even if you do not have the book with you, I will briefly explain what the author says in my words ( not in the words of the author as it would infringe on the Copyrights), you will still be able to appreciate my review.

I will continue to post in this blogspot my review of the book which will be essentially where and what I differ from the author.

I hold Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah in high esteem. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest leader of the sub-continent of the century. His championing the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity as lauded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale needs no further elaboration. He was a great orator and an incisive analyst of political and social realities. His obduracy was matching and even excelled that of Gandhi's. While Gandhi would relent ultimately to the 'inevitable', what Jinnah said and believed in were inevitable. In my comments whereever I have referred Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah as Jinnah , they have to be assumed as having the full adjectives and honour he commands. He is referred as "Jinnah" only because of the sources from where the context is taken refer him as such. No disrespect is meant by the commentator.