3 days ago
How Jinnah went from a unifier to a divider
Few figures in modern South Asian history have inspired such a polarised legacy as Muhammad Ali Jinnah . So much so that while researching his new book Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia , historian Sam Dalrymple notes that it was Jinnah who 'surprised' him the most. In his Substack essay , 'Jinnah and the Idea of Pakistan', Dalrymple adds: 'In Indian nationalist narratives, Jinnah is cast as a sinister antagonist, while in Pakistan , he stands as the revered Father of the Nation. Neither side seems especially keen to claim him as a real human being.'Jinnah's political journey was anything but straightforward. He began as a secular nationalist who once embodied the dream of Hindu-Muslim partnership, only to end as the architect of Pakistan, a country born of brutal separation. The irony was hard to miss, Dalrymple notes: 'in the early years of the twentieth century, everything about him belied the fact that he would soon found the world's first Islamic republic.'
