A Comparative Study of Sikandar Hayat and Jaswant

Singh’s Books on Jinnah

The Charismatic Leader: Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Creation of
Pakistan by Sikandar Hayat. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008. pp.386.
Jinnah India-Partition Independence by Jaswant Singh. Rupa & Co: 2009. pp. 669.

By Suhit Sen,
Published in Hindustan Times, September 10, 2009.

Sikandar Hayat’s study of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his role in bringing about the
partition of the Indian subcontinent — or the birth of a homeland for Indian Muslims, if
you will — is an elegant exposition of both the Quaid-i-Azam’s personality and the
historical circumstances in which it found space to flourish.
Much of the ground that Hayat covers — from the early years of the last century to the
decisive months in 1947 when Partition became an inescapable reality — is ground
covered in great detail by scholars on both sides of the divide and from beyond the
subcontinent. The research is meticulous but does not provide by way of a historical
narrative anything substantially new. What is new is the ‘theoretical’ spin he seeks to put
on the narrative.

Providing considerable contrast to Hayat’s work is Jaswant Singh’s attempt to re-evaluate

Jinnah. To begin with, it is sloppily argued, randomly researched and recounted as a
barely coherent historical narrative. It does not help, too, that Singh has not been served
with any particular distinction by his editor. In numerous stretches, his prose is barely
intelligible. All that he manages to do is revisit a slice of history that is well known and
which has been retold with far greater skill and ability by many others before him.

Compiled by Ghulam Ghous