Book Reviews

Abstract

Stanley WOLPERT, Jinnah of Pakistan. Published by Oxford
University Press, 1984. $24.95. PP 421.
Sharif-AL-MUJAHID, Jinnuh-Studies in Interpretation, Published
by Quaid-i-Azam Academy, Karachi 1981. $20.00. PP 806.
Reviewed by: Abu Faisal
Few individuals significantly altered the course of history. Fewer still
modified the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with
creating a nation-State. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three. It is
indeed surprising that a leader of such stature and achievement should
have received such scant attention from the historians and biographers.
Both Gandhi and Jinnah were contemporary leaders of the Indian Subcontinent
and while hosts of books have been written on Gandhi, even
movies have been made (“9 hours to Rama”and “Gandhi”), there has been
very little literature on Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan. Although three
very little literature on Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan. Although there
have been a few attempts at sketching a biography of Quaid-i-Azam-as
Jinnah is called by his grateful nation-by some Indian and Pakistani
writers, there has been hardly any authoritative or sustained study on
Jinnah, his role in the Pakistan Movement and how it affected the
political future and geography of the entire Sub-Continent. Hector
Bolitho was commissioned by the Government of Pakistan in the early
1950s to write a biography of the Quaid-“Jinnah, creator of Pakistan”,
but it failed to evoke any excitement or even meet the standards of a
biography. It is exactly after 30 years after Hector Bolitho’s publication
that an attempt has been made by Stanley Wolpert, a professor of history
at UCLA to reconstruct a chronicle of this pivotal figure in the Indian
politics during the turbulent decades that led to the creation of Pakistan.
Wolpert is an old and respected expert on South Asia and has written
extensively on the politics of the Sub-Continent. He brings this intimate
knowledge and insight of the region to bear upon this excellent ...