The op-ed titled “The trouble with Jinnah”, written by Anupam Debashis Roy and published by Daily Waadaa, begins with the claim that Jinnah is our Lee. By drawing a parallel between Jinnah and the Confederate general Robert E Lee, Roy makes a comparison that is not only inaccurate but grossly misleading. He goes further to argue, “…what he [Jinnah] represented was a political order built on someone else's subjugation”.
Throughout the whole article, Jinnah—the Quaid-e-Azam, or “Great Leader”—is presented in a manner that misrepresents the history of the Partition, distorts the nature of his political project, and presents half-truths as established facts. Roy draws yet another parallel, this time between Sheikh Hasina and the Quaid.
These claims and comparisons therefore warrant analyses one by one—not to prove that Jinnah is beyond criticism; no human is, save the prophets of God, but to ask whether the claims being made and parallels being drawn by Roy actually substantiates the case he makes against the Quaid.
The Quaid & Lee: Polar opposites
Starting with the first and most obvious distinction, the Quaid founded a country. General Lee did not. The Quaid led a nation to independence from the British as part of an anti-colonial struggle, whereas Lee was a secessionist seeking to protect an inhuman practice—slavery. The nation-state founded by the Quaid was Pakistan, not some remote country whose establishment is unrelated to us.
But a country whose eastern wing, which had its borders drawn in 1947, would soon become the territory of Bangladesh in 1971. The establishment of Pakistan is therefore an inalienable part of our own national, political, and identity history, regardless of what we may think of the country’s subsequent actions.
Chronology matters here as well. The United States had existed as a sovereign republic for almost a century before the Confederacy attempted to secede. Conversely, the Quaid was not seeking to secede from an independent and sovereign state; he was on a journey to establish a nation-state as part of an anti-colonial freedom struggle. Contrary to the popular saying that Pakistan was “carved out of India”, the Republic of India we know today did not even exist as a polity until 15 August 1947.
It existed only as a geographic region consisting of several different polities known collectively as the British Raj, a colonial project of the British Empire. It is from the flames of the British Empire that the Quaid carved out a Muslim homeland.
More importantly, the two men represented fundamentally different political projects. One sought to enslave, the other sought to liberate. Lee fought for a Confederacy that seceded from an established & sovereign country, the United States, in order to preserve the institution of slavery.
The Quaid, on the other hand, was centered on securing political safeguards and, ultimately, a separate state for Muslims in order to make sure that they would never fall victim to the political enslavement of a Hindu majority. Equating the two overlooks the polar opposite circumstances, objectives, and ideologies that existed between them.
One may reject the Two-Nation theory, condemn the consequences of the Partition, or draw any criticism they like. But a series of questions will perhaps highlight the absurdity of Roy’s claim: How can Jinnah be our Lee, when one sought to preserve slavery while the other fought for self-determination; when one sought to secede while the other sought to build a post-colonial nation-state; and when one believed in a race’s ownership over another while the other believed in a people’s self-determination?
Did Jinnah subjugate Bengal?
Roy makes the sweeping claim that it was Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq who, through the Lahore Resolution, proposed a series of independent Muslim states spread across the subcontinent, including an independent Bengal, only for a “Bombay lawyer” to subsequently subject Bengal to the “subordination” of a state on “the other side of the subcontinent”. He further points out that the name “Pakistan” originated with Choudhry Rahmat Ali but was later “glued onto Huq's language”.
Partially true. Huq did present the Lahore Resolution which proposed the establishment of “independent states”. Rahmat Ali certainly coined the term Pakistan, but he did something else as well: he designed the first map of Pakistan. One which clearly depicted a series of non-contiguous Muslim states. The north-west areas would form a state called Pakistan, while the north-east would contain Bangistan—a united Bengal separate from Pakistan.
Other proposed states included Osmanistan, comprising the erstwhile Hyderabad State, and Muinistan in Rajasthan, named after the Gharib-e-Nawaz, Khwaja Muinuddin Chishty of Ajmer. Rahmat Ali’s map envisaged at least a dozen such states stretching from the North-West Frontier to Chittagong, and from Kashmir to Sri Lanka. Pakistan itself was an acronym: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, Balochis-tan; no Bengal.
Thus, the idea of a Muslim homeland, from its very inception, was not necessarily about creating a single country separated by thousands of miles, but rather a series of independent or confederated Muslim states. The Lahore Resolution was an extension of this old idea that a Muslim homeland was not to be a single parcel of land, but would, invariably, be composed of multiple polities. Roy makes no mention of this important context. (Pic: First map of Pakistan. Caption: Chaudhry Rahmat Ali’s proposed map of independent Muslim states.)
So how did East Bengal end up becoming a part of Pakistan and what was the Quaid’s view towards an independent Bengal? By early-1947, it was becoming increasingly clear that Bengal would be partitioned on religious lines. However, in April 1947, in a great show of unity, leaders from both the Bengal Provincial Muslim League and Indian National Congress—including Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Abul Hashim, and Sarat Chandra Bose—publicly proposed the idea of an independent and united Bengal called the “Free State of Bengal”.
This proposal would have allowed Bengal to remain undivided and independent of both India and Pakistan. When the Quaid was asked by Viceroy Lord Mountbatten about his views on a united Bengal outside of Pakistan, the Quaid responded without hesitation, “I should be delighted. What is the use of Bengal without Calcutta? They had much better remain united and independent.”
Just a month later, in May 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru declared that the only way they would accept a united Bengal was if it remained within the new Indian state. Ultimately, the only viable way forward for Muslims who wanted to remain out of India was the partitioning of Bengal, with East Bengal becoming a part of Pakistan.
Thus, this is how East Bengal came to be a part of Pakistan in 1947. Both of the Quaid’s positions—an independent and united Bengal separate from both India and Pakistan, or a partitioned Bengal with one half in Pakistan— highlighted his belief that Bengali Muslims should remain separate from India, and he would support either proposition.
Unsurprisingly, Roy makes no mention of the historical events or the chronology of how East Bengal was included in Pakistan. Rather, he makes an oversimplified and entirely baseless analogy, lumping together different characters while omitting inalienable historical points. This paints the Quaid to be a villain—a man who “subjugated” Bengal—where, in reality, he was open to the independence of a united Bengal.
“Enemies” & “Razakars”: A false equivalence
An infamous excerpt of the Quaid’s speech during his visit to Dhaka is when he stated that only Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, and that anyone who tries to convince the people otherwise was “an enemy of Pakistan”. Perhaps one of the most flawed and baseless parallels Roy draws is the claim that this statement by the Quaid was congruent with Hasina’s declaration that quota-reform protestors were the “grandchildren of razakars”. Roy further draws an analogy between Hasina’s refusal to sit down with student leaders, whom she considered “beneath serious engagement” and what he claims to be the Quaid’s inability to “conceive of Bengalis as political equals worth consulting”. Once again, let’s do a post-mortem.
In order to ascertain whether or not an individual’s speech constitutes hate speech, it is important to take into account that individual’s intentions along with their previous rhetoric and actions. Hasina had a history of dehumanizing her political opponents by referring to them as either razakars (collaborators) or dalals (agents).
The label of razakar was used to execute six opposition leaders in a series of judicial killings. Labelling both the BNP and Jamaat as razakars, Hasina sought to brand them as terrorist organizations while their leaders and supporters were subjected to enforced disappearances, killings, and jailing. The term razakar therefore carried a particularly charged meaning when Hasina used it in 2024. In essence, she dehumanized the protestors.
Even today, when speaking about Brigadier General (retd.) Abdullahil Amaan Azmi and Barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem (Arman), both of whom are survivors of the vicious Aynaghar, Awami League supporters continue to invoke the same label, claiming that their detainment was justified because they were the “sons of razakars.”
All in all, whenever someone was branded as a razakar, they ceased to be humans. To see whether or not Hasina’s statement was congruent to the Quaid’s, we have to analyze whether he himself harbored any anti-Bengali sentiment, as well as the context and intentions of his statements.
Firstly, he was not an oppressive, murderous tyrant. That is beyond dispute. Secondly, the Quaid surely never considered Bengalis as being political unequals. Some of his closest associates were Bengalis, including Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, A.K. Fazlul Huq, and Khwaja Nazimuddin. These leaders were consulted on many issues in which the Quaid considered their advice valuable. That leaves us with his words themselves to examine. (Pics: Jinnah with Suhrawardy, Huq, Nazimuddin)
On 21 March 1948, the Quaid delivered his speech in the erstwhile Ramna Race Course (today’s Suhrawardy Udyan). We are told that the speech began and ended with the simple statement, “The state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really an enemy of Pakistan.” It sounds as if he is calling the Bengali people the enemies of Pakistan. But let’s analyze the whole speech and see it in context. He began his speech by stating, “East Bengal is the most important component of Pakistan, inhabited as it is by the largest single block of Muslims in the world.” Praising a region as the newly formed country’s “most important component” while addressing its people directly hardly sounds like prejudice.
As the speech continued, the Quaid emphasized that anti-Pakistani elements seeking to integrate East Bengal with India were still active. He said,“…in our midst there are people financed by foreign agencies intent on creating disruption,” and, “The idea that East Bengal should be brought back into the Indian Union is not given up…it is better to be vigilant that those people who still dream of getting East Bengal into the Indian Union are living in a dreamland”. Dispelling the rumors that Bengali culture was going to be suppressed, he reassured the people of East Bengal saying, “They say that the Pakistan government and East Bengal government are out to destroy your language. A bigger falsehood was never uttered by a man.”
The statement in which the Quaid declared Urdu to be the sole state language of Pakistan is never presented in its entirety. The full statement reads: “Let me tell you in the clearest language that there is no truth that your normal life is going to be touched or disturbed so far as your Bengali language is concerned. But it is ultimately for you, the people of this province, to decide what shall be the language of your province. But let me make it very clear to you that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really an enemy of Pakistan.”
He moved on to reiterate, “I tell you once again, do not fall into the trap of those who are the enemies of Pakistan. Unfortunately, you have fifth-columnists, and I am sorry to say they are Muslims who are financed by outsiders.”
As the above quotations show, rather than animosity, there is admiration for Bengalis and a deep concern of what he perceived as efforts by India to create unrest in East Bengal. Readers are encouraged to read the speech in its entirety to better understand the context. When the Quaid referred to the “enemies of Pakistan”, he was referring to fifth columnists and Indians who were trying to “mislead” the population of East Bengal into believing that the government intended to interfere in their speaking of Bengali. This subject was raised to address the genuine concerns and dissent of the people—not, as Roy claims, because, “He meant ‘enemy of Pakistan’ as an insult that would shut down dissent.”
Thus, there can be no parallel between Hasina’s calling of student protestors “razakars’ grandchildren” and the Quaid calling fifth-columnists the “enemies of Pakistan”. The former stems from a place of deep hatred and dehumanization, while the latter comes from a place of genuine concern and reassurance.
Retrospective blame: The man who died in 1948
In his final argument, Roy contends that even those who subscribe to the Two-Nation theory cannot claim Jinnah to be their man because, in a nutshell, he holds Jinnah responsible for the cultural, economic, and military deprivation of Bengalis. The most absurd claim he makes—and the one that made me wonder how the editorial team at Daily Waadaa approved the publication of the op-ed in the first place—is that “West Pakistan held (…) the language of the government.”
The language being referred to here is Urdu, and Roy insinuates that Urdu was a West Pakistani language! Perhaps Roy did not get the memo that Urdu was not formed in the region that comprised West Pakistan. Its early developments were made hundreds of miles away, in the region around present-day Delhi. Later, Lucknow became the main center for Urdu literature. In other words, Urdu was not native to any province of West Pakistan.
Moreover, in 1947, Bengal itself was much more an important center for Urdu literary culture than West Pakistan. The people of Dhaka have been speaking a distinctive dialect of Urdu, called Dhakaiya Urdu, for centuries. One need only read the book Mashriqui Bangal Mein Urdu (Urdu in East Bengal), written by the poet and former head of the Urdu departments at Dhaka & Chittagong Colleges, Professor Iqbal Azeem, to appreciate the deep history of Urdu in Bengal.
By extension, the Quaid himself was not Urdu-speaking. He belonged to the Khoja community—a community from Gujarat—and his mother tongue was Gujarati. What, then, is the basis of the claim that “West Pakistan held the language of the government”? (Pic: Jinnah’s membership in Khoja community. Caption: Jinnah’s Khoja Community Record.)
Moving forward, Roy suggests that the Quaid may be at fault for East Bengal’s economic exploitation. To Roy’s credit, he does not make any direct accusation; rather, he states, “East Bengal grew the jute, West Pakistan spent the foreign exchange it earned.” This statement is made in a context that may lead readers to blame the Quaid for this forex diversion, particularly as a result of confirmation bias.
To anyone who is a victim of this bias: attributing the economic exploitation of Pakistan’s eastern wing to Jinnah poses a huge chronological problem…he died on 11 September 1948. The systemic transfer of East Bengal’s forex earnings to the western wing became a major scourge after the establishment of jute mills in East Bengal, not before. The first jute mill to be established in East Bengal was the Bawa Jute Mills, whose production commenced in 1951—nearly 3 years after the Quaid’s death.
A similar allegation is further insinuated, blaming the Quaid for West Pakistan “holding” the army. It is certainly true that the headquarters of all three branches of the military were based in West Pakistan and Bengalis were deprived of due promotions. But to what extent can we blame the Quaid for this? To discern that, we must first examine how the British Indian Army (BIA) was structured.
The British divided Indians into so-called “martial” and “non-martial” races and recruited disproportionately from the martial races. Among those from the territories that would become Pakistan were Punjabis, Pathans, and Balochis.
Consequently, when Pakistan inherited portions of the BIA, they received six armored regiments, several battalions of the Punjab Regiment, and the Baloch and Frontier Regiments. Naturally, these regiments were based in West Pakistan, to the provinces from which they were recruited.
There was no Bengal Regiment in the BIA and the former Bengal Native Infantry had been disbanded in 1903. Only two battalions of the BIA were stationed in East Bengal at the time of partition, and following the transfer of non-Muslim personnel to India, only five companies remained. Thus, East Bengal had no military standing to begin with when it entered Pakistan. Naturally, in 1947, the crux of the military had to be based in West Pakistan as a legacy of a colonial structure rather than systemic deprivation.
But there is something that the Quaid did in the context of East Bengal and the military. Sorry to disappoint his critics, but what he did was commendable, not condemnable. Immediately after independence, the Quaid ordered a battalion of the Frontier Force regiment to be stationed in East Bengal for its defense.
Later, in January 1948, two more battalions from the Punjab Regiment were stationed there, and Ayub Khan, then a major-general, was appointed General Officer Commanding. Finally, in February 1948, on the personal orders of the Quaid, the East Bengal Regiment (EBR) was raised.
Muslims from the Bihar Regiment who opted for Pakistan were enrolled in the EBR, while junior commissioned officers were transferred from the Punjab Regiment. Once Bengali soldiers were trained and available, they replaced the Punjab Regiment personnel.
Therefore, the title of “Founder of the EBR” can, perhaps, be attributed to the Quaid–e–Azam. And it was the EBR that would later form the core of the Bangladesh Army in 1971. Readers are free to draw whatever conclusion they wish as to what this makes the Quaid in relation to the Bangladesh Army. I will not, lest I be called a “razakar”. (Pic: Jinnah with Ayub Khan in Dhaka. Caption: Jinnah in Dhaka with his sister, Fatima, accompanied by Maj. Gen. Ayub Khan, GOC, East Bengal.)
The eventual sidelining of Bengalis in the military can verily be blamed on the West Pakistani establishment that consolidated power in the 1950s and 1960s. This is precisely why the sixth demand of the Six Point Program called for the headquarters of the Pakistan Navy to be located in East Bengal.
Yet Roy claims that a man who died in 1948 somehow “…wrote the rupture into the founding documents and the founding speeches…” was responsible for these subsequent deprivations. To even hint that the decades of military and political marginalization was the fault of Jinnah—who led Pakistan for barely a year and, during that period, oversaw the raising of the East Bengal Regiment—is cynical.
Criticize what he did, not what he didn't
The purpose of this rebuttal is not to shut down criticism of the Quaid–e–Azam. Nobody, especially not political leaders, should be beyond criticism or accountability. The point is to criticise people for their shortcomings and their faults—for what they did, not for what they didn’t, and certainly not for the good they did. Making sweeping statements such as, “…he is the man who called our right to speak our own language a form of treason,” is not just an oversimplification; it is an outright lie.
Less than two decades later, the Quaid’s sister, Madar–e–Millat Bibi Fatima Jinnah was selected as the Combined Opposition Parties’ candidate for the 1965 presidential election against Ayub Khan. Her campaign was spearheaded by frontline Bengali leaders like Sheikh Mujib, Ghulam Azam, Maulvi Farid Ahmed, Khwaja Nazimuddin, and Maulana Bhashani. The sole reason for her selection was the fact that she was the Quaid’s sister, and thus, commanded immense public sympathy and authority.
In 1970, the Pakistan Awami League used 4 people: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, AK Fazlul Huq, Huseyn S. Suhrawardy, and Tofazzal Hossain (Manik Miah) in their election campaign. Surely, this begs the question, if the Quaid was as much a villain to Bengalis as Roy portrays him to be, why would Mujib—the symbolic leader of the liberation movement—use him as the most prominent invocation to appeal for votes?
It would, perhaps, be better if writers sharing their opinions formed their conclusion after analyzing the historiography surrounding the “facts” they present, rather than relying on overly simplistic analogies that paint an already misunderstood leader as a villain. That too, in a country whose overall history is already overwhelmingly politicized.
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Shayer Humayun is a writer