Jinnah article

This article is very biased. The language and choice of facts have been manipulated by writer Tarun Vijay to make Jinnah look like the villain who is solely responsible for the riots that took place in India before independence. He makes Jinnah look like a distant, aristocratic person who was incapable of being an Islamic leader. To substantiate his stand Tarun Vijay chooses to appeal to the reader’s emotions rather than reason. Instead of concentrating on facts, and political decisions made by Jinnah the writer substantiates his arguments with emotive, rhetorical and effusive language used by other leaders. Instead of dissecting Jinnah’s political actions the writer attacks Jinnah personally.

The name of the article itself is very extremist- “Jinnah. He had a pistol. He used it.” well there were many who had a pistol and used it. Whether it was Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose or other Hindu radical nationalists, they all promoted violence as a means of attaining Independence. Subash Chandra Bose popularised his motto “Give me blood and I will give you freedom”. How is this different from Jinnah’s speech made in 1946 as mentioned in the article. The author evidently has a biased perception against Jinnah. He has highlighted all the vices Jinnah possessed and emphasised on parts of few speeches to develop fallacious reasoning. This fallacious reasoning has led him to develop distrust not only for Jinnah, but the entire Muslim League. He has blamed the League as a body and Jinnah in particular for the riots. He has used effusive language to express his resentment. This entire process of a biased perception leading to undue generalisations and powerful language comes under the vicious circle of rationalisation.

The author unintentionally weakens his arguments when he cites similar traits of Jinnah in the Hindu Leader Jawaharlal Nehru. A major fallacy in the comparison is that while Nehru is looked as a leader whose duty was to protect Indian interests, Jinnah is not looked upon in the same light with respect to Pakistan; instead, he is treated as a foreigner who has intruded in the countries affairs and has not contributed at all to the freedom struggle. The states that Nehru went to jail for the country, but he conveniently ignores the fact that even Jinnah went to jail during the freedom struggle. Infact it was only later that he came up with the idea of Pakistan, and this idea was not originally his. A group of students who were members of the League suggested this long before Jinnah came to power. Jinnah only furthered the idea. Thus here we see the circular reasoning used by the author, who selects information to suit his preconceived notions and manipulates reported information in a manner that substantiates his stand.

Also the author has a strong religious bias that is a major knowledge issue prevalent in this article. He uses Holy Hindu books like the Gita to prove his point. Evidently his article is only catering to a Hindu audience. He cites nationalists as members of the “Hindu nationalist parivar”. He also talks in the power of the unity of the Hindus. Here he is doing the same thing as Jinnah did; he is dividing the society on religious lines.. What he is advocating is the supremacy of Hindus in a secular state.


Thus, His argument has double standards, with strong religious biases and long rooted prejudices. He uses emotions to appeal to his audience and manipulates historical facts to suit his needs. He is writing a derogatory article on Jinnah years after his death, thus I do not get the point of this article. Is his aim to glorify Hindu nationalists or slight Jinnah and his League? There are other ways of respecting nationalists. However I do not get the point of insulting a late leader.