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 ...