Best of GAB

I'm busy writing, and haven't finished reading Empire of Illusion.

So, here's an end-of-the-year best of GAB. I've included some explanation to justify the selection.

Best wishes for the New Year.

December 08: Jesus, Jinnah & Atal Behari

(I wrote about my favourite history book Richard Tucker's Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism. Later discovered, reading MJ Akbar's column, that Jinnah had changed his birthday from October 20 to December 25. October 20 is also an important date for me)

January 09: White Tiger

(Quite simply one of the best books I read this year. Also, my blog comes up in many searches when readers of the book Google the Great Socialist and White Tiger.)

February 09: Fun Home

(My first adult graphic novel. Amazingly sensitive and touching. I discovered a wonderful art form that economises on words but not on emotions.)

March 09: Running in the family

(I hadn't read Ondaatje before. This was a great introduction. Then, I read In the Skin of the Lion, the most definitive book on Toronto.)

April 09: It’s raining

(I always got drenched in the first rains in Mumbai. Tried doing that in Toronto and almost fell ill. Also wrote about Alexander Frater's Chasing the Monsoon. The book has Jawaharlal Nehru's quote about being disappointed with Bombay's monsoon. See the quote below.)

& Nehru on Bombay's monsoon

(Used photographs from Rahul Gandhi's website.)

May: Asian writers

(Met Jasmine D'Costa for the first time, and read her wonderful collection of short stories Curry is Thicker than Water.)

June : VS Naipaul

(Reading a master; awestruck.)


July: Writer as God

(This piece was a result of an intense internal turmoil.)

August: A Streetcar Named Desire

(Nick Noorani wrote back. I was surprised, overjoyed.)

September: Festival of South Asian Literature & Arts

(Met MG Vassanji for the first time.)

October: Princess of Serendip

(I met Dionne Brand a month later; she has a warm heart.)

November: Canadian Voices

(A marvelous collection of fiction and poetry by new voices in Canada)

December: Global Soul

(Realised that I'll always be an outsider anywhere I go.)

Jesus, Jinnah and Atal Behari

I bet the headline is interesting.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Atal Behari Vajpayee share their date of birth with Jesus Christ. Isn't that an amazing coincidence?

I want to talk of three books that reveal their (Jinnah's and Vajpayee's) moderate style of politics and personality.

Ayesha Jalal's The Sole Spokesman Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan is, in my view, the best book on the politics of Jinnah, and Stanley Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan is probably the best biography of the creator of Pakistan.

I read both the books nearly a decade ago. They were published in the mid-1980s; Jalal’s book by Cambridge and Wolpert’s by Oxford.

Jalal writes objectively but polemically -- almost as a lawyer. If one has grown up on healthy dose of Indian nationalism, Jalal’s Jinnah is bound to make one uncomfortable most of the time, and really seethe with anger some times.

Wolpert’s book has his trademark style. Wolpert is one of the most readable historians on South Asian history of the British era. The depth and range of his work is awe inspiring. Wolpert is clearly an old school historian and takes it upon himself to make the subject of his book likeable without losing objectivity. Jinnah benefits from Wolpert’s affable style.

One of his lesser known, but a substantially more important book is Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India. It is an engaging discussion on the two directions in the development of Indian nationhood exemplified by Tilak's orthodoxy and Gokhale's liberalism. 

Earlier this year I read Lal Krishna Advani’s My Country My Life. Most of Advani's biography, especially the last chapters, make for laborious reading, but what lifts the book are the passages on Vajpayee. It is Vajpayee’s portrayal and the deference with which Advani treats his senior colleague that takes the book on an altogether different level.

Advani writes: “If I have to single out one person who has been an integral part of my political life almost from its inception till now, one who has remained my close ally in the party for well over fifty years, and whose leadership I have always unhesitatingly accepted, it would be Atal Bihari Vajpayee…”

Just as both Jalal’s and Wolpert’s books reveal the true, tolerant personality of the creator off Pakistan; Advani’s book also shows the expansive and inclusive style of Vajpayee’s politics.

Jinnah in his times and Vajpayee in our time are moderate leaders trapped in an intolerant ideology that the Muslim League and the RSS represent. These ideologies cage the free-spirited leadership style within narrow confines of hidebound belief systems.

Incidentally, Jinnah’s date of birth coincides with Jesus Christ. He died on 9/11 (September 11, 1948). How's that for significance?