Shourie finds Jinnah repelling

He might have got perilously close to facing disciplinary action in the BJP for siding with Jaswant Singh, but Arun Shourie does not share the expelled leader's view on Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah whom he finds repelling.

He might have got perilously close to facing disciplinary action in the BJP for siding with Jaswant Singh, but Arun Shourie does not share the expelled leader's view on Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah whom he finds repelling.

HT Image

"He unleashed the armed thugs shoring up the Muslim League in his Direct Action against the Hindus. He paralysed the interim government through Liyaqat Ali. From 1935 onwards, he worked stealthily and continuously with the British to thwart every scheme that might have preserved a united India," Shourie says in his latest book.

In his 25th book titled "We Must Have No Price And Everyone Must Know That We Have No Price", the former Editor of The Indian Express and The Times of India and ex-union minister "profoundly" disagrees with Jaswant Singh's assessment of Jinnah.

"Ever since I read the multi-volume Jinnah Papers brought out by the National Archives of Pakistan -- the two-volume Foundations of Pakistan and four-volume History of Partition of India, he (Jinnah) seemed to me to be a pinched, narrow-minded, diabolic schemer, one who used and was used by the British to divide India," the BJP leader says.