Expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh moved the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday against the Gujarat government’s ban on his book Jinnah - India Partition Independence.
Expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh moved the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday against the Gujarat government’s ban on his book Jinnah - India Partition Independence.
Jaswant and publisher Rupa and Company said the BJP government in the state had subverted their constitutional rights guaranteed under Articles 19(1)(a) and (g) by proscribing the historical book without giving a reason. The Modi government had said while banning the book that it was an attempt to defame the country’s first home minister Vallabhbhai Patel by “questioning his patriotic spirit”.
“Jaswant Singh’s book questions the role of Sardar Patel in the partition of India as well as his patriotic spirit. This is an attempt to tarnish the image of Patel, who is considered the architect of modern united India,” a statement issued by the government said.
Jaswant counters, saying the proscription amounts to “banning thinking” and is similar to the one on noted author Salman Rushdie for his controversial work The Satanic Verses.
“The day we start banning books, we are banning thinking.” Jaswant says he decided to explore the historical factors that led to partition when he accompanied then prime minister AB Vajpayee to Lahore in 1999.
He took five years to complete the book that “explores the transformation of [Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali] Jinnah” from “an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity” to the “sole spokesman of Muslims in India”.
Jaswant says Gujarat singled out his book, though it contains references freely available in the state and elsewhere in the country, such as HV Seshadri’s The Tragedy of Partition and Prof RC Majumdar’s History of the Freedom Movement in India. “It [the book] lends a unique insight into Jinnah’s role in India’s partition and cannot in any manner or form promote enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place or birth, residence, language, etc,” the MP from Darjeeling says.
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