But was Jinnah really “secular”? Given how we Indians have distorted the word, there is no way such a question makes sense. But look at the original meaning (and, in my opinion, the only defensible meaning) of the word.
We have people saying that because Jinnah drank and ate pork, he could not have been “communal”. Ergo he was secular. Excuse me, but whether you are “secular” or not is not determined by whether you follow your religion. It is determined by whether you want the government to impose religion on others. You can be pious and God-fearing, but as long as you oppose the government imposing your religious beliefs on others, you are still secular. (In fact, if I were a pious and God-fearing Hindu, I would be even more vehemently a supporter of secularism, because I believe that associating government with religion will end up corrupting religion) You could violate every single tenet of your religion and you’d still be communal if you want the government to discriminate against people on the basis of religion. Just remember that many people identify themselves with a religion not because they necessarily believe in the principles of that religion, but because belonging to that group gives them the comfort of a group identity. That doesn’t make them “secular”.
Now it is true that Jinnah wanted a country for Muslims. It is also true that he did not want this new country to discriminate on the basis of religion. Does that make him a theocrat or a supporter of secularism? The question is pointless. “Secular” and “Communal” are labels to give to a person’s views. The labels follow from the views and not the other way round. For example, I identify myself as a Capitalist because my views, when summarised, closely approximate those views that we’ve agreed to call Capitalism. You cannot say. “You are a Capitalist, so you must believe that ______” Fill in the blank with your favourite (mis) interpretation of Capitalist beliefs. It is “I believe in W, X, Y and Z and hence I am a Capitalist” If of these, W and X turn out to be close to what are normally considered Capitalist beliefs, but Y and Z turn out to be off, am I still a Capitalist? The question is irrelevant. Now that you know my specific beliefs, deal with my beliefs, not with your labeling of those beliefs.
Similarly, if you want to judge Jinnah, judge him on his specific beliefs. Don’t argue on the label you give to those beliefs. I agree that he turns out to be an opportunistic prick even when evaluated on them. The problem is that for some reason, we identify “secular” with “good”, so calling someone secular seems to be equivalent to praising him.
I think Jinnah can be labelled as a “dont-care-much-about-religion-and-government” person who wanted to become prime minister of some country in his lifetime…
Secularism means that “religion” does not dictate the affairs of the state. At any rate, that’s how the concept originated in Europe. And it’s not quite a case of state not imposing religion on citizens: to the contrary, it is a policy mandating religion (ie the church) not to impose _its_ governance on citizens.
Take the latest case of mullas ruling that a raped woman must be separated from her husband. Now suppose the government maintained a hands-off approach — as it is most certainly going to — and let the mullahs have their way. You could say that the government has passed the test of being secular because it did not impose X’s religion on Y. But something tells you it is not.
The government is not secular by the original definition because it let the church’s laws undermine its own. It let the citizen be governed by the church.
Also note that, by the original definition, one may discrimate against people on the basis of religion but still remain secular. The advent of secularism did not see an end to the misery of religious minorities — like the jews and the gypsies — in Europe. (The most notorious anti-semetic regime, that of Hitler’s, was quite secular.) It only meant that Christians freed themselves from church’s yoke.
Which brings us to our final point: secularism, in its origins, was definitely not religion-neutral. It was essentially a Christian concept, and remains so to a large extent. In other words, it is not non-sectarian as dumbass Indians are led to believe. In Germany, every citizen has to pay — by law — for the church’s upkeep. That is not deemed anti-secular. The US Congress maintains a chapel and chaplain out of tax-payer’s funds. That is not seen as anti-secular either. Britain has an official church. Yet there is no guilt-tripping in these countries on the issue of ‘secularism’ — though they would line up to lecture us — because there is no confusion in their minds: secularism means that the church keeps its hands off the state’s affairs, not that the state won’t favour the church.
“Communal” is not the opposite of secular. In the earlier part of the last century, this adjective was almost exlcusively applied to Muslim League’s politics, initially non-pejoratively. Recall that the Brits had a “communal” policy, and there was a “communal” award that divided electorate on the basis of ethnic/religious identities. And of course, the word continues to be used in a value-neutral sense (eg: “Auroville has a communal kitchen”.)
In early ’70s, the Left’s pointman Nurul Hassan became Indira Gandhi’s Education Minister. He packed state-funded instittutions wth cronies and fellow-travellers. Courtesy state patronage, third-rate academics became Eminent Historians. It was they who started the whole secular-communal shebang. “Secularism” came to mean everything good, and “communalism” everything bad. Natuarally, they applied the former label to themselves, and the latter exclusively to Hindu parties.
But if one goes by first principles and original definitions, secularism and communalism are not polar opposities, because “communalism” in the Indian context has come to mean “sectarianism”.
So could Jinnah have been secular? There is reason to believe that, as an individual who defiied religious law in his personal life (he ate pork and enjoyed wine), he did not stand for rule of the mullahs. In that sense, he was secular. But as a man who founded a state on religious hate, a state meant specifically for Muslims, he was definitely sectarian.
To sum up, Jinnah was both secular and communal!
Secularism is over rated