Jinnah – Ambassador of Hindu–Muslim Unity

This book analyses the development of Jinnah's relationship with India's Muslims from his entry into politics until 1934. It shows that a dominant view of Jinnah - that he was an ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity in the 1920s who became a communalist in the 1940s - is far from the truth. The book argues that the "two Jinnahs" approach over-simplifies the trajectory of a complex and evolving political thinker and strategist. The primary changes in Jinnah's politics were the strategies he employed to achieve his goals rather than the goals themselves. Amongst the many aspects of Jinnah's political thought and career analysed here are his "elitism" and distance from mass politics, his relations with Gandhi, Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, Willingdon, Ramsay MacDonald and Irwin, his attitude to the Rowlatt Act, the Khilafat movement and non-cooperation, and his troubled and complex relations with other nationalist Muslim leaders.