Well, despite the fact that his passion and commitment with the cause Indian Muslims could not be questioned and his honesty was above board, he was not a good politician rather he was a statesman far better than the contemporary politicians. The problem is that he was an extremely arrogant person and showed inflexibility at times when political bending-snapping would have been more appropriate. Eventually, people of sub-continent ended up suffering from the unforeseen consequences that no-one ever imagined. Though Nehru was to blame for the failure of Cabinet Mission's proposal of creating a so called confederation instead of an all out partition, I still believe that Cabinet Mission's proposal was the best option offered to Muslims of India that would have kept integrity of Muslim cause in the subcontinent very much intact. Knowing or knowing Urdu wouldn't matter!
Jinnah's commitment cannot be questioned but you are way of the mark with other stuff about him. Jinnah was a good negotiator and a politician than a statesman. You would imagine a statesman would get respect from people across all sections. Whatever Jinnah achieved was
because of his inflexibility not despite it. He would never have achieved any bit of Pakistan if he bent a little. His brinkmanship, vicious politics and blackmail(don't give us freedom if the Pakistan question is not settled) was what brought him his success. He could not have bent. Its like backing down in a poker game. His opponents would have read the cards and called his bluff if he showed any sign of genuine desire to see a united India.
Nehru should not be blamed for failure of Cabinet Mission Plan. It was a shi**y plan. Only people who think one Muslim = x Hindus find it sensible. It would be a loose-loose for India. Consider what would have happened by the plan. Entire Bengal and Punjab would be with Muslim states with Delhi at borders. Which means more territory to muslim states plus the ability to secede at a later time. Jinnah was ready to make secession impossible by law, but seriously what is exactly impossible?
There would be three levels of governance with the national legislature having equal number of muslims and hindus which is ridiculous. Now you also see why I said curbs on secession would be a joke. We would have become like Bosnia-Herzegovina with a president for Hindus and a president for Muslims both having veto over every issue. If you are calling the present state in India and Pakistan as policy paralysis, I shudder to think what would have happened then. Such a confederation is BS. The joke in all this is that even Jinnah did not believe in a confederation. That is why he wanted a strong Centre for the muslim states even though his constituents like the Punjab CM was pushing for stronger states(In fact this is with what Jinnah used to scare muslims states into supporting him. The argument that a Hindu PM will make them slaves).
No wonder then that strong proponents of united India like Gandhi also saw the reasoning.
Jinnah's not knowing Urdu was a tragedy for Pakistan. I will comment on a different post.
You clearly don't know the reason why Urdu was chosen as the official language. It was chosen cause it was the neutral language between all provinces.Quaide never wanted today's bangladesh to be part of pakistan period. Even if Bengali was the official language Bangladesh still was going to seperate.
That is incorrect. You are saying that with a sour grapes attitude. Qauid wanted Bangladesh. He actually wanted the whole of the then Punjab and the then Bengal. Bengali was made the official language of Pakistan by 1956. But the other burning issues were like the discrimination against East Pakistan in expenditure even though they had higher population basically rejecting population based allocation.
Up until 4 years ago, the same population proportion principle was used by Punjab to grab majority share in taxes from the other provinces even though the highest taxes are collected from Karachi. We all know the causus belli for Bangladesh as well. It was not just a military dictator that rejected Mujib's mandate but also a democratic politician who would have stayed a long time in Pakistani politics.
