If you want a revolution, there are going to be losses. What your talking about is pre-partition. I'm sure there were losses. But Jinnah is not to blame for any of them, in fact he tried to avoid them - Nehru's rejection of the Cabinet Mission Plan initiated action from the Muslim league.
Jinnah's methods as far as i know, were peaceful (as were Gandhi's). The anarchy which beseiged India, pre and post partition was due to poor implementation and a lack of law enforcement. That can be blamed primarily on the British. Jinnah needed to mobilize support, in 1930 a mere 75 people came to witness Allama Iqbal's speech. By 1944 the Muslim League had increased its membership to 2 million. In the 1945-46 election the Muslim League won 75 percent of the Muslim vote. The tide had definitely turned. The League took 460 out of 533 Muslim seats in both the central and provincial elections. For every Muslim in India, Jinnah made Pakistan mean something in terms of their identity – this is what made the movement work.
ZZ: "The partition of Punjab and Bengal was unavoidable."
Says who? You? Nehru screwed everything up. ** In 1946 Jinnah accepted what was termed the Cabinet Mission Plan ** . The Plan proposed an outline for a federation of Indian provinces after independence. Members of a taskforce put together by the British Imperial power drew up the Plan. Many Muslim leaders opposed Jinnah’s acceptance of the plan including a number of religious clerics. The fact that Jinnah accepted the plan was confusing for many Muslims. Many Muslims questioned weather Jinnah had abandoned his demand for a separate homeland? ** The Cabinet Plan stated that the provinces would not be divided ** , something which eventually would cause a great deal of unnecessary bloodshed. Shortly after Jinnah’s acceptance, ** Nehru rejected the Plan ** . This was perhaps the pivotal turning point in the negotiations for a separate homeland for Muslims. Jinnah was infuriated by Nehru’s behavior. ** Jinnah believed that accepting the plan would be a sure-fire way of avoiding violence and division in the future. By accepting the Cabinet Plan Jinnah hoped he could save Muslims torment and turmoil in the future and would not have to make a choice to save Muslims along a new border ** . After Nehru rejected the plan Jinnah was forced to make that choice. On July 28, 1946, in a meeting of the Muslim League in Bombay Jinnah made his position clear:
“All efforts of the Muslim League at fair-play, justice, even supplication and prayers have had no response of any kind from the congress...the Cabinet Mission have played into the hands of the Congress...Pandit Jawaralal Nehru as the elected President made the policy and attitude of the congress clear...Congress was committed to nothing.”
The next day the League announced what was coined Direct Action Day, set for August 16, 1946 – the day was set for protest in demand for an independent Pakistan. Civil war erupted in many parts of India including Calcutta, where “horrific rioting” took hold. But whose fault was that? Nehru's or Jinnah's? Did Nehru expect the Muslim league to sit back, surely he knew that their would be repercussions - a day of protest was called - not a day of violence, it turned into such due to a lack of civil society.
ZZ wrote: "more in Bengal (since punjabi muslims did not find it wise to clash with sikhs)..."
Sure they did, some of the worst violence took place in Punjab, pre and post partition.
ZZ wrote: "Afterall, whole argument of Jinnah was that Muslims can not trust Hindus or live with them."
No, Jinnah was arguing that Muslims could not move up in the social echelon of a Hindu dominant India. His argument was that Muslims would be marginalized. If you look at the conditions and socio-economic indicators of Muslims living in India today, vis a vis their Hindu bretheren, Jinnah's argument was well intentioned and made sense.
ZZ wrote: "The argument worked the other way round too and these states with sizable non-muslims were partitioned."
Sure, thanks to Nehru's ineptitude.
Achtung
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