Media Release
Book Launch of Jinnah: Bharat Vibhajan Ke Aine Mein by Jaswant Singh

August 17th, 2009, New Delhi: The partition of India in 1947, some call it vivisection as Gandhi had, has without doubt been the most wounding trauma of the 21st century. It has seared the psyche of four generations of this subcontinent. Why did this partition take place at all? Who was responsible – Jinnah? The Congress party? The British? Jaswant Singh attempts to find his answer to these questions. Jinnah’s political journey began as an ambassador of Hindi Muslim unity, yet ended with his becoming the sole spokesman of Muslims in India; the creator of Pakistan: how and why did this transformation take place?
No Indian or Pakistani politician has ventured an analytical political biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, about whom views necessarily get divided as being either hagiographical or additional demonology. This book attempts an objective evaluation. Jaswant Singh’s experience as a minister responsible for the conduct of India’s foreign policy, and managing the country’s defence concurrently, had been uniformly challenging – Lahore peace process, the Kargil betrayal, Kandahar, the Agra Peace Summit, the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, and the coercive diplomacy of 2002.
Jaswant Singh asks where and when did this questionable thesis of ‘Muslim as a separate nation’ first originate and lead the Indian sub-continent to? Where did it drag Pakistan? And what now of Pakistan? Where is it headed? This book stands apart for it is authored by a practitioner of policy, an innovator of policies in search of definitive answers. The author believes that for the return of last peace in South Asia there is no alternative but to first understand what made it ‘abandon’ us in the first place. Until we do that, we will never be able to persuade peace to return.

About the Author
Jaswant Singh, born on January 3, 1938 in Rajasthan, is amongst the most respected names in the country’s public life, and in the world of diplomacy. An alumni of Mayo College and National Defence Academy, he served in the Indian Army in the 1960s. He is a member of parliament in the Lok Sabha, having successfully contested the 2009 elections from the hill state of Darjeeling. In 2001, he was conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for the year. Amongst his several other pursuits are chess, golf, polo, and the promotion of Dingal, an ancient Indian language of Rajasthan.

About the Publisher
Rajpal & Sons, based in New Delhi, is one of India’s leading publishing houses with a publishing history of 97 years. It has on its author list top litterateurs such as Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Amritlal Nagar, Mahadevi Verma, Kamleshwar, Vishnu Prabhakar, Dr. Radhakrishnan, R.K. Narayan, and Mulk Raj Anand – amongst several others. It is the exclusive Hindi publisher of the Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen, and has prominent contemporary authors such as APJ Abdul Kalam, Benazir Bhutto, Khushwant Singh, Atal Behari Vajpayee, J. Krishnamurthy, on its author list.
Madhushala, Awara Masiha, Manas ka Hans, Kitne Pakistan, Ashad ka ek Din, books published by Rajpal, are considered masterpieces in Indian literature.

Rajpal has one of the widest ranges of books published by an Indian publishing house, with literature, fiction, autobiographies, dictionaries and reference books, children books, books on self-help and self development, and books on philosophy and spirituality.