Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh on Monday came under fresh attack by the right-wing, when an article in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece accused him of conniving with Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah's grandson Nusli Wadia, to help the latter get possession of a prime property in Mumbai.
Singh said, "If anyone dares to praise Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was responsible for the partition of our country, along with all the horrific incidents that followed, strict action will be taken against them."
The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh disapproved of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's praise of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah
In the midst of a debate over Mohammad Ali Jinnah's role in Partition, former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha chief K S Sudarshan has said that the Pakistan founder had "many facets" and that at one stage, he was with Lokmanya Tilak and was committed to a unified India.
Wadia had filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court seeking a declaration that the possession of the property, Jinnah House, by the Indian government was illegal and prayed for restoration of the same to the petitioner.
Pakistan on Friday dismissed as "incorrect" a local media report which suggested that it had abandoned the idea of claiming Jinnah House in Mumbai to open a consulate in India's financial hub.
Militants from the restive province of Balochistan on Saturday attacked a historic 121-year-old building in southwestern Pakistan that was used by the country's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his last days. The militants of the Balochistan Liberation Army targeted the Quaid-e-Azam Residency in Ziarat, a holiday resort located nearly 120 km from the provincial capital of Quetta, at 1.15 am.
"Is the current government a government for a particular community? Is it a government only for Hindutva?" Owaisi said.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Wednesday described Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray as the new Mohammad Ali Jinnah and said his estranged nephew was intent on dividing Marathi people.
Reflecting a change in Bhartiya Janata Party's attitude, top party leader L K Advani was on Thursday night present at a function where Jaswant Singh released the paper-back edition of his controversial book on Pakistan founder Mohd Ali Jinnah.
India said help was being extended to Pakistan in locating an appropriate place for locating the consulate in Mumbai.
The first of its kind in the country, the hub -- termed SACAC (South Asian Centre for Arts and Culture) -- will come up in what was once the home of Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh's biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, out on Sunday, promises to be much discussed.
Bharatiya Janata Party President L K Advani has said that his remarks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah during his visit to Pakistan were in the "interest" of the people of the two countries.
History might be better understood if we did not treat it as a heroes-and-villains movie, says eminent journalist and author M J Akbar, elucidating on the Jinnah factor in pre-Independent India.
Five years after courting controversy for praising MA Jinnah, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani still seems to be haunted by it as he remarked that he had "personally" experienced what the Pakistan founder would have gone through by advocating for a secular state.
Jawaharlal Nehru had a "self-centred attitude" to become India's first PM, claims Dalai Lama.
'We are sorry, Mr Jinnah. We are sorry that we have not been able to actualise the Pakistan of your vision. At least, not yet,' reads a post dedicated to the Father of the Nation on a popular search engine.
On a tour to the US, Gandhi told reporters in Washington that the Muslim League is a completely secular party and there is nothing non-secular about it.
"Views expressed by Jaswant Singh in his book Jinnah -- India, Partition, Independence does not represent views of the party. In fact, the party completely dissociates itself from the contents of the book," party chief Rajnath Singh told media persons in New Delhi.
"There seems to be a growing recognition that the Taliban and other miscreants, to use the Pakistanis own word for this, are a threat to the entire country and are alien to the spirit of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the founders of Pakistan," Holbrooke said at a press conference after the meeting of Friends of Democratic Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday.
Pakistan has also declined permission to India to open its renovated consulate which was ready for functioning in Karachi, saying that it can be reopened only after Islamabad found an accommodation in Mumbai.
Sources in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the government also has no plans to back the country's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah's daughter Dina Wadia's efforts to gain possession of the building. The sources said, "Keeping aside the sentimental value of Muslims of the subcontinent, it is clear that the Jinnah House was the personal property of Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) and not of the Pakistan government".
He also conceded there was still some communication gap between him and the RSS.
Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray likened BJP president Nitin Gadkari's plight after his remarks on Swami Vivekananda to that of L K Advani, who had to step down as chief of the saffron party following his comments hailing Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah as secular.
Tamba was attacked by motorcycle-borne assailants at his residence in Sanant Nagar, a thickly populated area of old Lahore in the afternoon.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh, whose book eulogising Mohd Ali Jinnah has come under attack from BJP and the Sangh parivar, was on Wednesday expelled from the BJP.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
The Jinnah House figured in the joint press conference by Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid M Kasuri at the end of the external affairs minister's visit to Islamabad on October 4.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on Friday called Mahatma Gandhi 'a great strategist' and said that the revered Indian leader knew the importance of utilising soft power against the brute forces during the freedom struggle.
With the kind of money and talent that has gone into making this movie, a really good biopic of a personality like Savarkar could be made. But this film is lost in polemics, as is the case with almost every biopic and period drama today, observes Utkarsh Mishra.
A delegation of Congress leaders met EC officials and raised several issues, including the use of pictures and large cut-outs of the prime minister in government buildings and colleges and demanded that those be removed to maintain a level-playing field in the upcoming parliamentary election.
The BJP and its senior leader L K Advani may have closed the chapter on the Jinnah controversy, but for the VHP, a key member of the Sangh Parivar, the issue is not yet "clear". "Things have to be made clearer by him (Advani)," senior VHP leader Ashok Singhal said on Thursday.
Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani has said that the founder of Pakistan, Mohamed Ali Jinnah had hoped that India-Pakistan relations would be like the cordial US-Canada relations, and also had hankered nostalgically to return one day to his beloved Mumbai.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances