Nobody, including Jinnah, Nehru, Patel, or Lord Mountbatten, had any idea of what Partition at the time of India’s Independence would entail. Would they, with the benefit of hindsight, have chosen a different course? Success has many fathers, as the familiar proverb puts it, while failure is an orphan. In the event, conjecture about Pakistan’s possible progenitors comes across as a decidedly odd phenomenon. ... In 1947, hardly anyone could have suspected that a nation, Pakistan, carved out on a confessional basis would lead to a country obsessed with jihad. However, there can be little doubt that it is Jinnah—rather than Nehru or Patel—who ought to have known that the country he left behind 61 years ago was not destined for secularity.
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