The manner of doing an act is as important as its correctness. Whatever the justification from the BJP on Jaswant Singh’s expulsion, the summary and unceremonious manner in which it was done is regrettable. Heavens would not have fallen if a prompt explanation was sought from a senior leader of his stature.

The ban imposed by the Gujarat government on the book Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence highlights the growing virus of intolerance in our polity. If the book supposedly contains distortions of historical events and expresses opinions which are outrageous, banning is not the answer. The right course is to expose the alleged inaccuracies and fallacies and trash the book by another publication or by articles as Arun Shourie has done vigorously in The Indian Express. In a liberal democracy there must be ‘freedom for the thought we hate’. If dissent is penalised, freedom of thought and expression will be under siege and ultimately democracy will be drained of its vital sustaining elements.

Jinnah the politician has been dissected. What about Jinnah the lawyer? According to the late P.B. Vachha, author of the classic Famous Judges and Lawyers of Bombay, Jinnah was one of the most celebrated members of the Bombay Bar who continued his public career side by side with active legal practice. Jinnah was not a great lawyer but was exceptional in his mastery of facts and the force and lucidity with which he drove home his point. Jinnah appeared in a number of important cases. He had a towering personality and was a formidable cross-examiner who could make pulp of an untruthful witness. According to Vachha, Jinnah’s outstanding attribute was his fearlessness. Any impertinent observations from the Bench were countered by a firm response.

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