The fact is that before the bad blood erupted first in 1929 on the issue of 'Separate Electorate', Jinnah was far ahead of all nationalists. 'He fought the British for an independent India but also fought resolutely and relentlessly for the interest of Muslims of India... The acme of his nationalistic achievement was the 1916 Lucknow Pact of Hindu-Muslim unity,' Jaswant Singh has rightly written.

The seeds of discord for the partition were sown in the mismanagement of the Cabinet Mission Plan. According to scholar B. Sheikh Ali's book 'Maulana Azad: Vision and Action', Hindus and Muslims were to get their due under a federal system and both communities were satisfied about that.

It was all harmonious till Azad sensed that Patel had instigated Nehru to not only make changes in the Cabinet Mission Plan but to shelve it. Azad ran to Gandhi March 31, 1947, to report that the danger of partition was lurking and that he must intervene. Gandhi said that partition would take place only over his corpse. Azad got pacified.

But partition did take place -- amid bloodshed. After that, Azad became a living dead body. Aruna Asaf Ali, a veteran of the Indian independence movement, related to me how inconsolable Azad was on the midnight of Aug 14-15, 1947, when Pakistan was carved out of India.

It's time the reality of partition dawns and the blot is washed away from the Indian Muslim community, which has been traditionally held responsible for the 1947 saga.

(26.08.2009-The author is a commentator on social, educational and religious issues and a grandnephew of Maulana Azad. He can be reached at firozbakhtahmed07@gmail.com)