To the extent that leaders give concrete expressions to socio-historical forces, these expressions become worthy of analysis for numerous reasons: for harnessing societal energies, shaping public discourses, legitimating political orders, and providing validity to normative structures.

This panel is designed to look at three leaders: Gandhi (India), Jinnah (Pakistan), and Mujib (Bangladesh), each of whom has been honored as the "father of the nation." As "fathers of nations," these are leaders of a particular kind. Their special role at crucial junctures of history differentiates them from thousands who have preceded them or will follow them. Their words have become enduring visions, reference points, means of justification, and forms of legitimation. They provide their respective nations with a historical timeline, a starting point, and a set of first principles. What gives such special vigor, force and validity to their speech is a key question that we want to explore.

Naseem Hines looks at Gandhi’s complex and paradoxical speech that kaleidoscopically separates, combines and recombines his several audiences into a subtle hierarchy; Agha Saeed examines Jinnah’s cultural interpretations of history aimed at creating a new national identity and establishing new forms of legitimacy; and Sartaz Aziz explores the cultural roots of Bangladeshi nationalism, which provide a backdrop to Mujib’s political pronouncements and gives them their authenticity and magical effectiveness.

Naseem Hines, University of Washington

Gandhi was one of the most complex thinkers and orators of the 20th century. I want to explore this complexity at two levels: conceptual and rhetorical.

Conceptually, Gandhi had paradoxical, if not outright contradictory, goals. He wanted to build a nationalistic, secular, multi-religious nation, but, at the same, he wanted to revive Hinduism and give the All-India Congress, a self-avowedly secular party, a Hindu ethos.

Why did he do that? Did he overestimate his own powers of persuasion in pursing such contradictory goals? To what extent did his contradictory moves connect him with different constituencies and increase his power? Why, at the beginning of the 21st century, does India, ruled by BJP, seem to be giving up on Gandhi’s legacy?

Rhetorically, the issue of complexity is observable in terms of the large number of audiences. A moral philosopher as well as a wily politician, Gandhi was always talking to multiple audiences. Gandhi’s complex and paradoxical speech kaleidoscopically separated, combined and recombined his several audiences into a subtle hierarchy. I want to examine how this hierarchy was considered just by some and unjust by others and how this hierarchy that Gandhi never seemed willing to abandon may have contributed to the creation of Pakistan. For sure he was aware that his religious tactics are quickly alienating the Muslim community. Why didn’t he change his tactics?

Agha Saeed, California State University, Hayward

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, President of All-India Muslim League, Gandhi’s nemesis, and the founder of Pakistan, remains understudied if not unstudied as an orator and a cultural strategist.

In this paper, I will look at three key components of his narrative strategy: (1) legal-constitutional approach; (2) socio-economic approach; and (3) moral-mythic approach. Through a dynamic combining of these three approaches, his politics became a process of cultural interpretation of history and the pattern of his cultural interpretations became the patterns of his (yet to be born) nation’s imagination.

But this imagination had to be legitimated. "Legitimacy," Habermas has observed, "means that there are good reasons for a political order’s claims to be recognized as right and just: a legitimate order deserves recognition." I want to profile his method of imbuing the idea of Pakistan with "good reasons" and "worthiness to be recognized."

To that end I am concerned with these questions: What was his understanding of religion? How did he use culture to create a legitimate order for the Muslims of South Asia? How was his cultural vision translated into his rhetorical practices? What is his rhetorical legacy and how has it impacted India-Pakistan relations? And, finally, why did Gandhi and Nehru fail to anticipate Jinnah’s astonishing success with the Muslim masses?

Sartaz Aziz, California State University, Hayward

This paper is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the emergence of Bangladeshi nationalism. I will explore how language politics evolved into full-fledged nationalism. I will examine Shiekh Mujibur Rahman’s use of cultural nationalism as a powerful weapon to create a nation, and I will show how he combined different aspects of his leadership to the different cultural contexts of Bengal to connect and inspire his people.