Obituary Prof. Stanley Wolpert

By: Manzoor Qureshi

A dedicated teacher, a renowned historian and a prolific author

Renowned American historian of South Asia and an excellent biographer of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Prof. Stanley Wolpert passed away on February 19. In his long career as an author, teacher and political commentator, Prof. Wolpert published 15 books, including four novels, but the one that made him a must read in Pakistan is Jinnah of Pakistan, published in 1982. It is among the best biographies of the Quaid. Prof. Wolpert is widely known and respected in Pakistan owing to this monumental book.

Stanley Albert Wolpert was born on December 23, 1927, in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish parents. His first visit to Bombay, India, left him awestruck with the presence and role of Jinnah and Gandhi in Indian politics. Soon after returning home, he abandoned a stable career in marine engineering and started studying Indian history, developing a knack for it. He received his bachelorette in 1953 from City College and completed his Master’s degree in 1955 and PhD in 1959 from the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation was selected for the biennial Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1962 and was acknowledged as one of the finest books on history of Indo-Pak Subcontinent published in the United States.

Prof. Wolpert started his academic career as an instructor in the Department of History at UCLA in 1959. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1960 and later associate professor in 1963. In 1975, Wolpert was awarded UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of his efforts.

Stanley’s devotion to teaching earned him the gratitude and affection of thousands of students over the course of his 59-year teaching career. He taught his last seminar at the age of 90.

Prof. Wolpert visited Pakistan in December 2001 on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of the Founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was invited to speak at an event at the Governor House, Karachi. In his address, Prof. Wolpert stated that Quaid-i-Azam was a man who primarily focused on the importance of honesty, fair play and primacy of legal integrity throughout his life. Drawing a parallel between Mr Jinnah and other Indian leaders, Wolpert said that in many ways Jinnah and Gandhi were giants of the South Asian history whereas Nehru was far behind them and diminished both in terms of character, consistency and his role was not only a negative one and harsh but also emotionally driven.

Wolpert further said that Jinnah’s vision was clearly set out when he said as early as 1940 that Muslims of the Subcontinent are not a minority but a nation. Wolpert called upon the people of Pakistan to reflect upon and seek inspiration from the struggles, achievement and vision of Quaid-i-Azam so that a well-disciplined and organized nation can emerge.

Prof. Wolpert is now a part of history and will always be held in esteem by professors, scholars and students of history.

Important Books

Some of the most prominent books of Wolpert (fiction) included: Aboard the Flying Swan (1954), Nine Hours to Rama (1962), The Expedition: A Novel (1967) and An Error of Judgment (1970). Other non-fiction books included: Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (1962), Morley and India, 1906-1910 (1967), A New History of India (1977, 1982, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2008), Roots of Confrontation in South Asia: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the Superpowers (1982), Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-Independence Phase (co-edited with Richard Sisson) (1988), India (1991), Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan: His Life and Times (1993), Nehru: A Tryst With Destiny (1996), Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and the Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi (2001), Encyclopaedia of India (editor) (2005), Shameful Flight: The Last Years of British Empire in India (2006) and India and Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation (2010). He was quite prolific, for his books on South Asia include a monumental New History of India. This profundity of knowledge enabled him to grasp the intricacies of the political, constitutional and violent struggle that ultimately led to the end of the Raj and the birth of what was then the world’s biggest Muslim country population-wise.

Jinnah of Pakistan

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was for Pakistan what Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru combined were for modern India — inspirational father and first head of state. Jinnah began his career as the Indian National Congress’s ‘Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity’ but ended it forty years later as the architect of the partition that split Pakistan away from India. This authoritative and uniquely insightful biography explores the fascinating public and private life of this eminently powerful but little understood leader who changed the map of the Asian subcontinent.

Portraying Jinnah’s story in all of its human complexity. Wolpert begins in the late nineteenth century with Jinnah’s early life as a provincial country-boy in Karachi and follows him to London where he studied law and became a British barrister. Returning to India in 1896, Jinnah rapidly ascended the dual ladders of Indian law and politics, climbing to the top rung of each. By the 1920s, however, it appeared that Jinnah’s political career was at an end, superseded by the rise of Gandhi’s leadership and the movement of India in a more revolutionary direction. Yet, Jinnah was to remain a pivotal figure in the turbulent decades that followed, as India struggled for independence from British rule amid growing Hindu-Muslim antagonism.

Wolpert vividly recounts how the tragic clash of personalities and party platforms that initially pitted Jinnah against Gandhi escalated from a personal rivalry into a conflict of national and international proportions. Wolpert shows how Jinnah’s shrewd and skilful leadership combined brilliant advocacy and singular tenacity to win his suit for the creation of Pakistan on behalf of the ‘Muslim nation’ — his sole client during the last, lonely, pain-filled decade of his life.

Gandhi’s Passion,

Gandhi’s Passion is a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. Delhi University historian Shahid Amin in his review for the Outlook, called it an “empathetic and meticulous biography”.

Shameful Flight

Published in 2006, Shameful Flight is a chronological study of the last days of the British Empire in India from the fall of Singapore in 1942 to the Jammu and Kashmir war of 1947-48.