'Few individuals significantly
alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly
anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.' - Stanley
Wolpert,professor of history, University of California,
Los Angeles, and author of Jinnah of Pakistan and Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny.
"I was attracted by his (Jinnah’s)
personality, which has resulted in a book. If I was not drawn to his
personality, I would not have written the book… He [not only] fought the British
for an independent India but also fought resolutely and relentlessly for the
interest of the Muslims of India”. On a question to whether Jinnah was a great
man, he said, "Oh yes, self made man who resolutely worked towards achieving
what he had set for himself.” While referring to the plight of the Indian
Muslims today, he said, "Look into the eyes of the Muslims that live in India
and if you truly see through the pain in which they live in to [the] land which
they belong; we treat them as aliens”. Jaswant Singh (author of the book:
Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence )
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Founding Father of
Pakistan
"I have lived as plain Mr. Jinnah
and I hope to die as plain Mr. Jinnah. I am very much averse to any title or
honours and I will be more than happy if there was no prefix to my name."
Nations are not born without the efforts of a few great men, who steer
the people seeking freedom to their ultimate destiny through relentless
efforts, far sightedness, vision and selflessness. The Indian
subcontinent has seen may rulers, dynasties, religions and
civilizations ruling it from time to time. But the conquest of Sind by
the Muslims in 711 AD by the Arabs, however, has had a far greater
impact on the history and the future of the sub-continent than ever
before. The conversion of local mainly Hindu population to Islam and
over 10 centuries long rule by Muslim rulers in one form or the other
sparked a desire in the hearts of the Muslims of the subcontinent in
the early 20th century for a separate homeland where they could live by
their religious aspirations without being intimidated by the Hindus of
the area. This was no easy task - flinching freedom from the British
and their Hindu allies. To this, rose a man to the occasion who stood
to the ground and fought the two to finally get a country for the
Muslims of British India. This man was no less that Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, revered as "Quaid e Azam"
(the leader of the people) - he was a great constitutionalist, a
distinguished parliamentarian, a seasoned politician, an indefatigable
freedom-fighter, a dynamic Muslim leader, a political strategist and,
above all one of the great nation-builder of modern times. From the
very look of him, he was a thin, lean and fragile, but from within, he
was a man of guts, courage, conviction and resolve.
All through his parliamentary career, which spanned some four
decades, he was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian
freedom and Indian rights. From Indian National Congress to Muslim
League, Jinnah advocated the cause of freedom - from India to Pakistan.
Once on the platform of the Muslim League Muhammad Ali Jinnah provided
political leadership to the Indian Muslims and gave them expression and
direction to attain their legitimate aspirations. Through his
articulate expression and in-depth knowledge of the sufferings of the
Muslims at the hands of the British and the Hindus, he succeeded in
convincing them about the legitimacy of the Muslims' demands. This is his story.
Early Life and Education
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on December 25, 1876 to Mr Jinnah Ali
Poonja, a prominent businessman in Karachi. He had his early schooling
at the famous Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission
School. Jinnah lost his father in 1901 when he was 25 years and
thereafter looked after the family affairs as well as becoming lifetime
guardian of his sister, Fatima. For his higher education and
professional pursuits, Jinnah chose Law and got admission in the Lincoln's Inn
in 1893 and become the youngest Indian to be called to the Bar at Law.
Through sheer hard work and determination, Jinnah rose to prominence and
became Bombay's most successful lawyer.
Jinnah and Politics
Having obtained prominence in his profession, Jinnah entered politics
in 1905 from the platform of the Indian National Congress. It was the
same time that Muslim League was also founded by Sir Agha Khan in 1906,
but Jinnah was to join the League much later. He went to England in
that year along with Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), as a member of
a Congress delegation to plead the cause of Indian self-government
during the British elections. In January 1910, he was elected to the
newly-constituted Imperial Legislative Council. Mr. Montagu
(1879-1924), Secretary of State for India, considered Jinnah "perfect
mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with
dialectics..."Jinnah, he felt, "is a very clever man, and it is, of
course, an outrage that such a man should have no chance of running the
affairs of his own country."
Jinnah had always advocated the cause of Hindu Muslim unity and while
still member of the Congress, he joined All India Muslim League in 1913
to become a bridge between the two major communities of India. This
bridge resulted into the signing of famous Congress - Muslim League
Pact of 1916, known popularly as Lucknow Pact
- the only pact ever signed between the two political parties. The
Lucknow Pact conceded Muslims the right to separate electorate,
reservation of seats in the legislatures and weight-age in
representation both at the Centre and the minority provinces. It also
meant that henceforth All-India Muslim League will be the
representative platform for the Muslims. And to Jinnah goes the credit
for all this and Jinnah came to be recognized among both Hindus and
Muslims as one of India's most outstanding political leaders.
However, while being proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity, Jinnah rejected
the injection of violence into politics and Gandhi's Satyagrah (civil
disobedience) which meant boycott of government-aided schools and
colleges, courts and councils and British textiles. Jinnah felt that
Gandhi's doctrine of non-cooperation will lead to despair and
resentment. He felt that there was no short-cut to independence and
that Gandhi's extra-constitutional methods could only lead to
lawlessness and chaos, without bringing India nearer to the threshold
of freedom. Therefore Jinnah left the Congress in 1919 to devote
himself fully to the cause of the Muslims and the Muslim League.
Jinnah and Muslim League
In the 20s, deep distrust between the two communities started to brew
and Indian National Congress refused to accept the genuine demands of
the Muslims, when the somersaulted in the 1928 Nehru Report, which
refused to accept the Muslim right to separate electorate, recognized
earlier in the Lucknow Pact. The Nehru's Report's blank refusal to
accept Muslim demands meant "the parting of the ways". Jinnah's
disillusionment at the course of politics in the subcontinent prompted
him to settle down in London in the early thirties. In 1934, Dr Allama
Muhammad Iqbal persuaded him to come back assume the leadership of the
Muslims. At that time, however, the Muslim League was ill-organized
with no deep rooted representation, nor did the central body had any
coherent policy of its own till the Bombay session (1936), which Jinnah
organized. Jinnah devoted himself with singleness of purpose to
organizing the Muslims on one platform and embarked upon country-wide
tours. He pleaded with provincial Muslim leaders to sink their
differences and make common cause with the League.
The first presence
of Muslim was felt when it won a modest 108 (about 23 per cent) seats
out of a total of 485 Muslim seats in the various legislatures in 1935.
Though not very impressive victory, the League won the largest number
of Muslim seats and surfaced as the only all-India party of the Muslims
in the country. Thus, the elections represented the first milestone on
the long road to putting Muslim India on the map of the subcontinent.
However, the Congress, the dominant party in Indian politics, came to
power in seven provinces exclusively, spurning the League's offer of
cooperation. In that year, the Muslim League, under Jinnah's dynamic
leadership, was reorganized and transformed into a mass organization,
and made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never before. The Congress
provincial governments then embarked upon a policy in which Muslims
felt that their religion, language and culture were not safe. This
blatantly aggressive Congress policy was seized upon by Jinnah to
awaken the Muslims to a new consciousness, organize them on all-India
platform, and make them a power to be reckoned with. From now, the
words of Jinnah became the voice of every Muslim of the subcontinent, "We are a nation
- with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and
literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of
values and proportion, legal laws and moral code, customs and calendar,
history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions; in short, we have our
own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of
international law, we are a nation".
Demand for Pakistan
The 1930 session of Muslim League, in which Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal
presented the idea of a separate homeland for the Muslims of India laid
the foundation of Pakistan. In 1934, a Cambridge student Rehmat Ali
coined the word "Pakistan".
This idea was finally refined and presented in the 23 March 1940 Lahore
session of the Muslim League. From now on all out efforts were to be
made to attain Pakistan at all costs. The demand, however, was totally
rejected by Gandhi since it shattered his pseudo-Indian approach. Not
only the Hindu reaction was quick and bitter, malicious, the British
also became hostile to the Muslim demand. However, Jinnah was
undeterred and it was his powerful advocacy of the case of Pakistan and
his remarkable strategy in the delicate negotiations, that followed the
formulation of the Pakistan demand, particularly in the post-war
period, that made the demand for Pakistan inevitable.
Realizing the
dissatisfaction growing among the Muslims, the British initiated a
number of steps to appease the growing demand for a separate Muslim
homeland. Cripps Mission in April, 1942 was first such effort, which
conceded the principle of self-determination to provinces on a
territorial basis, but was rejected by Jinnah since it did not talk of
separate homeland for the Muslims. In 1944, Gandhi tried to persuade
Jinnah to abandon his demand and presented the Congress alternative to
Pakistan. But Jinnah again turned it down since it still meant Muslims
serving as a minority under the dominant Hindus. Cabinet Mission in
1946 was finally came to the conclusion that the central issue in
Indian politics was Pakistan.
Cabinet Mission Plan
stipulated a limited centre, with foreign affairs, defence and communications
and three autonomous groups of provinces - two groups of Muslim majority in the
north-west and the north-east of the subcontinent, while the third one,
comprising the Indian mainland, to have a Hindu majority. Jinnah interpreted the
clauses as cue for the foundation of Pakistan and induced the Muslim League
Council to accept the Plan in June 1946; much to the dismay of the Congress.
This resulted into Hindus rising against the Muslims which led to a wave of
communal riots all over he subcontinent. The two peoples, it seemed, were
engaged in a fight to the finish. Realizing the gravity of the situation, the
British government sent a new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. His protracted
negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in his 3 June 1947
Partition Plan by which the British agreed to partition of the subcontinent, and
hand over power to two successor States on 15 August, 1947. This was the triumph
of the unified effort of all Muslims of the India, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
whom Muslims rightly started to address as the Quaid-e-Azam (the great leader).
A rare video of Jinnah by BBC
Jinnah's Pakistan:
Thus on night 14-15 August 1947, Pakistan was carved out of the British
India as an independent sovereign country to serve the aspirations of
700 million Muslims that opted to be part of it. As was expected, the
Hindus did every thing to deny the very existence to this newly born
state and choked its share of cash balance. Soon, India militarily
annexed Junagadh and Hyderabad Daccen (which had originally acceded to
Pakistan) and later Kashmir. On top of all this, some eight million
refugees poured into Pakistan which needed to be sheltered and fed.
Under such precarious circumstances with empty kitty, it was nothing
short of a miracle that Pakistan survived, mainly due to Allah's help
and dynamic leadership of none other than Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah
laid down the policies of the new state, directed the members of the
Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to
do and ensured that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite
the provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had provided.
He moved from Karachi to Lahore to personally supervise the
rehabilitation of the countless refugee. Despite his poor health, he
remained calm and composed, while directing people and officials to
concentrate on helping the refugees, to avoid retaliation, exercise
restraint and protect the minorities.
He assured the minorities of a fair deal, assuaged their inured
sentiments, and gave them hope and comfort. He toured the various
provinces, attended to their particular problems and instilled in the
people a sense of belonging. He secured the accession of number of
independent States, and entered into negotiations with Lord Mountbatten
for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue. However, the life did not side
with him much longer and finally he left the mourning nation for his
heavenly abode on 11 September 1948.
(Left to Right) - Oath as first
Governor General of Pakistan - Addresses to firsts session of Constituent
Assembly -First coins issued by State Bank of Pakistan
Rare Coloured Photographs of
Jinnah's visit to Lahore in 1948 and Reception by Citizens of Lahore in Shalamar
Gardens
The Last Voyage - Jinnah left the
one year old nation mourning on 11 September 1948
The Quaid's last Message to the Nation - 14 August 1948
"The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can.
Let it not be said that we did not prove equal to our task".
Gandhi was a Mahatama indeed but Jinnah
has been the most unique person in world history to achieve a separate
country out of sheer determination, whatever means and resources he utilized
for that. - Sandeep Kuulshrestha
"Mr. Jinnah was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great
as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and
greatest of all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the
world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its
life-giver, philosopher and guide".
--------------------------------------------------------- Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress
Jaswant Singh writes in his book " Jinnah: India
– Partition – Independence"…He (Jinnah) created something out of nothing and
single-handedly stood against the might of the Congress and the British who
didn’t really like him...Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why
don’t we recognise that? Why don’t we see (and try to understand) why he
called him that?...I admire certain aspects of his personality; his
determination and the will to rise. He was a self-made man. Mahatma Gandhi
was the son of a Diwan. All these (people) – Nehru and others – were born to
wealth and position. Jinnah created for himself a position. He carved in
Bombay a position for himself. He was so poor that he had to walk to work…He
told one of his biographers that there was always room at the top but no
lift…and he never sought a lift”. Jaswant Singh goes on to say that the
Indian leaders had not only misunderstood Jinnah but made a demon out of
him. According to him the demonisation of Jinnah was a direct result of the
trauma of partition. Singh also said that the view held by many in India
that Jinnah hated Hindus was a mistake.
Comparing the leadership of Gandhi and Jinnah, the book says, "[Gandhi’s]
had almost an entirely religious provincial flavour while [Jinnah’s] was
doubtless imbued by a non-sectarian nationalistic zeal”. Jaswant Singh is
certainly right to assert this difference between Gandhi and Jinnah on
religious grounds. That’s why Gandhi is both hailed and hated in India –
hailed by some for being a great Hindu leader and hated by the others,
especially the Dalits, for being proponent of Hindu caste system. By yet
others, he is abhorred for aiding the making of Pakistan , as they believe
so. This third view is even stronger about Nehru amongst the educated
Indians. Jaswant Singh somewhat maintains the same tinge. Jinnah too has two
opinions about his personality in Pakistan. Some think him to be a liberal
who wanted Pakistan to be a secular state and often refer to his August 11,
1947 speech to the Constituent Assembly to support their conjecture.