Father of the Nation
Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's achievement as the founder of Pakistan,
dominates everything else he did in his long and crowded public life spanning
some 42 years. Yet, by any standard, his was an eventful life, his personality
multidimensional and his achievements in other fields were many, if not equally
great. Indeed, several were the roles he had played with distinction: at one
time or another, he was one of the greatest legal luminaries India had produced
during the first half of the century, an `ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, a
great constitutionalist, a distinguished parliamentarian, a top-notch
politician, an indefatigable freedom-fighter, a dynamic Muslim leader, a
political strategist and, above all one of the great nation-builders of modern
times. What, however, makes him so remarkable is the fact that while similar
other leaders assumed the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and
espoused their cause, or led them to freedom, he created a nation out of an
inchoate and down-trodeen minority and established a cultural and national home
for it. And all that within a decase. For over three decades before the
successful culmination in 1947, of the Muslim struggle for freedom in the
South-Asian subcontinent, Jinnah had provided political leadership to the Indian
Muslims: initially as one of the leaders, but later, since 1947, as the only
prominent leader- the Quaid-i-Azam. For over thirty years, he had guided their
affairs; he had given expression, coherence and direction to their ligitimate
aspirations and cherished dreams; he had formulated these into concerete
demands; and, above all, he had striven all the while to get them conceded by
both the ruling British and the numerous Hindus the dominant segment of India's
population. And for over thirty years he had fought, relentlessly and
inexorably, for the inherent rights of the Muslims for an honourable existence
in the subcontinent. Indeed, his life story constitutes, as it were, the story
of the rebirth of the Muslims of the subcontinent and their spectacular rise to
nationhood, phoenixlike.
Early Life
Born on December 25, 1876, in a prominent mercantile family in Karachi and
educated at the Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School at his
birth place,Jinnah joined the Lincoln's Inn in 1893 to become the youngest
Indian to be called to the Bar, three years later. Starting out in the legal
profession withknothing to fall back upon except his native ability and
determination, young Jinnah rose to prominence and became Bombay's most
successful lawyer, as few did, within a few years. Once he was firmly
established in the legal profession, Jinnah formally entered politics in 1905
from the platform of the Indian National Congress. He went to England in that
year alongwith Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), as a member of a Congress
delegation to plead the cause of Indian self-governemnt during the British
elections. A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Noaroji (1825-1917),
the then Indian National Congress President, which was considered a great honour
for a budding politician. Here, at the Calcutta Congress session (December
1906), he also made his first political speech in support of the resolution on
self-government.
Political Career
Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the newly-constituted
Imperial Legislative Council. 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. Jinnah, who was also the first Indian to
pilot a private member's Bill through the Council, soon became a leader of a
group inside the legislature. Mr. Montagu (1879-1924), Secretary of State for
India, at the close of the First World War, considered Jinnah "perfect mannered,
impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with dialecties..."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."
For about three decades since his entry into politics in 1906, Jinnah
passionately believed in and assiduously worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Gokhale,
the foremost Hindu leader before Gandhi, had once said of him, "He has the true
stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him
the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity: And, to be sure, he did become the
architect of Hindu-Muslim Unity: he was responsible for the Congress-League Pact
of 1916, known popularly as Lucknow Pact- the only pact ever signed between the
two political organisations, the Congress and the All-India Muslim League,
representing, as they did, the two major communities in the subcontinent."
The Congress-League scheme embodied in this pact was to become the basis for the
Montagu-Chemlsford Reforms, also known as the Act of 1919. In retrospect, the
Lucknow Pact represented a milestone in the evolution of Indian politics. For
one thing, it conceded Muslims the right to separate electorate, reservation of
seats in the legislatures and weightage in representation both at the Centre and
the minority provinces. Thus, their retention was ensured in the next phase of
reforms. For another, it represented a tacit recognition of the All-India Muslim
League as the representative organisation of the Muslims, thus strengthening the
trend towards Muslim individuality in Indian politics. And to Jinnah goes the
credit for all this. Thus, by 1917, Jinnah came to be recognised among both
Hindus and Muslims as one of India's most outstanding political leaders. Not
only was he prominent in the Congress and the Imperial Legislative Council, he
was also the President of the All-India Muslim and that of lthe Bombay Branch of
the Home Rule League. More important, because of his key-role in the
Congress-League entente at Lucknow, he was hailed as the ambassador, as well as
the embodiment, of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Constitutional Struggle
In subsequent years, however, he felt dismayed at the injection of violence into
politics. Since Jinnah stood for "ordered progress", moderation, gradualism and
constitutionalism, he felt that political terrorism was not the pathway to
national liberation but, the dark alley to disaster and destruction. Hence, the
constitutionalist Jinnah could not possibly, countenance Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi's novel methods of Satyagrah (civil disobedience) and the triple boycott
of government-aided schools and colleges, courts and councils and British
textiles. Earlier, in October 1920, when Gandhi, having been elected President
of the Home Rule League, sought to change its constitution as well as its
nomenclature, Jinnah had resigned from the Home Rule League, saying: "Your
extreme programme has for the moment struck the imagination mostly of the
inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means
disorganisation and choas". Jinnah did not believe that ends justified the
means.
In the ever-growing frustration among the masses caused by colonial rule, there
was ample cause for extremism. But, Gandhi's doctrine of non-cooperation, Jinnah
felt, even as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) did also feel, was at best one of
negation and despair: it might lead to the building up of resentment, but
nothing constructive. Hence, he opposed tooth and nail the tactics adopted by
Gandhi to exploit the Khilafat and wrongful tactics in the Punjab in the early
twenties. On the eve of its adoption of the Gandhian programme, Jinnah warned
the Nagpur Congress Session (1920): "you are making a declaration (of Swaraj
within a year) and committing the Indian National Congress to a programme, which
you will not be able to carry out". He felt that there was no short-cut to
independence and that Gandhi's extra-constitutional methods could only lead to
political terrorism, lawlessness and chaos, without bringing India nearer to the
threshold of freedom.
The future course of events was not only to confirm Jinnah's worst fears, but
also to prove him right. Although Jinnah left the Congress soon thereafter, he
continued his efforts towards bringing about a Hindu-Muslim entente, which he
rightly considered "the most vital condition of Swaraj". However, because of the
deep distrust between the two communities as evidenced by the country-wide
communal riots, and because the Hindus failed to meet the genuine demands of the
Muslims, his efforts came to naught. One such effort was the formulation of the
Delhi Muslim Proposals in March, 1927. In order to bridge Hindu-Muslim
differences on the constitutional plan, these proposals even waived the Muslim
right to separate electorate, the most basic Muslim demand since 1906, which
though recognised by the congress in the Lucknow Pact, had again become a source
of friction between the two communities. surprisingly though, the Nehru Report
(1928), which represented the Congress-sponsored proposals for the future
constitution of India, negated the minimum Muslim demands embodied in the Delhi
Muslim Proposals.
In vain did Jinnah argue at the National convention (1928): "What we want is
that Hindus and Mussalmans should march together until our object is
achieved...These two communities have got to be reconciled and united and made
to feel that their interests are common". The Convention's blank refusal to
accept Muslim demands represented the most devastating setback to Jinnah's
life-long efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, it meant "the last straw"
for the Muslims, and "the parting of the ways" for him, as he confessed to a
Parsee friend at that time. Jinnah's disillusionment at the course of politics
in the subcontinent prompted him to migrate and settle down in London in the
early thirties. He was, however, to return to India in 1934, at the pleadings of
his co-religionists, and assume their leadership. But, the Muslims presented a
sad spectacle at that time. They were a mass of disgruntled and demoralised men
and women, politically disorganised and destitute of a clear-cut political
programme.
Muslim League Reorganized
Thus, the task that awaited Jinnah was anything but easy. The Muslim League was
dormant: primary branches it had none; even its provincial organizations were,
for the most part, ineffective and only nominally under the control of the
central organization. Nor did the central body have any coherent policy of its
own till the Bombay session (1936), which Jinnah organized. To make matters
worse, the provincial scene presented a sort of a jigsaw puzzle: in the Punjab,
Bengal, Sindh, the North West Frontier, Assam, Bihar and the United Provinces,
various Muslim leaders had set up their own provincial parties to serve their
personal ends. Extremely frustrating as the situation was, the only consultation
Jinnah had at this juncture was in Allama Iqbal (1877-1938), the
poet-philosopher, who stood steadfast by him and helped to charter the course of
Indian politics from behind the scene.
Undismayed by this bleak situation, Jinnah devoted himself with singleness of
purpose to organizing the Muslims on one platform. He embarked upon country-wide
tours. He pleaded with provincial Muslim leaders to sink their differences and
make common cause with the League. He exhorted the Muslim masses to organize
themselves and join the League. He gave coherence and direction to Muslim
sentiments on the Government of India Act, 1935. He advocated that the Federal
Scheme should be scrapped as it was subversive of India's cherished goal of
complete responsible Government, while the provincial scheme, which conceded
provincial autonomy for the first time, should be worked for what it was worth,
despite its certain objectionable features. He also formulated a viable League
manifesto for the election scheduled for early 1937. He was, it seemed,
struggling against time to make Muslim India a power to be reckoned with.
Despite all the manifold odds stacked against it, the Muslim League won some 108
(about 23 per cent) seats out of a total of 485 Muslim seats in the various
legislature. Though not very impressive in itself, the League's partial success
assumed added significance in view of the fact that the League won the largest
number of Muslim seats and that it was 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. Congress in Power
With the year 1937 opened the most mementoes decade in modern Indian history. In
that year came into force the provincial part of the Government of India Act,
1935, granting autonomy to Indians for the first time, in the provinces.
The Congress, having become the dominant party in Indian politics, came to power
in seven provinces exclusively, spurning the League's offer of cooperation,
turning its back finally on the coalition idea and excluding Muslims as a
political entity from the portals of power. In that year, also, the Muslim
League, under Jinnah's dynamic leadership, was reorganized de novo, transformed
into a mass organization, and made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never
before. Above all, in that momentous year were initiated certain trends in
Indian politics, the crystallization of which in subsequent years made the
partition of the subcontinent inevitable. The practical manifestation of the
policy of the Congress which took office in July, 1937, in seven out of eleven
provinces, convinced Muslims that, in the Congress scheme of things, they could
live only on sufferance of Hindus and as "second class" citizens. The Congress
provincial governments, it may be remembered, had embarked upon a policy and
launched a PROGRAMME 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. He also gave
coherence, direction and articulation to their innermost, yet vague, urges and
aspirations. Above all, the filled them with his indomitable will, his own
unflinching faith in their destiny.
The New Awakening
As a result of Jinnah's ceaseless efforts, the Muslims awakened from what
Professor Baker calls (their) "unreflective silence" (in which they had so
complacently basked for long decades), and to "the spiritual essence of
nationality" that had existed among them for a pretty long time. Roused by the
impact of successive Congress hammerings, the Muslims, as Ambedkar (principal
author of independent India's Constitution) says, "searched their social
consciousness in a desperate attempt to find coherent and meaningful
articulation to their cherished yearnings. To their great relief, they
discovered that their sentiments of nationality had flamed into nationalism". In
addition, not only had they developed" the will to live as a "nation", had also
endowed them with a territory which they could occupy and make a State as well
as a cultural home for the newly discovered nation. These two pre-requisites, as
laid down by Renan, provided the Muslims with the intellectual justification for
claiming a distinct nationalism (apart from Indian or Hindu nationalism) for
themselves. So that when, after their long pause, the Muslims gave expression to
their innermost yearnings, these turned out to be in favor of a separate Muslim
nationhood and of a separate Muslim state.
Demand for Pakistan
"We are a nation", they claimed in the ever eloquent words of the Quaid-i-Azam-
"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". The formulation of the Muslim demand for Pakistan in 1940 had a
tremendous impact on the nature and course of Indian politics. On the one hand,
it shattered for ever the Hindu dreams of a pseudo-Indian, in fact, Hindu empire
on British exit from India: on the other, it heralded an era of Islamic
renaissance and creativity in which the Indian Muslims were to be active
participants. The Hindu reaction was quick, bitter, malicious.
Equally hostile were the British to the Muslim demand, their hostility having
stemmed from their belief that the unity of India was their main achievement and
their foremost contribution. The irony was that both the Hindus and the British
had not anticipated the astonishingly tremendous response that the Pakistan
demand had elicited from the Muslim masses. Above all, they failed to realize
how a hundred million people had suddenly become supremely conscious of their
distinct nationhood and their high destiny. In channelling the course of Muslim
politics towards Pakistan, no less than in directing it towards its consummation
in the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, non played a more decisive role than
did Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. 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 Pakistan inevitable.
Cripps Scheme
While the British reaction to the Pakistan demand came in the form of the Cripps
offer of April, 1942, which conceded the principle of self-determination to
provinces on a territorial basis, the Rajaji Formula (called after the eminent
Congress leader C.Rajagopalacharia, which became the basis of prolonged
Jinnah-Gandhi talks in September, 1944), represented the Congress alternative to
Pakistan. The Cripps offer was rejected because it did not concede the Muslim
demand the whole way, while the Rajaji Formula was found unacceptable since it
offered a "moth-eaten, mutilated" Pakistan and the too appended with a plethora
of pre-conditions which made its emergence in any shape remote, if not
altogether impossible. Cabinet Mission The most delicate as well as the most
tortuous negotiations, however, took place during 1946-47, after the elections
which showed that the country was sharply and somewhat evenly divided between
two parties- the Congress and the League- and that the central issue in Indian
politics was Pakistan.
These negotiations began with the arrival, in March 1946, of a three-member
British Cabinet Mission. The crucial task with which the Cabinet Mission was
entrusted was that of devising in consultation with the various political
parties, a constitution-making machinery, and of setting up a popular interim
government. But, because the Congress-League gulf could not be bridged, despite
the Mission's (and the Viceroy's) prolonged efforts, the Mission had to make its
own proposals in May, 1946. Known as the Cabinet Mission Plan, these proposals
stipulated a limited centre, supreme only in foreign affairs, defense and
communications and three autonomous groups of provinces. Two of these groups
were to have Muslim majorities in the north-west and the north-east of the
subcontinent, while the third one, comprising the Indian mainland, was to have a
Hindu majority. A consummate statesman that he was, Jinnah saw his chance. He
interpreted the clauses relating to a limited centre and the grouping as "the
foundation of Pakistan", and induced the Muslim League Council to accept the
Plan in June 1946; and this he did much against the calculations of the Congress
and to its utter dismay.
Tragically though, the League's acceptance was put down to its supposed weakness
and the Congress put up a posture of defiance, designed to swamp the League into
submitting to its dictates and its interpretations of the plan. Faced thus, what
alternative had Jinnah and the League but to rescind their earlier acceptance,
reiterate and reaffirm their original stance, and decide to launch direct action
(if need be) to wrest Pakistan. The way Jinnah maneuvered to turn the tide of
events at a time when all seemed lost indicated, above all, his masterly grasp
of the situation and his adeptness at making strategic and tactical moves.
Partition Plan By the close of 1946, the communal riots had flared up to
murderous heights, engulfing almost the entire subcontinent. The two peoples, it
seemed, were engaged in a fight to the finish. The time for a peaceful transfer
of power was fast running out. Realizing the gravity of the situation. His
Majesty's Government sent down to India a new Viceroy- Lord Mountbatten. His
protracted negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in 3
June.(1947) Plan by which the British decided to partition the subcontinent, and
hand over power to two successor States on 15 August, 1947. The plan was duly
accepted by the three Indian parties to the dispute- the Congress the League and
the Akali Dal (representing the Sikhs).
Leader of a Free Nation
In recognition of his singular contribution, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah
was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan, while
the Congress appointed Mountbatten as India's first Governor-General. Pakistan,
it has been truly said, was born in virtual chaos. Indeed, few nations in the
world have started on their career with less resources and in more treacherous
circumstances. The new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital,
an administrative core, or an organized defense force. Its social and
administrative resources were poor; there was little equipment and still less
statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas in a shambles with
communications disrupted. This, along with the en masse migration of the Hindu
and Sikh business and managerial classes, left the economy almost shattered.
The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash
balances. On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to
feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities
of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of
Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through
military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to
Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December
1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances, therefore, it was
nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and
forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The nation
desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical
juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After
all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-i-Azam who had
brought the State into being.
In the ultimate analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was
responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the terrible crisis
on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He mustered up the immense prestige and
the unquestioning loyalty he commanded among the people to energize them, to
raise their morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that the
freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though tired and in poor
health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part of the burden in that first crucial
year. He laid down the policies of the new state, called attention to the
immediate problems confronting the nation and told the members of the
Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to do and
what the nation expected of them. He saw to it 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 for a while and supervised the
immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he
remained sober, cool and steady. He advised his excited audience in Lahore 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 reversed the British policy in the North-West Frontier
and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the tribal territory of
Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel themselves an integral part of
Pakistan's body-politics. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier
Regions, and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan. He
settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi, secured the
accession of States, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical and carried
on negotiations with Lord Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
The Quaid's last Message
It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of
his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 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". In accomplishing the task he had taken
upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to
death, but he had, to quote richard Symons, "contributed more than any other man
to Pakistan's survivial". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord
Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi
died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".
A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all
through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the
largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent
opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely
misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the
recipient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some
of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint.
The Aga Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols,
the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia",
and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as
"an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole
world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League,
called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of
Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam.
It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of
the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political
achievements. "Mr Jinnah", he said on his death in 1948, "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". Such was Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah,
the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.