Pakistan, one of the largest
Muslim states in the world, is a living and exemplary monument of Quaid-i-Azam
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. With his untiring efforts, indomitable will, and dauntless
courage, he united the Indian Muslims under the banner of the Muslim League and
carved out a homeland for them, despite stiff opposition from the Hindu Congress
and the British Government.
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
Quaid-e-Azam - Early LifeBorn 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.
Quaid-e-Azam Constitutional StruggleIn 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.
Reorganization of Muslim League
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.
Quaid-e-Azam - Leader of Muslim LeagueDespite 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"
"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.
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
Quaid-e-Azam - Governor-General of PakistanIn 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.
Recognition by various personalities
Quaid-e-Azam - Mizar-e-QuaidThe 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.