QUAID-E-AZAM MUHAMMAD ALI
JINNAH (FOUNDER OF PAKISTAN)
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.
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 calandar, 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 Musim 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.