Early Life Of Baba E Qaum Muhomad Ali Jinnah
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.
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.
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.
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 Reorganised
Thus, the task that awaited Jinnah was anything but easy. The Muslim
League was dormant: primary branches it had none; even its provincial
organisations were, for the most part, ineffective and only nominally
under the control of the central organisation. Nor did the central
body have any coherent policy of its own till the Bombay session
(1936), which Jinnah organised. 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 consulation 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 organising 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 organise 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 Leauge
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 mementous 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 kpolitical entity from the portals of
power. In that year, also, the Muslim League, under Jinnah's dynamic
leadership, was reorganised de novo, transformed into a mass
organisation, and made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never
before. Above all, in that momentous lyear were initiated certain
trends in Indian politics, lthe crystallisation 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 platoform, and make them a
power to be reckoned with. He also gave coherence, direction and
articulation to their innermost, lyet vague, urges and aspirations.
Above all, the filled them with his indomitable will, his own
unflinching faith in .
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 imapct 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 lhad they developed" the will to live as a
"nation", had also endwoed 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
favour 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 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.
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 faild 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, defence 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 Leauge 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 manoeuvred 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. Realising 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 signular 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 resourcesand in more treacherous circumstances. The
new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital, an
administrative core,or an organized defence 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 desrupted. This, alongwith the en masse
mirgration 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 circumsances, 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 audence in Lahore to concentrate on
helping the refugees,to avoaid 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 ofbelonging. 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 mininterpreted 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 recepient 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 greatestof all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's
passing away, the world has lost one of the greatst 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.
Allah Bless Islamic Republic Of Pakistan
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