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Father of the
Nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad 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-trodden minority and established a cultural and
national home for it. And all that within a decade. 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 legitimate
aspirations and cherished dreams; he had formulated
these into concrete 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 honorable
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 with nothing 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 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. A year
later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Noaroji
(1825-1917), the then Indian National Congress
President, which was considered a great honor 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
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."
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
Luck now Pact- the only pact ever signed between the two
political organizations, 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
Luckhnow 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
organization 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 recognized 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 League and that of the
Bombay Branch of the Home Rule League. More importantly,
because of his key-role in the Congress-League entente
at Luckhnow, he was hailed as the ambassador, 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 violence was not the pathway to
national liberation but, the dark alley to disaster and
destruction.
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 programmed, 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 any
extra-constitutional methods could only lead to
political violence, 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 recognized by the Congress in the Luckhnow
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 Jinnah
argued at the National Convention of Congress in 1928
that "What we want is that Hindus and Mussalmans should
march together until our objective 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 demoralized men and
women, politically disorganized 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: 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
consolation Jinnah had at this juncture was in Allama
Iqbal (1877-1938), the poet-philosopher, who stood
steadfast by him and helped to chart the course of
Indian politics from behind the scene.
Undismayed by
this bleak situation, Jinnah devoted himself to the sole
purpose of 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 legislatures. 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 momentous 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,
he 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
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 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, and 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 channeling the course of Muslim politics
towards Pakistan, no less than in directing it towards
its consummation in the establishment of Pakistan in
1947, none played a more decisive role than did
Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad 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, 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
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 Muhammad 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 defence force. The Punjab holocaust had left
vast areas in a shambles with communications disrupted.
This, alongwith 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-Muhammad Ali
Jinnah. The nation desperately needed 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, to raise
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 survival". He died
on 11 September, 1948.
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 Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man and his
mission, such the range of his accomplishments and
achievements. |
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