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Muhammad Ali Jinnah: Father of
Nation
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 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 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 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
fulfilment 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.
Date/Time Last Modified: 6/18/2002 8:05:29 AM
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