Jinnah’s achievement of Pakistan dominates everything else he did in his long and crowded public life spread over some 42 years. He was one of. the greatest legal luminaries India had produced during the first half of this century, ~n’ ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’ a great constitutionalist, a distingt~ished parliamentarian, a top.notch politician, an indefatigable freedom fighter, a dynamic mass leader, a political strategist of a Bismarkian calibre, and, above all, one of the great nation-builders in modern times. In this last named role, he invites comparisOn with some of the greatest names in modern times:

Washington, Bismark, Cavour, Garibaldi, Lenin, Ataturk. What, however, makes him so remarkable even in the galaxy of nation-builders is the fact that while others assumed the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and led them to freedom, he created a nation out of an inchoate and backward 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 Asia subcontinent, Jinnah had provided political leadership to the Indian Muslims: initially as one of the leaders, but, later, since 1937, as the leader 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 them 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 Muslims’ inherent right to an honourable existence in the subcontinent. Indeed his life story constitutes, as it were, the story of the rebirth of the Indian Muslims and their spectacular rise to nationhood, phoenix-like.

Born on 25 December, 1876, in a prominent merchantile family in Karachi, and educated at Sind Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School, Jinnah joined the Lincoln’s Inn in 1893 to become the youngest Indian to be called to the Bar, three years later.

Young Jinnah became Bombay’s most successful lawyer within a few years. 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-government during the British elections.

A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), the then 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 speach—this in support of the resolution on self-government.

Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career which spanned some four decades, his was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian freedom and Indian rights. Mr. Montague (1879-1924), the Secretary of State for India, 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”.

Muslims’ inherent right to an bonourable existence in the subcontinent. Indeed his life story constitutes, as it were, the story of the rebirth of the Indian Muslims and their spectacular rise to nationhood, phoenix-like.

Born on 25 December, 1876, in a prominent merchantile family in Karachi, and educated at Sind Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School, Jinnah joined the Lincoln’s Inn in 1893 to become the youngest Indian to be called to the Bar, three years later.

Young Jinnah became Bombay’s most successful lawyer within a few years. 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-government during the British elections.

A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), the then 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 speach—this in support of the resolution on self-government.

Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career which spanned some four decades, his was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian freedom and Indian rights. Mr. Montague (1879-1924), the Secretary of State for India, 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 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.

In retrospect, the Lucknow Pact represented a milestone in the evolution of Indian politics. For one thing, it conceded Muslims the right to separate electorates, 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 instalment of reforms. For another, it represented a tacit recognition of the League as the representative organisation of the League as the representative organisation of the Muslims, thus strengthening the trends towards the 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; at the same time, he was also the President of the Muslim League and the 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 not only the ambassador, but the embodied symbol 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 (1869-1 948) novel methods of satyagraha, 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 chaos.”

A great stickler for “means”, Jinnah did not believe that ends justify 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, he felt, even as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) did, 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 right the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs in the early twenties. On the eve of its adoption of the Gandhian programme, he warned the Nagpur (1920) Congress session, “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 shortcut 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. And 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 after, he continued his efforts towards bringing about a Hindu-

Muslim entente which he rightly considered “the mos vital condition of Swaraj’~ However, because of the deei distrust between the two communities as evidenced b” the countrywide communal riots and because the Hindu~ failed to meet the genuine demands of the Muslims, hi efforts came to nought. One such effort was the formula tion of the Delhi Muslim Proposals in March 1927. Jr order to bridge Hindu-Muslim differences on the constitu tional plans, these Proposals even waived the Muslim righi to separate electorates, the most basic Muslim demand since 1906, which, though recognised by the Congress iii the Lucknow Pact, had again become a source of friction between the two communities. Surprisingly though, the Nehru Report (1928), which represented Congress-sponsored proposals for the future constitution of India negatived the minimum Muslim demands embodied in these Proposals.

In vain did Jinnah argue at the National Convention (1928): “What we want is that Hindus and Musalmans should march together until our object is achieved. Therefore, it is essential that you must get not only the Muslim League but the Musalmans of India... 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 lifelong 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 the time.

Jinnah’s disillusionment at the course of politics in the subcontinent prompted him to settle down in London in the early thirties. He was, however, to return to India in early 1934 at the pleadings of his co-religionists and assume their leadership. But the Muslims presented a sad spectacle. They were a mass of disgruntled and demoralised men and women, politically disorganised and destitute of a clear-cut political programme.

Thus, the task that awaited Jinnah breathlessly was anything but easy. The League was still 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 (1936) session which Jinnah organised. To make matters worse, the provincial scene presented a jigsaw puzzle: in the Punjab, Bengal, Sind, the Frontier, Assam, Bihar and the U.P., various Muslim leaders had set up their own provincial parties to serve their own ends. Etremely 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 charter the course of Indian politics from behind the scene.

Jinnah presently undertook countrywide tours. He pleaded with provincial Muslim leaders to sink their differences and make a common cause with the League. He exhorted the Muslim masses to organise themselves and join the League. He gave coherence and direction to Muslim sentiment on the Government of India Act, 1935: 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 elections scheduled for early 1937.

In the eiectioics the League won a number of seats despite the manifold odds arraigned against it, some 108 (about 23 per cent) seats out of a total of 485 Muslim seats in the various legislatures. Though not very impresive in itself, the League’s partial success assumed ad~ significance in view of the fact that the League won largest number of Muslim seats and that it was the o All-India Muslim Party in the country. Thus, the electi represented the first milestone on the long road to putt Muslim India and the League on the map of India.

With the year 1937 opened the most moment decade in modern Indian history. In that year came 1:
force the provincial part of the Government of India 1935, granting autonomy to Indians for the first tim~ the provinces. The Congress came to power in Se’ provinces exclusively, spurning the League’s offer coalition. In that year also, the Muslim League i organised de novo, turned into a mass organisation made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never beforE

The developing policy of the Congress convini the Muslims that in the Congress schcme of things, ti could live only at sufferance and as “second cla citizens. The Muslims did not feel their religion, langu and culture safe.

And this developing Congress policy was sei~ upon by Jinnah to awaken the listless Muslims to a 11 consciousness, organize them on an all-India platfoi and make them a power to be reckoned with. He a gave coherence, direction and expression to their mr most, yet vague urges and aspirations. Above all, he fil them with his indomitable will, his own undying faitI~ their destiny.

And as a result of Jinnah’s incessant efforts, Muslims awakened from what Prof. Barker calls (th~ “unreflective silence” (in which they had so comp] ently basked for long decades), and to “the spirit essence of nationality” that had existed among them a pretty long time. Rising bewildered under the impact of successive Congress hammerings, the Muslims, as Ambedkar 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 a nationalism”. In addition, not only had they developed “the will to live as a nation”; nature 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 them 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 spelled out their innermost yearnings, these turned out to be in favour of a separate Muslim nationhood and of a separate Muslim nationalism.

“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.”

Extremely significant was the impact on Indian politics of this discovery on the part of Indian Muslims. From a minority supplicating for safeguards, even paper safeguards, they had turned into a nation, separate and distinct from others, and entitled in their own right to a separate, sovereign state within the subcontinent.

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 pseudo-Indian, but, in fact, a 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 active participants.

The Hindu reaction, was, of course, 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 greatest contribution. But the tragedy was that both the Hindus and the British missed 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 cnnscio”~ of their il~ctinct nationhood and their high destiny.

In channelling the course of Muslim pol towards Pakistan no less than in directing it toward consummation in the establishment of Pakistan in U no one played a more decisive role than did Qua Azam Mohammad Au Jinnah. It was his powerful ai cacy of the case for Pakistan and his dextrous strateg the delicate negotiations that followed the forrnulatio:
the Pakistan demand, particularly in the post-war-per that made Pakistan inevitable.

While the British reaction to the Pakistan dem came in the Cripps offer of April, 1942, which conce the principle of self-determination to provinces o territorial basis, the Rajaji Formula, which became basis of prolonged Jinnah-Gandhi talks in Sept ber 1944, represented the Congress alternative to Pa tan. The Cripps offer was rejected because it did concede the Muslim demand the whole way while Rajaji Formula was found unacceptable since it offerE “moth-eaten, mutilated” Pakistan.

The most delicate as well as the most tortu negotiations, however, took place during 1946-47. Tli negotiations began with the arrival, in March 1946, three-member Cabinet Mission. The crucial task s~ which the Cabinet Mission was entrusted was that devising, in consultation with the various political part a constitution-making machinery, and of setting u~ popular interim government. But because the Congr League gulf could not be bridged, despite,the Missic (and the Viceroy’s) prolonged efforts, the Mission ha make its own proposals in May, 1946. Known as Cabinet Mission Plan, these proposals stipulated a limi centre, supreme only in foreign affairs, defence communications and three autonomous groups of pro ces. Two of these groups were to have Muslim majory 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 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 League Council to accept the Plan in June, 1946. Tragically though, the League’s acceptance was put down to its supposed weakness, and the Congress put up a “posture of defiance”. Faced thus, what alternative had Jinnah and the League but to rescind its earlier acceptance, reiterate and reaffirm its original stance, and decide to launch direct action (if need be) to wrest Pakistan.

By the close of 1946 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, the British Government sent down to India a new Viceroy — Lord Mountbatten. His protracted negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in the 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. And in recognition of his singular contribution, Jinnah was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan while the Congress appointed Mountbatten (1900-1979) as India’s first GovernorGeneral.

Pakistan, it has been truly said, was born in 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 centra:
government, a capital, an administrative core, or ar organized defence force. Its social and administrativE resources were poor; there was little equipment and stil less statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas ir a shambles and communications disrupted. This along. with the en masse migration of the Hindu and SikI~ business and managerial classes left the economy almosi shattered. The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances. On top ol all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon tc feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecu rities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long hot summer.. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan’~ administrative and economic weakness, the Indiar conquest, in November 1947, of Junagadh (which hac originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war ovei the state’s accession (October 1947-December 1948: exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistar survived at all.

That it survived at all was mainly the handiworI~ of one man — Mohammad Au Jinnah. The nation des perately needed a charismatic leader at that critica~ juncture in the nation’s history, and he fulfilled that neec profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor General: he was the Quaid-i-Azam who had called th state into being. In the ultimate analysis, his very presenc at the helm of affairs was responsible for enabling th new-born nation to survive the terrible crisis on th morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He deftly exploited th~ immense prestige and utmost loyalty he commandec among the people to energize them, to raise their morale and canalize the profound feelings of patriotism that th~ coming of freedom had generated, along constructiv channels.

Though tired and in poor health, Jinnah 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 members of the armed forces what to do and what the nation expected of them. He shifted to Lahore for a while and supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he continued to remain 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 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 Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of troops from Waziristan. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Baluchistan. He settled the controversial question of the status of Karachi, secured the accession of states, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical, and carried on negotiations with Mount-batten for the settlement of the Kashmir issue.

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, to quote Richard Symonds, “had contributed more than any other man to Pakistan’s survival”. He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when be said, “Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin Jinnah died by his devotion to pakistan.”

A man such as Jinnah, who bad fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largelY misunderstood cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent oppOsitiofl and excite implacable bosti lity, and was (and is) likely to be largely misunderstood But what is most remarkable about Jinnab 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 polarized 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. Kailasnath 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” for the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Sarat 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.