FREE ESSAY ON THE ROLE OF JINNAH IN THE FORMATION OF PAKISTAN

THE ROLE OF JINNAH IN THE FORMATION OF PAKISTAN

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-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 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, phoenix-like. 
Early Life: 
Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876 at Vazeer Mansion
Karachi, was the first of seven children of Jinnahbhai, a prosperous merchant. After
being taught at home, Jinnah was sent to the Sindh Madrasasah High School in 1887. Later
he attended the Mission High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation
examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of an English friend, his father
decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made
up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents
arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.
In London he joined Lincoln's Inn, one of the legal societies that prepared students for
the bar. In 1895, at the age of 19, he was called to the bar. While in London Jinnah
suffered two severe bereavements-the deaths of his wife and his mother. Nevertheless, he
completed his formal studies and also made a study of the British political system,
frequently visiting the House of Commons. He was greatly influenced by the liberalism of
William E. Gladstone, who had become Prime Minister for the fourth time in 1892, the year
of Jinnah's arrival in London. Jinnah also took a keen interest in the affairs of India
and in Indian students. When the Parsi leader Dadabhai Naoroji, a leading Indian
nationalist, ran for the English Parliament, Jinnah and other Indian students worked day
and night for him. Their efforts were crowned with success, and Naoroji became the first
Indian to sit in the House of Commons.
When Jinnah returned to Karachi in 1896, he found that his father's business had suffered
losses and that he now had to depend on himself. He decided to start his legal practice
in Bombay, but it took him years of work to establish himself as a lawyer.
It was nearly 10 years later that he turned toward active politics. A man without
hobbies, his interest became divided between law and politics. Nor was he a religious
zealot: he was a Muslim in a broad sense and had little to do with sects. His interest in
women was also limited to Ruttenbai-the daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a Bombay Parsi
millionaire-whom he married over tremendous opposition from her parents and others. The
marriage proved an unhappy one. It was his sister Fatima who gave him solace and
company.
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 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 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 chaos. 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 program,
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 program, 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 program. 
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 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. 
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 League 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 political 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 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 program 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, 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 impact of successive Congress hammering,
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, 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 singular 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 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. 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 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-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 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. 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 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 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.