Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Urdu: محمد علی جناح Audio (help·info); Gujarati: મુહમ્મદ અલી જીનાહ); December 25, 1876 – September 11, 1948), a 20th century politician and statesman, is regarded as the founder of Pakistan. He served as leader of The Muslim League and Pakistan's first Governor-General. He is officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم — "Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum (بابائے قوم) ("Father of the Nation"). His birthday is a national holiday in Pakistan. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress initially expounding ideas of Hindu-Muslim unity and helping shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress; he also became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League. He proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in a self-governing India.
Jinnah, advocating the Two-Nation Theory, embraced the goal of creating a separate state for Muslims as per the Lahore Resolution. The League won most reserved Muslim seats in the elections of 1946. After the British and Congress backed out of the Cabinet Mission Plan Jinnah called for a Direct Action Day to achieve the formation of Pakistan. The direct action[5][6] by the Muslim League and its Volunteer Corps, resulted in massive rioting in Calcutta[6][7] between Muslims and Hindus/Sikhs.[8][7] As the Indian National Congress and Muslim League failed to reach a power sharing formula for united India, it prompted both the parties and the British to agree to independence of Pakistan and India. As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah led efforts to rehabilitate millions of refugees, and to frame national policies on foreign affairs, security and economic development. He died a year after Pakistan's formation in September 1948.
Early life
Jinnah was born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai[9] in, some believe, Wazir Mansion,[10] Karachi District, of lower Sindh. However, this is disputed as old textbooks mention Jhirk as his place of birth. Sindh had earlier been conquered by the British and was subsequently grouped with other conquered territories for administrative reasons to form the Bombay Presidency of British India. Although his earliest school records state that he was born on October 20, 1875, Sarojini Naidu, the author of Jinnah's first biography, gives the date as ”December 25, 1876”. The latter date is now officially accepted as his birthday.
Jinnah was the eldest of seven children born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1901), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had moved to Sindh from Kathiawar, Gujarat before Jinnah's birth.[10][11] His grandfather was Poonja Gokuldas Meghji,[12] a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajput that converted to Islam.[11] Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Shi'a Islam.[4]
The first born Jinnah was soon joined by six siblings, brothers Ahmad Ali, Bunde Ali, and Rahmat Ali, and sisters Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. Their mother tongue was Gujarati, however, in time they also came to speak Kutchi, Sindhi and English.[13] The proper Muslim names of Mr. Jinnah and his siblings, unlike those of his father and grandfather, are the consequence of the family's immigration to the Muslim state of Sindh.
Jinnah was a restless student, he studied at several schools: at the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam in Karachi; briefly at the Gokal Das Tej Primary School in Bombay; and finally at the Christian Missionary Society High School in Karachi,[9] where, at age sixteen, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay.[14]
In 1892, Jinnah was offered an apprenticeship at the London office of Graham's Shipping and Trading Company, a business that had extensive dealings with Jinnahbhai Poonja's firm in Karachi.[9] However, before he left for England, at his mother's urging he married his distant cousin, Emibai Jinnah, who was two years his junior.[9] The marriage was not to last long as Emibai died a few months later. During his sojourn in England, his mother too would pass away.[11] In London, Jinnah soon left the apprenticeship to study law instead, by joining Lincoln's Inn. The welcome board of the Lincoln's Inn had the names of the world's all time top ten magistrates. This list was led by the name of Muhammad, which was the sole reason of Jinnah's joining of Lincoln's Inn. In three years, at age 19, he became the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England.
During his student years in England, Jinnah came under the spell of nineteenth-century British liberalism, much like many other future Indian independence leaders. This education included exposure to the idea of the democratic nation and progressive politics. He admired William Gladstone and John Morley, British Liberal statesmen. An admirer of the Indian political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta,[15] he worked, with other Indian students, on the former's successful campaign for to become the first Indian to hold a seat in the British Parliament. By now, Jinnah had developed largely constitutionalist views on Indian self-government, and he condemned both the arrogance of British officials in India and the discrimination practiced by them against Indians. This idea of a nation legitimized by democratic principles and cultural commonalities, however, was antithetical to the genuine diversity that had generally characterized the subcontinent. As an important Indian intellectual and political authority, Jinnah would find his commitment to the Western ideal of the nation-state, developed during his English education, and the obstacle that was the reality of heterogeneous Indian society to be difficult to reconcile during his later political career.
The Western world not only inspired Jinnah in his political life. England had greatly influenced his personal preferences, particularly when it came to dress. Jinnah donned Western style clothing and he pursued the fashion with fervor. It is said he owned over 200 hand-tailored suits which he wore with heavily starched shirts with detachable collars. It is also alleged that he never wore the same silk tie twice.[16] M C Chagla, who was a close friend of Jinnah's, has stated that Jinnah was fond of eating pork, an act which is forbidden is Islam.[17] The historian Stanley Wolpert has also alleged this in a book about Jinnah. The Pakistan government has banned books (including Wolpert's) which have mentioned this alleged dietary preference of Jinnah's.[18]
During the final period of his stay in England, Jinnah came under considerable pressure to return home when his father's business was ruined. Settling in Bombay, he became a successful lawyer—gaining particular fame for his skilled handling of the "Caucus Case".[15] Jinnah built a house in Malabar Hill, later known as Jinnah House. His reputation as a skilled lawyer prompted Indian leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak to hire him as defence counsel for his sedition trial in 1905. Jinnah argued that it was not sedition for an Indian to demand freedom and self-government in his own country, but Tilak received a rigorous term of imprisonment test.[15]
When he returned to India his faith in liberalism and evolutionary politics was confirmed through his close association with three Indian National Congress stalwarts Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjee. These people had an important influence in his early life in England and they would influence his later involvement in Indian politics.
Early political career
In 1896, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organisation. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favour outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah became a member on the sixty-member Imperial Legislative Council. The council had no real power or authority, and included a large number of un-elected pro-Raj loyalists and Europeans. Nevertheless, Jinnah was instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act, the legitimization of the Muslim waqf (religious endowments) and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped establish the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun.[10][20] During World War I, Jinnah joined other Indian moderates in supporting the British war effort, hoping that Indians would be rewarded with political freedoms.
Jinnah had initially avoided joining the All India Muslim League, founded in 1906, regarding it as too Muslim oriented. However he decided to provide leadership to the Muslim minority. Eventually, he joined the league in 1913 and became the president at the 1916 session in Lucknow. Jinnah was the architect of the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the League, bringing them together on most issues regarding self-government and presenting a united front to the British. Jinnah also played an important role in the founding of the All India Home Rule League in 1916. Along with political leaders Annie Besant and Tilak, Jinnah demanded "home rule" for India—the status of a self-governing dominion in the Empire similar to Canada, New Zealand and Australia. He headed the League's Bombay Presidency chapter.
In 1918, Jinnah married his second wife Rattanbai Petit ("Ruttie"), twenty-four years his junior. She was the fashionable young daughter of his personal friend Sir Dinshaw Petit, of an elite Parsi family of Mumbai. Unexpectedly there was great opposition to the marriage from Rattanbai's family and Parsi society, as well as orthodox Muslim leaders. Rattanbai defied her family and nominally converted to Islam, adopting (though never using) the name Maryam Jinnah, resulting in a permanent estrangement from her family and Parsi society. The couple resided in Mumbai, and frequently travelled across India and Europe. In 1919 she bore Jinnah his only child, daughter Dina Jinnah.
In 1924 Jinnah reorganized the Muslim League, of which he had been president since 1919, and devoted the next seven years attempting to bring about unity among the disparate ranks of Muslims and to develop a rational formula to effect a Hindu Muslim settlement, which he considered the pre condition for Indian freedom. He attended several unity conferences, wrote the Delhi Muslim Proposals in 1927, pleaded for the incorporation of the basic Muslim demands in the Nehru report, and formulated the “Fourteen Points”
Quaid Fourteen points
Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader, Mohandas Gandhi, launched a law violating Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which a temperamentally law abiding barrister Jinnah disapproved of. Unlike most Congress leaders, Gandhi did not wear western-style clothes, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply rooted to Indian culture. Gandhi's local style of leadership gained great popularity with the Indian people. Jinnah criticised Gandhi's support of the Khilafat Movement, which he saw as an endorsement of religious zealotry.[22] By 1920, Jinnah resigned from the Congress, with a prophetic warning that Gandhi's method of mass struggle would lead to divisions between Hindus and Muslims and within the two communities.[20] Becoming president of the Muslim League, Jinnah was drawn into a conflict between a pro-Congress faction and a pro-British faction.
In September 1923, Jinnah was elected as Muslim member for Bombay in the new Central Legislative Assembly. He showed great gifts as a parliamentarian, organized many Indian members to work with the Swaraj Party, and continued to press demands for full responsible government. He was so active on a wide range of subjects that in 1925 he was offered a knighthood by Lord Reading when he retired as Viceroy and Governor General. Jinnah replied: "I prefer to be plain Mr. Jinnah".[23]
In 1927, Jinnah entered negotiations with Muslim and Hindu leaders on the issue of a future constitution, during the struggle against the all-British Simon Commission. The League wanted separate electorates while the Nehru Report favoured joint electorates. Jinnah personally opposed separate electorates, but then drafted compromises and put forth demands that he thought would satisfy both. These became known as the 14 points of Mr. Jinnah.[24] However, they were rejected by the Congress and other political parties.
Jinnah's personal life and especially his marriage suffered during this period due to his political work. Although they worked to save their marriage by travelling together to Europe when he was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, the couple separated in 1927. Jinnah was deeply saddened when Rattanbai died in 1929, after a serious illness.
At the Round Table Conferences in London, Jinnah was disillusioned by the breakdown of talks.[25] After the failure of the Round Table Conferences, Jinnah returned to London for a few years. In 1936, he returned to India to re-organize Muslim League and contest the elections held under the provisions of the Act of 1935.[26]
Jinnah would receive personal care and support as he became more ill during this time from his sister Fatima Jinnah. She lived and travelled with him, as well as becoming a close advisor.[27] She helped raise his daughter, who was educated in England and India. Jinnah later became estranged from his daughter, Dina Jinnah, after she decided to marry Parsi-born Christian businessman, Neville Wadia (even though he had faced the same issues when he married Rattanbai in 1918). Jinnah continued to correspond cordially with his daughter, but their personal relationship was strained. Dina continued to live in India with her family.
Founding Pakistan
In the 1946 elections for the Constituent Assembly of India, the Congress won most of the elected seats, while the League won a large majority of Muslim electorate seats. The 1946 British Cabinet Mission to India released a plan on May 16, calling for a united Indian state comprising considerably autonomous provinces, and called for "groups" of provinces formed on the basis of religion. A second plan released on June 16, called for the separation of India along religious lines, with princely states to choose between accession to the dominion of their choice or independence. The Congress, fearing India's fragmentation, criticised the May 16 proposal and rejected the June 16 plan. Jinnah gave the League's assent to both plans, knowing that power would go only to the party that had supported a plan. After much debate and against Gandhi's advice that both plans were divisive, the Congress accepted the May 16 plan while condemning the grouping principle.[citation needed] Jinnah decried this acceptance as "dishonesty", accused the British negotiators of "treachery",[36] and withdrew the League's approval of both plans. The League boycotted the assembly, leaving the Congress in charge of the government but denying it legitimacy in the eyes of many Muslims.
Jinnah gave a precise definition of the term 'Pakistan' in 1941 at Lahore in which he stated:
Some confusion prevails in the minds of some individuals in regard to the use of the work 'Pakistan'. This word has become synonymous with the Lahore resolution owing to the fact that it is a convenient and compendious method of describing [it].... For this reason the British and Indian newspapers generally have adopted the word 'Pakistan' to describe the Moslem demand as embodied in the Lahore resolution.[37]
Jinnah issued a call for all Muslims to launch "Direct Action" on August 16 to "achieve Pakistan".[38] Strikes and protests were planned, but violence broke out all over India, especially in Calcutta and the district of Noakhali in Bengal, and more than 7,000 people were killed in Bihar. Although viceroy Lord Wavell asserted that there was "no satisfactory evidence to that effect",[39] League politicians were blamed by the Congress and the media for orchestrating the violence.[40] Interim Government portfolios were announced on October 25, 1946.[41] Muslim Leaguers were sworn in on October 26, 1946.[42] The League entered the interim government, but Jinnah refrained from accepting office for himself. This was credited as a major victory for Jinnah, as the League entered government having rejected both plans, and was allowed to appoint an equal number of ministers despite being the minority party. The coalition was unable to work, resulting in a rising feeling within the Congress that independence of Pakistan was the only way of avoiding political chaos and possible civil war. The Congress agreed to the division of Punjab and Bengal along religious lines in late 1946. The new viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma and Indian civil servant V. P. Menon proposed a plan that would create a Muslim dominion in West Punjab, East Bengal, Baluchistan and Sindh. After heated and emotional debate, the Congress approved the plan.[43] The North-West Frontier Province voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in July 1947. Jinnah asserted in a speech in Lahore on October 30, 1947 that the League had accepted independence of Pakistan because "the consequences of any other alternative would have been too disastrous to imagine."[44]
The independent state of Pakistan, created on August 14, 1947, represented the outcome of a campaign on the part of the Indian Muslim community for a Muslim homeland which had been triggered by the British decision to consider transferring power to the people of India.
