Gupshup Community celebrates Birthday of the Father of the Nation, the Founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
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Jinnah’s Motto: Unity, Faith and Discipline.
From the Story of Pakistan.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah [1876-1948]
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Jinnah: The Founder of Pakistan
Pakistan, one of the biggest Muslim states, is a living monument of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He, with his untiring efforts, indomitable will and dauntless courage united the Indian Muslims under the Muslim League banner and carved out a homeland for them despite stiff opposition from the Hindu Congress and the British government.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born at Karachi on December 25, 1876. His father, Jinnah Poonja, belonged to a prosperous business community, Isma’ili Khojas of Kathiawar. Muhammad Ali received his early education at the Sind Madrassa and later at the Mission School, Karachi. He went to England for further studies in 1892 at the age of 16. In 1896, Jinnah qualified for the Bar and in 1897 was called to the Bar.
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Jinnah continued his efforts for Hindu-Muslim unity till the publication of the Nehru Report.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah started his political career in 1906, when he attended the Calcutta session of the All-India National Congress as the private secretary of the president of the Congress. Later in 1910, when he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council, he sponsored the Waqf Validating Bill, which brought him in closer touch with the Muslim leaders. In March 1913, Jinnah joined the All-India Muslim League.
Once a member of the Muslim League, Jinnah began to work for Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1917, the annual sessions of both the Congress and the League were held at Lucknow. The League session, presided over by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, marked the culmination of his efforts towards Hindu-Muslim unity. **A joint scheme of reforms was adopted both by the Muslim League and the Congress, known as the Lucknow Pact. **
On April 19, 1918, Jinnah married Ruttenbai. Their only daughter Dina was born a year later. In 1919, Jinnah resigned his membership of the Imperial Legislative Council as a protest against the “Rowlatt Act”.
Till the publication of Nehru Report, Jinnah continued his efforts for Hindu-Muslim unity. The Nehru Report, published in 1928, was severely criticized by all sections of Muslim opinion. In December 1928, when the National Convention, called to consider the Report, turned down the amendment moved by Jinnah, he finally parted ways with the Congress.
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Quaid with his sister Fatima Jinnah (extreme left) and his only child Dina.
In 1929, Jinnah gave his famous Fourteen Points. In 1934, he was elected as the permanent president of the Muslim League, which he reorganized on his return from England.
*The 1937 provincial assemblies elections brought Congress to power in eight provinces. After almost two years of oppressive rule, Muslims under the leadership of Jinnah celebrated the Day of Deliverance at the end of Congress rule. *
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Quaid-i-Azam being administered the oath of office of the Governor General by the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
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June 3rd, 1947: Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah announcing the creation of Pakistan from All India Radio - Delhi
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August 14th, 1947: Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah addressing the constituent assembly of Pakistan as Governor General of Pakistan.
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Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Fatima Jinnah.
Muslim League held its annual session at Lahore in March 1940, which was presided over by Quaid-i-Azam. Here the demand for Pakistan was formally put forward, which was realized on August 14, 1947, with Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah as its first Governor General.
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Quaid-i-Azam addressing the opening ceremony of the State Bank of Pakistan.
*The establishment of Pakistan brought great responsibilities for Jinnah. The refugee problem, the withholding of Pakistani assets by India, and the Kashmir problem were a real test for the Quaid. However, his indomitable will prevailed. He also worked out a sound economic policy, established an independent currency and a state bank for Pakistan. He selected Karachi as the federal capital.[Now, Islamabad] *
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Quaid-i-Azam inspecting the new coins of Pakistan.
However, he did not live long to witness the progress of the state which he had founded. *On September 11, 1948, he died after a protracted illness at Karachi. He was buried in Karachi amidst the entire nation mourning over an unpayable loss. *
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Quaid with a group of Women National Guards at Karachi, 1948.
Liberal par excellence
The News
Prof Khwaja Masud
The writer is a former principal,
Gordon College, Rawalpindi
(December 25 is Quaid’s birth anniversary)
Those who have the good fortune of having lived in the era when the Quaid-i-Azam lived, struggled and fought for Pakistan, know him as a standard-bearer of liberalism totally unlike the member of orthodoxy that he has been assiduously but unsuccessfully depicted for a long time.
At the age of 16, Jinnah went to England for legal education and stayed there for four years. At that time liberalism was very much in the air in England. Jinnah, who frequently visited the parliament, showed particular interest in the speeches of liberal leaders like Gladstone and John Morley. Among the prominent liberal Indian leaders with whom Jinnah developed close relations in the early years of his political career, were Surrindernath Bannerji, Dadhabhai Nairoji and Gokhale.
Jinnah described Bannerji as his leader in the legislative assembly, saying: “I might say that I learnt my first lessons in politics at the feet of Bannerji. I was associated with him as one of his followers and I looked up to him as a leader.”
While in England, he was closely associated with Dadhabhai Naoroji for whom he did the electioneering with all his heart and soul.
Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah recorded an incident in her brother’s life: “Recalling those electioneering day, my brother said to me: “I learnt that Lord Salisbury referred to Nairoji as a black man, and asked how Finsbury constituents could have elected him. I was furious. If Dadhabhai was black, I was darker, and if this was the mentality of the British politicians, we could never get a fair deal from them.” From that day, I have been an uncompromising enemy of all forms of colour bar and racial prejudice.”
Such was the close bond between Nairoji and Jinnah that when Dadabhai was elected president of the Congress, he made Jinnah as his honorary private secretary.
It seems that Jinnah by nature was attracted to liberalism. He demonstrated his admiration for the liberal Gokhale by saying: “It is my ambition to become a Muslim Gokhale.” Speaking at a public meeting in 1915, Jinnah said: “Personally I have had the honour of being one of the colleagues of Mr Gokhale in the Imperial Council for some years and it was a matter of pride and pleasure to listen to him and often follow his lead.”
In 1917, Sarojini Naidu lovingly called the Nightingale of India, said about Jinnah: “Who can foretell the secrets of tomorrow? Who foresees the forces and sometimes work to build our destiny higher than our dream? Perchance, it is written in the book of the future that he whose ambition is to become the Muslim Gokhale may in some glorious and terrible crisis of our national struggle, pass into immortality as the Mazzini of Indian liberation.”
Liberalism was the intellectual bond which brought Nairoji, Bannerji, Gokhale and Sarojini Naidu and Jinnah together.They were all steeped in the 19th century liberalism as Jinnah confessed: “I grasped Gokhale’s liberalism, which became the part of my life.” Let it be understood that liberalism stands for freedom, social justice, democracy and pluralism i.e. the right to dissent.
No wonder, the Quaid shared with Morley his own “sheer force of character”, and “honesty of conviction and utter”. Lord Acton remarked about Morley: “He had the obstinacy of a very honest mind”. It was this quality of “the obstinacy of a very honest mind” that endeared Jinnah to the Muslim masses who had been too often let down by their opportunist leaders.
The enduring effect of Morley’s influence on the Quaid can be seen in his speech of November 13, 1939, broadcast by All India Radio as the Eid-message, in which he recommended Morely’s book “On Compromise” to his young listeners, saying: “I usually dislike recommending books to young people, but I think all of you ought to read that book not once but over and over again.” Indeed, this book is the gospel of liberalism, which has not lost its value with the passage of time. It should be read and absorbed by Pakistani students as it is so forcefully recommended by the Father of the Nation.
The Quaid, the liberal par excellence that he was, abhorred fanaticism, dogmatism, despotism whether political or religious and injustice in any shape or form. The grateful citizens of Bombay built the Jinnah Memorial Hall to commemorate the mass demonstration that Jinnah and his wife led against the arrogant colonial governor, Lord Willington.
The Quaid abhorred imperialism and he is one of those rare leaders who never made any compromise with imperialism throughout his life. When Lord Louis Mountbatten attempted to impose his diktat on the Quaid with the threat that he (Jinnah) would lose his Pakistan forever, the Quaid stood his ground and brushed aside the threat saying: “What must be, must be.”
It was this intrepid, incorruptible and uncompromising Jinnah who brought Pakistan into existence. No other leader enjoyed such fervent loyalty from the Muslims as he did, because they were absolutely of his utter dedication to the cause of national liberation, social emancipation and sincere devotion to the Islamic values of tolerance, equality fraternity and social justice which form the core of liberalism.
Encouraged by the sincerity of the Quaid and his dedication to the cause of the down-trodden masses, Nawab Bahadur Jung declared in the Karachi session of the Muslim League in December 1943: “If communism means to efface poverty, class-distinction, and to provide bread and clothing to the poor, then I am a communist.” He made it clear that he did not draw his inspiration from Marx, but from the Qur’aanic principle of social justice.
Addressing the Quaid, he said “We have understood Pakistan in this light. If your Pakistan is not such a Pakistan, we do not want it.”
The Quaid himself had the same vision of Pakistan. He thundered against the feudal lords and capitalists: “There are missions and millions of our people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilisation? Is this the aim of Pakistan? If this is the idea of Pakistan, I shall not have it.”
The Muslim masses followed the Quaid and transformed him into the irresistible force of history, because they were convinced about the glory and dream of Pakistan - a land free of feudalism, tribalism and exploitation.
The liberalism of the Quaid grew and developed till it encompassed the interests of the ill-nourished, ill-clad and ill-housed Muslim masses. While Quaid’s liberalism imbibed the fine aspects of the western culture, its roots were
deeply embedded in Islamic culture which has always inculcated unity in diversity, upheld egalitarianism based on democracy, tolerance, rationalism humanism and pluralism. Nothing was more foreign to the Quaid that bigotry and theocracy.
The Quaid was very explicit with regard to the role of the priests. He said: “In any case, Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state --to be ruled by the priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims – Hindus, Christians and Parsis. But they are all Pakistanis and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.”
The Quaid’s finest hour came when he laid down the future polity of Pakistan in his speech of August 11, 1947, when he said: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the state. I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus, and Muslims will cease to be Muslim, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”
Thus it was that a great son of India became the Father of Pakistan. He was steeped in liberalism and universal Islamic values. Delivering his August 11 speech, the Quaid was following in the footsteps of our Holy Prophet (PBUH) when he drafted Meesaq-i-Madina for all the inhabitants of Madina, irrespective of their religion and declared all of them as ummat-un-wahida tum (one nation). To the orthodox, Islam is reduced to a set of rituals and traditions, but to Quaid-i-Azam, “Islam is based on the highest principle of honour, integrity, fairplay and justice for all” (Address to Karachi Bar Association, Jan. 25, 1948).
Quaid-i-Azam’s Birth Anniversary Today
LAHORE: The nation will celebrate the 126th birthday of the founding father of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah on Wednesday with a pledge to make the country a true democratic and welfare state.
Jinnah, born in Karachi in 1876, spearheaded the South Asian Muslims’ movement for the creation of a new homeland, which culminated on August 14, 1947 with the establishment of Pakistan.
The day will dawn in the Punjab capital with special prayers at all the mosques for the solidarity and prosperity of the country and freedom of the occupied Kashmir. A number of political, cultural and social organisations are holding meetings and seminars to highlight the life and services of the great Quaid.
Declamation contests will be held at different educational institutions to mark the day. Newspapers are bringing out special supplements on Quaid-i-Azam Day while radio and TV will air programmes on the life of the leader.
All the commercial centres, government and private offices will remain closed as the day has been declared as public holiday.
The nation celebrates the 127th birth anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah with the usual sense of gratitude for having created Pakistan in the face of extreme difficulties. It is a day to recall his quintessential leadership that helped him to single-handedly lead the fight for the freedom of Muslims of British India. Most biographers and commentators agree that only a person with the vision, courage and determination of the Quaid could have achieved what he did in spite of the manifold problems that he confronted. He faced opposition not only from the British power and Hindus but also from within the Muslim community.
However, in appreciating the role of the Quaid as the founder we tend to ignore his various other qualities that made him the giant he was as a statesman, particularly the fact that above all he firmly believed in democracy, constitution and rule of law. Throughout his struggle, before and after Pakistan he continued to accentuate the importance of following a path that respected the rule of law. It was the mind of an impeccable jurist that influenced the movement for Pakistan ensuring that his arguments were sustained by reason and facts rather than religious or nationalist demagoguery.
But ironically, while Pakistan was founded by a man seeped in legal and constitutional wisdom, the country has suffered miserably in the same field. After going through nearly half a dozen constitutions, efforts are still underway to tinker with an existing statute that is already badly frayed by earlier excisions and additions. Most of the changes have been influenced by expedience rather than legal compulsion. It is doubtful whether the Quaid, as a democrat would have approved of most of the constitutions which, in spite of upholding human rights and all that was healthy still overly empowered the establishment than was warranted. Even at present, in the efforts to balance the constitutional structure, the emphasis is on structuring a subtle tilt towards one side.
Today, therefore, should be an occasion for the nation to indulge in some soul-searching to find out where did we go wrong. It cannot be that the foundations were weak, because the founder himself was a man of law and well understood the importance of constructing a strong constitutional edifice. The problem, therefore, was created by those leaders who were unable to comprehend the roadmap the Quaid had given. Half a century down the road, the country is still groping for the philosopher’s stone that could take us out of the slough of constitutional despondency. It is a tragic fate for a country that was given a right by its founder to have good future.