Dec. 25th is commemorated as the birthday anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The man who dedicated his life to a great struggle as a result of which the best thing happened to the muslims of subcontinent. i.e. Pakistan.
I wish he could live more as it certainly appears that all his sacrifices are taken for granted now. We dont value this country as much as we should nor we are doing enough to make it a progressive state as Jinnah dreamed.
The new generation infact might not know much about his life at all.
What are your thoughts about him? How can we keep his legacy alive? Please share your thoughts even if you dont agree with him.
[RIGHT]#سلام_قائداعظم](https://twitter.com/hashtag/سلام_قائداعظم?src=hash)
سلام عظیم دھرتی جس نےاتنا باکردارمستقل مزاج بھادر سپوت پیدا کیا
صرف قائدکےپیغام کو سمجھ کرعمل کرناھی پاکستاں کی بقا کا واحد رستہ هے[/RIGHT]
**The story of the real ‘Deedawar of Iqbal.’ **The purpose of this article is to correct popular implanted stories.
**Extremists have hijacked and made a myth about Quaid the Father of the nation .They have ‘Talebnised’ ****him. They want to create a nation following a life style and roadmap that he never followed. The facts are: ** He stripped his name of Jinnah Bhai to Jinnah. He was not born on 25th of Dec, he was born in Oct, his school certificate says that, he changed his date of birth to what Jesus Christ birthday. He could not read Urdu or Arabic as a script. Yet, Quranic injunction of 'La ikraaha fid-Deen’ is echoed formidably by him in no uncertain terms on August 11 1947:
“You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
He was a secular man, that is the purpose of this history, he wanted a state where every one could live peacefully.
When Jinnah got Pakistan, he tried to give practical shape to his vision. Like Kamal Pasha, the architect of modern Turkey, Jinnah too wanted the state of Pakistan to be truly democratic, and free from any interference from the obscurantist forces. In this attempt, he sought the help of the secular minded Muslims, Hindus and Parsees. He told his Hindu industrialist friend, Dalmia, and M.S.M. Sharma, the editor of Daily Gazette of Karachi, and others who had decided to stay in Pakistan that Pakistan ‘will function with the will and sanction of the entire body of the people of Pakistan’. According to Sri Prakasa, the first Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Jinnah was anxious to revert to his old role of ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, a Muslim Gokhale. He wanted Pakistan to be a model state wherein the majority would not suppress the minority. ‘I am going to show how the minorities should be treated.’
*** Mr. Jinnah told Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, his close friend: ‘You destroy your Pandit and we will destroy our Mullah and there will be communal peace.’’](Pakistan Failed Jinnah - Mainstream Weekly)***
M.A. Jinnah a Scotch-drinking, occasionally pork-eating, who dabbled with champagne was a secular lawyer. His picture with a glass of Champagne with Agha Hilaly adorns Hillay house in Karachi. When Zafar Hilaly was Ambassador in Yemen and Ziaul Haq visited Yemen he demanded that picture from the ambassadors office be removed. He chastised Zafar for displaying that picture of M.A. Jinnah.
If Islamic law was to be made the real subject by Mr. Jinnah there was no point appointing a Dalit Hindu as the first law minister, the idea was a constitutional state based on magnanimity and egalitarianism. Mandal’s resignation letter of 1950, which has recently been declassifiedin which he pointed towards the deliberate policy of discrimination carried out against the minorities. This attitude was something that Mandal had not expected and he left Pakistan for India soon after his resignation. The seeds of intolerance and bigotry were sown early on in Pakistan’s history.
It was his secular outlook that invited the wrath of most of the hard core mullahs. He never wanted a theocratic state, if he wanted it they would have supported him. He opposed the Khalifat Movement led by Gandhi and Ali brothers. He thought it was cheap to bring religious issues into sub continent politics. He opposed Gandhi Jee to encourage the right and Mullahs. He was therefore always opposed by Madni and company.
His outlook made him the hate target of religious right, the same right today tells the nations that he wanted a theocratic Pakistan. Lets start from the most vocal the Jamat-e-Islami and the JUI both Taleban official spokesman ( Mufti Mehmood/Maulana Abdul Haq who had been a die hard enemy of Mr. Jinnah) and many others claim now that Mr. Jinnah wanted an Islamic theocracy as constitution of the state. But if so Maulana Maududi Jamaat-e-Islami’s chief wrote back then totally opposite:
“Pity! From League’s Quaid-e-Azam down to the lower cadres, there is not a single person who has an Islamic outlook and thinking and whose perspective on matters is Islamic“.(Ibid. P.37)
“To pronounce these people fit for leading Muslims for the simple reason that they are experts of Western type politics and masters of Western organizational arts, and are deeply in love with their people, is a manifestation of an unislamic viewpoint and reflects ignorance of Islam”. (Ibid. P.70)
***“Even with a microscopic study of their practical life, and their thinking, ideology, political behaviour and style of leadership, one can find not a trace of Islamic character.” * **
Jamaat-e-Islami/Deobandis claim that the Muslim League promised Pakistan as an Islamic state. Maulana Maududi had this to say then:
**“In no Muslim League resolution, or in a speech by a responsible leader of the League it has it been made clear that their final goal is of establishing an Islamic system of government. Those who believe that by freeing Muslim majority areas rule of Hindu majority, an Islamic government will be established here in a democratic set up, are wrong. In fact what will be achieved will be a heretical government by Muslims, indeed worse than that.” (Ibid. P.130-32) **
On 14 August 1947 one-fifth of humankind claimed their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen. But 400 million people were to find that the immediate price of freedom was partition and war, riot and murder. Muslim got their freedom under the leadership of a secular man, the grandfather, of M.A. Jinnah was Poonja Gokuldas Meghji, who was a Hindu Rajput. Jinnah family was indigenous family of Paneli, his family was from Lohan Rajpoot a tribe decended from an eponym of Panwar Rajpoot. His native village was not very far from Gandhiji’s birthplace Porbandar. It is commonly raised that these two Kathiawaris divided the sub-continent. His grandfather had converted to Ismaili sect.
In 1915, Jinnah gave an interview to new magazine ‘Vismi Sadi’ (20th Century). In this interview, Mr.Jinnah answered eight questions in Gujarati in one word each in his own handwriting. These one-word answered in Gujarati from Jinnah gave fascinating insight into his character. This subsequent explanation was published in Mr. Jinnah’s handwriting in the column ‘Dil No Aekrar’ (From The Heart). Entertainingly, Jinnah has signed off as ‘Mahammad Ali Jeena’, as one would write in Gujarati.
Jinnah has often been described as upper class patrician and ‘Martian’ to the country he shaped and it comes out obviously in this interview where he acknowledges his affection for Shakespeare and Alexander Dumas not the Prophet. Plus not Jihad but his love for horse riding and lilies. He couldn’t read or write Urdu, forget about Arabic. Mr. Jinnah spoke Gujarati fluently. He could read as well as write Gujarati, his mother tongue. He did have an english version of Quran. **Jinnah’s family after conversion belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch. Jinnah belonged to this minority sect; you know what majority sect today think about this minority sect. They want to eliminate them. ( though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shi’a Islam) **
Jinnah’s personal habits were not Islamic and for that he was viciously attacked by Jamaat Islami, Jamiat ulema Hind and Majlis Ahrar. One hardly would find a single evidence that Jinnah, ever visited any mosque to pay his prayer. He never visited Makkah or Madina, as other Muslim Leaders, like Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar etc. He never quoted any verse from Quran or Hadees. He only talked of constitutional rights of Muslims.
'After leaving the Congress he had not turned into a communalist. He organised a secular party known as the Independent Party in the Central Legislative Assembly. It consisted of members belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Parsee and Muslim communities. His party always co-operated with the Congress vis-à-vis the British authorities and their allies. Jinnah contested the elections as a member of the Independent Party till 1936, declined to lead the Muslims in the Assembly, and refused to work exclusively for the Muslim community.](Pakistan Failed Jinnah - Mainstream Weekly)His nationalist ideas and secular outlook won him a special place in the hearts of the liberal-minded countrymen, especially the youth. In 1936 he was chosen to preside over the All India Youth Conference in which the All India Students Federation was formed.
Syed Hashim Reza would fondly recall a story that on first Eid soon after the new nation was born, Quaid was ill at ease for the Eid prayers, Hashim Reza who was his assistant asked him to follow the Imam actions; he also prodded Mulaana to cut his Kohtba short as Maulana ( Aleem) went into a overdrive of a long khotba, Quaid had asked Hashim Reza ’ when is this going to stop? ’ If he wanted to impose religious laws, then why did he appoint a Hindu as the country’s first law minister? Why did he appoint a qadyani as Foreign minister?
** Jinnah’s lineage comes from Poonja – a Hindu Bhatia – of Kathaiwar – devotee of Lord Krishna –Shreenathji. Poonja Gokuldas Meghji- a Lohana.Lohanas or Master of Swords’ are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group and are a Ranghuvanshi Kshatriya.**
In India, they mainly reside in Gujarat, Mumbai and other parts of the country. In the last 150 years, some Lohanas have lived or do live in parts of Africa, such as Uganda and Kenya, and parts of the Western world, such as the U.K., Canada, and the U.S.
Dina got married to a Parsi born Indian Neville Wadia against the wishes of her father. He was tough on her as he wanted her to get married to a Muslim not anyone else. It is known that when Dina married Neville – an Indian national and Parsi, Jinnah said to her that she was not his daughter any more. Jinnah disowned her and the father-daughter relationship and she became ‘Mrs. Wadia’ in the eyes of Jinnah. Dina and Neville lived in Mumbai and had two children, a boy and a girl. Dina’s son Nusli Wadia is a Parsi Gujarati. Dina did not travel to Pakistan until her father’s funeral in Karachi in September 1948. Neville Wadia is a strong nationalist.
Mahommedali Currim Chagla, who was Jinnah’s assistant at the time, recalls (these are from the memoirs of MC Chagla.M.C. Chagla, is considered a big villain in Pakistan for his memoirs where he highlighted that Jinnah ate ham sandwiches and drank pork and ham.He was a judge of the Bombay High Court and later India’s ambassador to the US, Chagla ‘M.C.’ Stood for Merchant. He used Chagla to obscure his Muslim identity, ‘M.C.’ to make himself more acceptable). Chagla idolized Jinnah and held membership in the Muslim League, but severed all ties to Jinnah after he began to work for the cause of a separate Muslim state. He, along with others, then founded the Muslim Nationalist Party in Bombay, a party which was ignored and pushed aside in the independence struggle. He was appointed as Professor of law to Government Law College, Bombay in 1927, where he worked with Dr. **(B. R. Ambedkar - Wikipedia). He was appointed as a judge to Bombay High Court in 1941, becoming Chief Justice in 1948 and serving in that capacity to 1958:
“Jinnah, in his usual imperious manner, told her that there were millions of Muslim boys in India, and she could have anyone she chose. Reminding her father that his wife (Dina’s mother Rattanbai), had also been a non-Muslim, the young lady replied: ‘Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?’ And he replied that, ‘she became a Muslim’”.](NBC News - Breaking Headlines and Video Reports on World, U.S. and Local Angles | NBC News)
We create our gods and we worship them and we get upset when history tells us ’ they were like all very humans and not stalwarts as we believe.’ Lessons from history that are prohibited in our own history books. Let’s not make saints out of sinners and vice versa - people what they eat drink and live has nothing to do with their political strategy. The getting of a nation was economically driven not religiously.
To know more about him, please read a must book : Freedom at Midnight is a thrilling story of India’s struggle for independence by two fine journalists who conducted hundreds of interviews with nearly all the surviving participants – from Mountbatten to the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre recount the eclipse of the fabled British Raj and examine the roles enacted by, among others, Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten in its violent transformation into the new India and Pakistan. This is the India of Jawaharlal Nehru, heart-broken by the tragedy of the country’s division; of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, a Moslem who drank, ate pork and rarely entered a mosque, yet led 45 million Moslems to nationhood; of Gandhi, who stirred a subcontinent without raising his voice; of the last viceroy, Mountbatten, beseeched by the leaders of an independent India to take back the powers he’d just passed to them.
Why can’t we face the truth?
''As we were drinking our coffee and enjoying our sausages, in came an old, bearded Muslim with a young boy of about ten years of age, probably his grandson. They came and sat down near Jinnah. It was obvious that they had been directed from Town Hall… I then saw the boy’s hand reaching out slowly but irresistibly towards the plate of pork sausages. After some hesitation, he picked up one, put it in his mouth, munched it and seemed to enjoy it tremendously. I watched this uneasily… After some time they left and Jinnah turned to me, and said angrily: “Chagla, you should be ashamed of yourself.” I said: ” What did I do?” Jinnah asked: “How dare you allow the young boy to eat pork sausages?” I said: “Look, Jinnah, I had to use all my mental faculties to come to a quick decision. The question was: should I let Jinnah lose his election or should I let the boy go to eternal damnation? I chose in your favour.”- M.C. Chagla, Roses in December, as quoted in Jinnah of Pakistan by Stanley Wolpert
President/General Zia trying to convince Wolpert to censor parts of his book that talked about Jinnah eating pork and drinking alcohol so it could be mandatory reading for all undergraduate students. Wolpert refused to have passages from his book censored, even after being given the promise of ‘making millions’ off the book. Diplomatic touts of Zia even had the audacity to approach his daughter, Dina, living in New York, she was clandestinely asked to deny that her father ever drank alcohol or ate ham. When she refused to oblige , she was threatened with ´disclosures´ about her private life if she ever made it public that she had been approached. He was the real Deedawar, that is the point here not what Taliban or Zia want to show him or portray him as.
Hazaron Saal Nargis Apni Benoori Pe Roti HaiBari Mushkil Se Hota Hai Chaman Mein Didahwar Paida
Jinnah actually asked a Hindu, Jagannath Azad, to pen the first anthem of Pakistan. However 6months after Jinnah’s death Azad’s anthem was dropped; it was intolerable that a Hindu somehow could author the national essence of Pakistan. In its stead Hafeez Jullandhri gifted us with our current national anthem, entirely Persian but for a single Sanskritic word. Considering that Pakistan was fought and preserved for the advance of the UP Muslim salariat, who exclusively used Urdu; it’s a curious twist that our national song is in a foreign language.
This is the real story, Pakistan Failed Jinnah; his timely death saved him, the bigots were about to revolt against him!! **Read the link highlighted here and decide for yourself how badly we are misinformed. ****
Whatever claimed in that article above may not be a lie but it is not true to depict Quaid in this fashion.
It is possible that he used to eat pork or drink at some point of his life. But people need to see how he evolved and where he ended up. It is this end which defines the person.
Remember that Abu Bakr Baghdadi, leader of Daesh, used to be a totally Westernized chap. Same thing with Anjem Choudhary, who used to have girl friends, used to drink, and used to do drugs. But it does not mean this is how they should be remembered. Rather it is what they finally evolved which defines them.
Quaid obviously never evolved into an extremist khariji but he did change his ways later in his life. Earlier he used to wear all Western clothes but later he had put on qaraqul instead of a hat, and wore sherwani instead of suit. While he remained a secular person till the end, he firmly believed in universal teachings of Islam. He was extremely unhappy with his daughter marrying a non-Muslim, and remained estranged from her after that.
True that everyone in Pakistan wants to “dress” Quaid as per his liking. Both right-wing and left-wing.
A complex personality, indeed.
Jinnah as we know in our " National " narrative is a carefully constructed Myth , a Myth created for the Interest of the " Elites " that has ruled us as an alternating Mafia , since day 1
