Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Urdu: محمد على جناح), also known as Muhammad or Mahomed Ali Jinnah (often referred to in Pakistan either as Quaid-e-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم), or "Great Leader", which is a legally defined title, or simply Jinnah) (December 25, 1876 - September 11, 1948) was a legislator, politician and a statesman. He was initially an Indian Nationalist and later a Muslim nationalist in British India, working worked towards an independent India and Hindu-Muslim Unity till age 60 but later spearheaded the movement for a separate homeland for Muslims in South Asia. He served as Pakistan's first Governor-General and the first presiding officer of its constituent assembly.

Early life and family history

Jinnah's birthplace and date of birth are disputed; however, it is generally believed that he was born in Wazir Mansion, Karachi, and raised in Mumbai (then Bombay). His father was Jinnahbhai Poonja, from Gujarat (the younger Jinnah dropped 'bhai' from his name, in 1894). Jinnah's father lived from 1857-1901. Jinnah's family had Ismaili, Shia and Hindu ancestry; and the family was primarily Ismaili. Jinnah was educated at the Sind Madrasatul Islam and the Christian Society High School, in Karachi. In 1893, he went to London to work for Graham's Shipping and Trading Company, with which his father did business. He had been married to a 16-year old (distant) relative named Emibai, but she died shortly after he moved to London. Around this time, his mother died as well. In 1918 he would marry Rattanbai Petit ("Ruttie"), a Parsi who officially took the Muslim name "Maryam" on her conversion to Islam; they had one daughter, Dina. In 1929, his second wife died of cancer.

Law

In 1894, Jinnah quit his job in order to study law at Lincoln's Inn; from which he became the youngest Indian to graduate (1896). He was impressed by a mural, that hangs today, in the main dining hall, one which depicted Moses and Muhammad. Jinnah would briefly work with Dadabhai Naoroji, the first MP of Indian origin in the British House of Commons. By the end of 1896, Jinnah was a member of the Indian National Congress and practising law with the Bombay bar (as the only Muslim barrister). There he earned a reputation regarding his lack of respect for the British Empire. In one incident, a judge kept interrupting Jinnah by saying, "Rubbish!" Jinnah eventually responded by saying, "Your honour, nothing but rubbish has passed your mouth all morning." Shortly after this incident, in 1901, Sir Charles Ollivant offered to hire Jinnah at Rs. 1,500. Jinnah dimissed this offer saying he could earn much more than that.

Political career

Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress and soon became its most prominent Muslim leader. At the time, the Congress Party was a collection of well-educated Indians who espoused moderate views and sought discussions and negotiations as a way to obtain increased self-government for Indians within the British Empire.

On January 25, 1910, Jinnah became the "Muslim member from Bombay" on the 60-man Legislative Council of India, which many contemporary historians criticize as a rubber-stamp of the Viceroy of India. In 1913, Jinnah joined the Muslim League and, in 1914, would support Indian participation in World War I. In 1916, Jinnah became the president of the Lucknow Muslim League session and again in 1920; and later, from 1920-30 and from 1937-47, would serve as the League's president.

Jinnah was the chief architect of the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress Party and the League to cooperate on all national issues, and became the president of the All India Home Rule League founded with Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak and other prominent Indian nationalists. Known to be an ardent admirer of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Jinnah strived to become the Muslim Gokhale, as he himself termed it. Indian poet and nationalist Sarojini Naidu penned the first-ever biography of Jinnah: An Advocate of Hindu-Muslim Unity, in 1916.

Jinnah's alienation from the Congress began with the ascent of Mohandas Gandhi in 1918, who espoused non-violent civil disobedience as the best means to obtain Swaraj (independence, or self-rule) for all Indians. Jinnah differed saying that only constitutional struggle could lead to independence. Gandhi was unlike most Congress leaders - he did not wear western-style clothes, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply spiritual and religious. Gandhi's Indianized style of leadership appealed to rank and file Congressmen, and gained extreme popularity with the Indian people. By 1920, he and thousands of his fans and disciples were dominating the Congress Party.

By 1920, Jinnah had resigned from the Indian National Congress warning that Gandhi's method of mass struggle would lead to division amongst the ranks not just of Hindus and Muslims but within in the two communities. He still did not voice his support for separate Muslim negotiations with Britain over the future of India. From 1924 onwards he formed an in-house party of moderates that played a bridge between the Congress and the government. Later he was elected president of the Muslim League but the Muslim League itself was divided into two factions i.e. the Pro-Congress Jinnah faction and pro-British Shafi faction.

In 1927 Jinnah led a successful demonstration against Simon Commission's exclusion of Indians. Later he entered into negotiations with Muslim and Hindu leaders on the issue of a future Indian constitution. The Muslim opinion wanted to continue with the separate electorates while the majority Hindu opinion was in favour of the joint electorates. Jinnah personally had opposed the separate electorates. He then charted a middle course between the Hindu position and the Muslim position and put forth a set of demands that he thought would satisfy both positions. These became known as the 14 points of Mr Jinnah.

Fourteen Points of Mr Jinnah

See Fourteen Points of Jinnah for details.

1. The form of the future constitution should be federal with the residuary powers vested in the provinces.
2. A uniform measure of autonomy shall be granted to all provinces.
3. All legislatures in the country and other elected bodies shall be constituted on the definite principle of adequate and effective representation of minorities in every province without reducing the majority in any province to a minority or even equality.
4. In the Central Legislature, Muslim representation shall not be less than one-third.
5. Representation of communal groups shall continue to be by means of separate electorate as at present, provided it shall be open to any community at any time to abandon its separate electorate in favor of a joint electorate.
6. Any territorial distribution that might at any time be necessary shall not in any way affect the Muslim majority in the Punjab, Bengal and the North West Frontier Province.
7. Full religious liberty, i.e. liberty of belief, worship and observance, propaganda, association and education, shall be guaranteed to all communities.
8. No bill or any resolution or any part thereof shall be passed in any legislature or any other elected body if three-fourth of the members of any community in that particular body oppose such a bill resolution or part thereof on the ground that it would be injurious to the interests of that community or in the alternative, such other method is devised as may be found feasible and practicable to deal with such cases.
9. Sindh should be separated from the Bombay presidency.
10. Reforms should be introduced in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan on the same footing as in the other provinces.
11. Provision should be made in the constitution giving Muslims an adequate share, along with the other Indians, in all the services of the state and in local self-governing bodies having due regard to the requirements of efficiency.
12. The constitution should embody adequate safeguards for the protection of Muslim culture and for the protection and promotion of Muslim education, language, religion, personal laws and Muslim charitable institution and for their due share in the grants-in-aid given by the state and by local self-governing bodies.
13. No cabinet, either central or provincial, should be formed without there being a proportion of at least one-third Muslim ministers.
14. No change shall be made in the constitution by the Central Legislature except with the concurrence of the State's contribution of the Indian Federation.

One newspaper headline described the 14 points as Muslims' irreducible minimum. These demands were rejected by the Congress Party, leaving Jinnah an isolated man even amongst the Muslims, who he had convinced to scale down their demands. He was then invited to attend the round table conferences, where he forwarded the Muslims' point of view as he understood it. However neither the nationalists nor the pro-British Muslim nobility were willing to listen to him. Years later he would remark to his Hindu friend Dalmiya of how he was able to finally bring the British lackeys, "Jee Huzoors"(yes men) and "nawabs" into line. But not in 1930-31 when his political career seemed all but over.

Exile in England

Dejected, Jinnah,

Then a series of events led to his re-emergence into Indian politics. In 1932, writes Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah picked up a book called "Grey Wolf", the autobiography of Ghazi Mustapha Kemal Pasha Ataturk, and was said to be greatly moved. For a long time this was all he spoke about at home, prompting his daughter to call him "Greywolf" affectionately. He is said to have remarked to his sister that if he achieved the same kind of power, he would modernise the Muslims. The next year prominent Muslims like the Aga Khan, Choudhary Rahmat Ali and Allama Iqbal started making efforts to convince of him to take charge of a now-reunited Muslim League party.

Return

In 1934 Jinnah returned and began to re-organise the Muslim League. Meanwhile the two other major contenders for Muslim Leadership Sir Fazl-e-Hussain and Sir Muhammad Shafi passed away, leaving the space wide open for Jinnah. From 1935-1937 Jinnah once again sought to bring the Muslim League closer to the Congress Party. Indeed the manifesto that Muslim League adopted was identical to the Congress with a few minor adjustments. The 1937 elections was a mixed bag for the League. It won the Muslim seats in Hindu Majority areas but lost Muslim majority areas altogether. The Muslim League approached the Congress for coalition ministries in Hindu Majority areas but the Congress demanded that the League merge with the Congress. The chief thorn between the League and the Congress was traditional suspicion of each other and the League contention that only it could be the representative of India's Muslims. Nehru told Jinnah to depend on the League's inherent strength, to which Jinnah famously replied that it was inherent strength that Muslim League would depend on from then on. Adopting what some have interpreted as a "divide and conquer" policy, the British initially supported Jinnah, hoping that he would be a powerful counterbalance to the Indian National Congress. Jinnah supported Indian participation in World War II while the Indian National Congress opposed the war. This obviously raised Jinnah's stock. His personal equation with Winston Churchill was also quite cordial as the two men exchanged several letters during those crucial years in the 1940s

Partition and Pakistan

See Also: Partition of India, Pakistan Movement, V.P. Menon, Lord Louis Mountbatten

The ideological fathers of the partition of India were Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the great Muslim poet, and Choudhary Rahmat Ali, an England-based activist. Iqbal, in his 1930 presidential address had first discussed the idea of a Muslim country in northwest India, and Rahmat Ali is famously attributed with the coining of the term Pakistan.

After the 1937 provincial and central elections, the League won a good share of the Muslim seats, and Jinnah made an offer for alliance with the Congress. Both bodies would face the British unitedly, but the Congress had to share power, accept the separate electorates and the League as the real representative of India's Muslims. The latter two terms were unacceptable to the Congress, which had its own national Muslim leaders and membership, and demanded that the League merge with the Congress. The deal fell flat.

Jinnah first raised the issue of partition at the Lahore Conference (1940). He was however not the first to declare that Hindus and Muslims constituted two distinct peoples, a view he arrived at reluctantly, adding that if partition was not achieved the subcontinent would erupt in civil war. On July 26, 1943, a member of the Khaksars attempted to assassinate Jinnah by stabbing; Jinnah was wounded.

The partition question at first produced unanimous denunciation from the Congress Party, and the British considered it politically powerless. But India in the 1940s was already politically divided. Subhas Chandra Bose was leading a military force to liberate India with the help of Nazi Germany and Japan. Almost all Indian parties, including the League, the Communist Party of India and the League's Hindu rivals, the Hindu Mahasabha had rejected Gandhi and the Congress's Quit India Movement, which, while considered the most powerful Indian revolt ever, was suppressed ruthlessly by the British. The Muslim League formed provincial governments all over India, and prominent Jinnah supporters like Muhammad Zafrulla Khan and Liaquat Ali Khan were in the top echelons of power in British India. The viceroy, Lord Wavell began to respect Jinnah's stature.

He launched Direct Action Day (aka: Affirmative Action Plan) on August 16, 1946, to protest and voice the Muslim demand for Pakistan. This was planned as a peaceful day of civil disobedience . Direct Action dDay, which, though peaceful all over India led to violence in Calcutta where according to Lord Wavell's estimate 3000 Hindus and 7000 Muslims were killed. The figure has generall been corroborated by Sir Francis Tuker's account. Violence was then perpetrated against Muslims in Bihar the bloodbath which finally erupted across the country. Over 10,000 (upto 100,000 by non-official sources) Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Muslims were killed. Following the Direct Action Day debacle and fearing the collapse of Muslim League coalition ministry with Scheduled Caste Federation in Bengal, Muslim League was forced to enter the Interim Government on Congress' conditions. Jinnah stayed out of the ministries, allowing Liaquat Ali Khan to head the League ministers.

Congress leaders Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel obtained the Congress agreement to a plan to partition India into two separate countries - a plan devised by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the new viceroy and V.P. Menon, an Indian civil servant. Patel and Nehru obtained the reluctant assent of Gandhi.

Between June and August of 1947, Jinnah represented the 'Pakistan' side on the Partition Council, negotiating the partition of government assets and machinery, and simultaneously constructing the new Government of Pakistan.

Jinnah was Pakistan's first Governor-General and president of its legislative assembly. He put forward a clear vision for a secular state, saying in his speech opening the Constituent Assembly:

You may belong to any religion caste or creed- that has nothing to do with the business of the state. In due course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.

The speech may have become a slight embarrassment for those Pakistani politicians who want to Islamicise his legacy. The democratic experiment, has had a troubled history in Pakistan, with the country being recurrently under military rule for about half of its history.

The post of Governor General while Pakistan remained a dominion in the British Commonwealth officially meant simply being the British Monarch's representative, a ceremonial head of state and cipher of the executive government (but see below as to the 1935 Constitution and the rather greater significance of the Governor Generals of India and then of India and Pakistan). However, Jinnah had no intention of being a mere "nodding automaton," as he put it, and the young state had to cope with bloody religious violence and the influx of over 10 million Mohajirs -- Muslim refugees from post-Partition India. He therefore played a very active role in government till the day he died. In the months after independence, he worked to curb religious violence, provide relief to millions of refugees and attempted to protect religious minorities and convince them to remain in Pakistan. He crafted Pakistan's economic policy and currency, established military, government and educational institutions.

When the Indian Army entered the Himalayan princely state of Kashmir in October 1947 in response to an invasion of Pakistani tribesmen and soldiers, Jinnah responded by increasing military aid for the invaders while strongly criticizing the Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir's accession to India despite a majority of his subjects being Muslim. (The provinces of British India were allocated to either Pakistan or post-Partition India on the basis of whether the majority of their populations were Muslim or Hindu; the rulers of the princely states had the right to accede to the post-Partition country of their choice.) However, his intention to send the Pakistani Army in was thwarted by its British commanders.

Mr Jinnah did not live to see the new country take further shape. He died on September 11, 1948, from tuberculosis and lung cancer. A mausoleum was built to honour Jinnah in Karachi, called Mazar-e-Quaid where official and military ceremonies take place on special occasions.

Jinnah as a legislator

From 1910, when he was first elected as a representative of Muslims of Bombay under the Indian National Congress, to 1948, Jinnah's career as a legislator spanned over four decades. He was a parliamentarian par excellence, which is why he detested the politics of revolution and rabble rousing. As Dr Ambedkar pointed out in his book "Pakistan or Partition of India", he was one of the harshest critics of British rule in the assembly but not a rebel.

As a legislator, he was instrumental in the passing of several bills that today constitute the legal edifice of both India and Pakistan. Amongst these was the "Child Marriages Restraint Act" where he had to take on religious conservatives within his own community, who were deadset against a lower limit for a girl's age before she is married. He was also active in the constitutional agitation to get Indians the right to be officers in the British Army. For this he was appointed to Sandhurst committee, the recommendations of which were instrumental in

On August 11, 1947, Jinnah was elected as the president of the Constituent Assembly, a position equivalent to that of a Speaker of a legislature.

Modern views on Jinnah

Mohammad Ali Jinnah has an iconic status in Pakistan, is revered as the Father of the Nation, and honoured on his nominal birthday on December 25 each year, on Pakistan's independence day on August 14 and on Pakistan Day, March 23. Many historians especially in Pakistan view him as a brilliant advocate, a liberal democrat and a progressive who remained in the Indian Nationalist camp for very long time (1906-1938). His disillusionment with Gandhi was the result of Gandhi's support of the Khilafat movement, which Jinnah dismissed as false religious frenzy.

Yet Jinnah is also seen as communal because after 1937, he presented the classic consociationalist argument, asking for recognition for the Muslim League as the sole representative party for Muslims and making it key for a future Indian constitution.

Jinnah's work and legacy is seen as controversial, and has provoked emotive criticism not only from people in India, but also, albeit decidedly mutedly, within Pakistan. On the other hand, during his own lifetime, Lord Mountbatten was an effective and eloquent self-promoter who did not hesitate to state his unflattering views of Jinnah, and since Mountbatten's own death in 1979 a more balanced view has emerged, as in the Stanley Wolpert biography Jinnah which both humanises the Quaid-i-Azam to an extent that many Pakistanis consider somewhat discomforting and conclusively demonstrates even for his critics the man's greatness.

Contested legacy

The fact that about half a million people died in the partition riots, and that over 5.5 million Muslims and 3 million Hindus and Sikhs had to leave their ancestral homes has made the partition intensely emotional. (Figures based on an average of all historians and London Times average)

Jinnah is held single-handedly and somewhat unfairly responsible for the suffering of the Hindus and Sikhs by many people in India today. He is seen by many Indian nationalists as a hate-monger, communalist and a treacherous political wizard. Lord Mountbatten made no secret of his inability to work his famous charm on Jinnah and during his own lifetime Mountbatten's account of the period of Partition and Independence was not widely challenged. However recent work has caused people to reconsider their view of Jinnah as of Mountbatten and his account of the Independence and Partition period. Of particular significance in this regard is a work by a leading Indian Jurist H M Seervai which holds that Jinnah never wanted partition and that it was forced upon him by circumstance and the unwillingness of the Congress Party to accept demands for autonomy within the Indian Union.

Pakistan to these critics is a creation of his ego, of his inability to live in a nation led by Gandhi's Congress, a claim largely challenged by a new generation of historians. The mainstream Indian view however is still that partition was unnecessary, given India's apparent success as a modern nation state with a Muslim population of 120 million at least rivalling the prosperity and freedom of Pakistan's Muslims. However the fact that the creation of Pakistan tasked Muslims with the practicalities of a nation state, which is often held to have led to the emergence of a bourgeois class, is also a fact of history. Another explanation of Indian Muslims is that they all live as minorities in Indian provinces and so continue as before, with Indian rule replacing British rule. Muslim majority provinces wanted to rule themselves and Pakistan satisfied this desire.

Jinnah's tuberculosis is also the focus of debate. Jinnah went to lengths to keep his suffering from the serious disease a secret. In 1944, Liaquat Ali Khan was accused of making a deal with some Congress leaders on a coalition and power-sharing behind Jinnah's back. It is said that Khan thought Jinnah was dying and wanted to grasp as much political power for the League as he could. Some Indians feel that if the Congress had held out longer, Jinnah would have died and Pakistan would never have materialized. Others contest the whole theory as the fictional hindsight or contemporary misapprehension of Lord Mountbatten, who was the primary informant for the journalists Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre for their highly sensationalised and biased Freedom at Midnight. Jinnah's combination of suffering and struggle have made Pakistanis appreciate him further.

On the Kashmir issue, Jinnah is criticized by Indians for secretly backing the 'tribal' invasion of Kashmir in 1947, while acting innocent before the world. Many of the tribals were later identified as Pakistani military regulars. Alaistair Lamb and other historians hold however that Jinnah indeed was kept in the dark by certain ambitious elements in the establishment.

Jinnah's Pakistani critics, famously Choudhary Rahmat Ali, blame him for accepting a truncated Pakistan. The Muslim League's vision of Pakistan included all of Bengal, Punjab, Kashmir and the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), but before it was created, East Punjab and West Bengal were separated from the Muslim-majority portions, Kashmir became (as it remains) hotly disputed region between the two nations and UP, being a province of British India, was allocated to post-Partition India rather than Pakistan on the basis of a majority of its population being Hindu. To his critics, this reduced Pakistan is constantly under threat by India's size and strategic power.

His tenure as Pakistan's Governor General is also debated, as having sown the seeds for a weak culture of democracy, and for authoritarianism and military take-overs in Pakistan. However, Alan Mcgrath (Destruction of Pakistan's democracy) and Ayesha Jalal (State of Martial Rule) provide convincing arguments otherwise. Although traditionally understood to be the the King's representative in the dominion, the position of Governor General under the 1935 Government of India Act (which remained the provisional Constitution of both countries until 1950 in the case of India and 1956 in the case of Pakistan) was very strong. Added to this was Jinnah's aura as national leader, which was unmatched. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League and other Pakistani political parties were completely overshadowed in function and authority. Jinnah is criticised for having dominated every economic, social and political sphere of government in his time. However, historian and philosopher Raza Kazim, a veteran of Congress's Quit India movement, holds that during his tenure as Governor General, given his own illness, Jinnah was largely out of touch with matters of governance. At least after his visit to East Pakistan in early 1948, he largely withdrew, appearing only for select official events such as the launch of the State Bank.

Jinnah is also criticized for his backing of Urdu as the state language of Pakistan, to the exclusion of Bengali in East Pakistan and for that matter the majority Punjabi of West Pakistan as well as Sindhi and Balochi. Ultimately his successors made Bengali the joint state language under the 1956 Constitution.

Descendants

No descendant of Jinnah is either a citizen or a resident of Pakistan. His only child Dina Wadia chose to remain in India after Pakistan's creation and ultimately settled in New York City. Jinnah's grandchild is Nusli Wadia, an Indian born British citizen, who was born a Christian but converted to Zoroastrianism and a prominent industrialist of Mumbai.

The Quaid-e-Azam's great grandson Ness Wadia made headlines with his decision to get engaged to Preity Zinta, the glamorous Bollywood actress.

A secular Jinnah

In his speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, he said:You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place 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.

Personally, he always advocated what today would be described as secular views. In his first speech in Pakistan he expressed an outlook that was to be a secular republic and not an Islamic theocracy, after which his political career came to a sudden halt. Born Agha Khani Ismaili Shiite Muslim, Jinnah was once asked whether he was a shia or a sunni and he said if Prophet Muhammad was a shia, then he (Jinnah) was a shia and if the Prophet was a sunni then he was a sunni, but as the Prophet was neither of the two and was but a Muslim then so is he. He also declared that any Muslim who professed to be a Muslim was a Muslim, responding to demands by some quarters to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims. Pakistan however declared the Ahmaddiya Islamic sect, which had been very close to Jinnah during partition, out of the fold of Islam in 1974, through a constitutional amendment.

The reality of Jinnah might be in the shades of grey , as Ayesha Jalal and some other historians agree that Jinnah neither wanted a partition nor bloodshed. Jinnah was after partition seen as the "protector general of the Hindus" for his role in protecting them. He also appointed a Hindu as the first law minister of Pakistan and the first national anthem of Pakistan was written by a Hindu poet, Jagganath Azad, on Jinnah's behest which was later replaced by the current version written by a Muslim poet Abu-Al-Asar Hafeez Jullandhuri.

Jinnah also has some admirers in modern India. Hindu nationalist leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former Indian Prime Minister, and Lal Krishna Advani have recently commented that Jinnah was a respectable statesman and noble Muslim leader, who must not be blamed for the violence of partition or the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. Some historians and journalists acknowledge Jinnah's work to protect Pakistani Hindus, efforts to maintain a liberal democracy there and his emotional attachment to the city of Mumbai, where he had lived for most of his life.

A new understanding of Jinnah and partition

New works, especially those compiled after the full disclosure of the Transfer of Power Papers and other primary sources, have seriously challenged the conventional theory on partition.

Chief amongst these works is the famous Indian jurist H M Seervai's Partition of India: Legend or Reality which argues that partition was caused by Nehru and Gandhi's refusal to agree to the Cabinet Mission Plan. Seervai argues that Jinnah never wanted partition and till the very end was striving for a United Secular India albeit one with ironclad safeguards for the minorities. This view has found an echo amongst new historians, armed with primary sources and documents released by the British India Office as well Mr Jinnah's own correspondence, who claim to challenge the existing views of both Pakistani and Indian history writing which is seen as myth-making.

Quotes

• "No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.- Jinnah Lahore 1944"

• Stanley Wolpert on Jinnah -- "Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three."

• 1942 -- "I have lived as plain Mr. Jinnah and I hope to die as plain Mr. Jinnah. I am very much averse to any title or honours and I will be more than happy if there was no prefix to my name."

• "We have to hope for the best, but be ready for the worst."

• "Unity Faith and Discipline should be followed in Pakistan"

• The last chief justice of India Lord Patrick Spencer opined "There is no man or woman living who imputes anything against his honour or honesty. He was the most upright person, I know."

• Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the penultimate Secretary of State for India said; "Gandhi died at the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".

• U.S. President Harry S. Truman said; "Quaid-i-Azam was the originator of the dream that became Pakistan, architect of the State and father of the world's largest Muslim Nation. Mr Jinnah was the recipient of a devotion and loyalty seldom accorded to any man".

Jinnah in the eyes of his contemporaries

H V Hodson

H V Hodson wrote in his book:

"One thing is certain, it was not for any venal motive that he changed. Not even his political enemies ever accused Jinnah of corruption or self seeking. He could be bought by no one and for no price. Nor was he in the least degree a weathercock, swinging in the wind of popularity or changing his politics to suit the chances of the time. He was a steadfast idealist, as well as a man of scrupulous honour." (Page 39- The Great Divide)

Dr Ambedkar

It is doubtful if there is a politician in India to whom the adjective incorruptible can be more fittingly applied. Anyone who knows what his relations with the British Government have been, will admit that he has always been their critic, if indeed, he has not been their adversary. No one can buy him. For it must be said to his credit that he has never been a soldier of fortune. The customary Hindu explanation fails to account for the ideological transformation of Mr. Jinnah.. Indeed Mr. Jinnah is the one person who had all the chances of success on his side if he had tried to form such a united non-communal party. He has the ability to organize. He had the reputation of a nationalist. Even many Hindus who were opposed to the Congress would have flocked to him if he had only sent out a call for a united party of like-minded Hindus and Muslims. What did Mr. Jinnah do ? In 1937 Mr. Jinnah made his entry into Muslim politics and strangely enough he regenerated the Muslim League which was dying and decaying and of which only a few years ago he would have been glad to witness the funeral. However regrettable the starting of such a communal political party may have been, there was in it one relieving feature. That was the leadership of Mr. Jinnah. Everybody felt that with the leadership of Mr. Jinnah the League could never become a merely communal party. The resolutions passed by the League during the first two years of its new career indicated that it would develop into a mixed political party of Hindus and Muslims.

(Pakistan or Partition of India)

Nelson Mandela

'Jinnah is a constant source of inspiration for all those who are fighting against racial or group discrimination.' (Nelson Mandela had come to Islamabad in 1995 and had insisted on including Karachi as a destination to visit Jinnah's Grave and his house in Karachi where upon reaching he drove straight to the Quaid's Mazar)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

"Jinnah is incorruptible and brave". (Quoted from Louis Fischer's "Gandhi")

M C Rajah

MC Rajah was a leader of the scheduled castes and made this comment on Christmas Day 1940:

"All religions hold that God sends suitable people into the world to work out his plans from time to time and at critical junctures. I regard Mr Jinnah as the man who has been called upon to correct the wrong ways in which the people of India have been led by the leadership of Mr Gandhi. Congress took a wrong turn when it adopted wholesale the non cooperation programme of Mr Gandhi and assumed an attitude of open hostility towards Britain and tried to infusew the minds of people a spirit of defiance of law and civil disobedience more of less thinly veiled under a formula of truth and non violence. Moreover by Mahatmafying Mr Gandhi it appealed to the idolatorous sperstition of the Hindus, thus converting the religious adherence of the Hindu section of the population to the Mahatma into political support of his non cooperation movement. While this strategy was of some avail in hustling the British Government to yield more and more it divided the people into Hindu and non hind! u sectionsIn these circumstances a man was needed to stand up to congress and tell its leaders that their organization however powerful numerically and financially doesnot represent the whole of India. I admire Mr Jinnah and feel grateful to him because in advocating the cause of the Muslims he is championing the cause of all the classes that are in danger of bein crushed under the steam roller of the caste Hindu majority, acting under the inspiration and orders of Mr Gandhi " (25th December 1940, 9 months After the Pakistan Resolution, Seen here are Scheduled castes of India)

Sarojini Naidu

"a sincerity of purpose and the lasting charm of a character animated by a brave conception of duty and an austere and lovely code of private honour and public integrity.. Tall and stately, but thin to the point of emaciation, languid and luxurious of habit, Mohammad Ali Jinnah's attenuated form is a deceptive sheath of a spirit of exceptional vitality and endurance. Somewhat formal and fastidious, and a little aloof and imperious of manner, the calm hauteur of his accustomed reserve but masks, for those who know him, a naive and eager humanity, an intuition quick and tender as a woman's, a humour gay and winning as a child's. Pre-eminently rational and practical, discreet and dispassionate in his estimate and acceptance of life, the obvious sanity and serenity of his worldly wisdom effectually disguise a shy and splendid idealism which is of the very essence of the man". (Sarojini Naidu, Advocate of Hindu Muslim Unity)

Nehru

"The old Advocate of Unity, Mr. M.A.Jinnah, .. was advanced than his colleagues, and stood head and shoulders above them". (Quoted from his book 'Discovery of India')

Sarat Chandra Bose

Sarat Chandra Bose was the leader of Congress forward bloc - Subhas Chanderbose's brother

"Jinnah" he said on his death on 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 as of all as a man of action. By Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide."

Christoper Lee

Christoper Lee, one of the most famous actors of all time, talks about Jinnah and the movie in which he portrays him.

In Real Player Format :

See Also : Jinnah (film)

Trivia

• One of the largest streets of Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is named Cinnah Caddesi after him.
• One of Tehran's most important new highways is also named after him.
• Jinnah's famous portrait appears on the Pakistani rupee denominations of 10 and above.
• Jinnah was portrayed by the British actors Christopher Lee (elder Jinnah) and Richard Lintern younger Jinnah in the 1998 film of the same name.
• In Attenborough's Gandhi , Jinnah was portrayed by the advertisement-baron Alyque Padamsee.
• In telefilm "Lord Mountbatten: the Last Viceroy", Jinnah was played by Vladek Sheybal.
• First governor general of Asian birth in the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth.

References

1. Secular and Nationalist Jinnah by Dr Ajeet Javed JNU Press Delhi
2. Jinnah: A Corrective Reading of Indian History by Dr Asiananda
3. Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin by Akbar S. Ahmed (1997)
4. Jinnah of Pakistan by Stanley Wolpert Oxford University Press (2002)
5. by Patrick French, Harper Collins, 1997

Ali Jinnah محمد علی جناح Muhammad Ali Jinnah Mohammed Ali Jinnah ムハンマド・アリー・ジンナー Muhammad Ali Jinnah محمد علی جناح 穆罕默德·阿里·真纳