Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Urdu: محمد علی جناح
Audio (help·info), born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a lawyer, politician and statesman, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah is revered in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم "Great Leader") and Baba-i-Qaum (بابائے قوم "Father of the Nation") and his birthday is a national holiday there. Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on 14 August 1947, and as Pakistan's first Governor-General from independence until his death on 11 September 1948.Born in Karachi and educated as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London, Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress (Congress) in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu-Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between Congress and the Muslim League. Jinnah also became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims should a united British India become independent.
By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that Indian Muslims should have their own state, and his party Muslim League gained strength as Congress refused to cooperate with the British. Muslim League. In 1940, the League passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation for Muslims. In the elections held shortly after the war, the League won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, Congress and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula for a united India, leading both organizations, and the British, to agree to separate independence for a predominately Hindu India, and a Muslim state, to be called Pakistan.
As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah worked to establish the new nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of Muslim refugees who had emigrated from India. He personally supervised the establishment of refugee camps for those who had fled the new nation of India after the separation. Jinnah died at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the British Raj. He left a deep and respected legacy in Pakistan, though he is less well thought of in India. According to his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, he remains Pakistan's greatest leader.
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Early years
Background
Jinnah was born, most likely in 1876,[a] Mahomedali Jinnahbhai (Gujarati: મુહમ્મદ અલી જિન્ના), to Jinnahbhai Poonja and his wife Mithibai, in the Gujarati-speaking Jinnah family in Wazir Mansion, Karachi,[1] part of Sindh, a region today part of Pakistan, but then within the Bombay Presidency of British India. His father was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had been born to a family of weavers in the village of Paneli in the princely state of Gondal, and who had moved to Karachi about 1875; he had married Mithibai a young woman of Paneli, before his departure. Karachi was then enjoying an economic boom; the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 meant it was 200 nautical miles closer to Europe for shipping than Bombay.[2][3]Jinnah's family was of the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam,[4] though Jinnah later followed the Twelver Shi'a teachings.[5] Jinnah was the second child;[6][7][8] he had three brothers and three sisters, including his sister Fatima Jinnah; the children came to speak Gujarati, Kutchi, Sindhi and English.[9] Except for Fatima, little is known of his siblings, where they settled or if they met with their brother as he advanced in his legal or political careers.[10]
As a boy, Jinnah lived for a time in Bombay with an aunt and may have attended the Gokal Das Tej Primary School there, or possibly a madrasa, later on moving to the Cathedral and John Connon School. In Karachi, he attended the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam and the Christian Missionary Society High School.[11][12] He obtained his matriculation from Bombay University. In his later years and especially after his death, a large number of stories about the boyhood of Pakistan's founder were circulated: that he spent all his spare time at the police court, listening to the proceedings, and that he studied his books by the glow of street lights for lack of other illumination. A biographer, Hector Bolitho, writing in 1954, had interviewed surviving boyhood associates, and obtained a tale that the young Jinnah discouraged other children from playing marbles in the dust, urging them to rise up, keep their hands and clothes clean, and play cricket instead.[13]
In England
Soon after his arrival in London, Jinnah gave up the apprenticeship to study law, enraging his father, who had given him enough money to live for three years. The aspiring barrister joined Lincoln's Inn, later stating that the reason he chose Lincoln's over other Inns of Court was that over the main entrance to Lincoln's Inn were the names of the world's great lawgivers, including Muhammad. Jinnah's biographer Stanley Wolpert notes that there is no such inscription, but instead inside is a mural showing Muhammad and other lawgivers, and speculates that Jinnah may have edited the story in his own mind to avoid mentioning a pictorial depiction which would be offensive to many Muslims.[15] Jinnah's legal education at the Inns of Court followed the apprenticeship system, which had been in force there for centuries. To gain knowledge of the law, he followed an established barrister and learned from what he did, as well as reading lawbooks.[16] During this period, he shortened his name to Muhammad Ali Jinnah.[17]
During his student years in England, Jinnah was influenced by 19th-century British liberalism, like many other future Indian independence leaders. This education included exposure to the idea of the democratic nation and progressive politics.[18] He became an admirer of the Parsi Indian political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. Naoroji had become the first Member of Parliament of Indian extraction shortly before Jinnah's arrival, triumphing with a voting majority of three in Finsbury Central. Jinnah listened to his maiden speech in the House of Commons from the visitor's gallery.[19][20]
The Western world not only inspired Jinnah in his political life, but also greatly influenced his personal preferences, particularly when it came to dress. Jinnah abandoned Indian garb for Western style clothing, and throughout his life he was always impeccably dressed in public. He came to own over 200 suits, which he wore with heavily-starched shirts with detachable collars, and as a barrister took pride in never wearing the same silk tie twice.[21] Even when he was dying, he insisted on being formally dressed, "I will not travel in my pyjamas."[10] In his later years he was usually seen wearing a Karakul hat which subsequently came to be known as the "Jinnah cap".[22]
Dissatisfied with the law, Jinnah briefly embarked on a stage career with a Shakespearean company, but resigned after receiving a stern letter from his father.[23] In 1895, at age 19, he became the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England.[8] Although he returned to Karachi, he remained there only a short time before moving to Bombay.[23]
Legal and early political career
Barrister
Aged twenty, Jinnah began his practice in Bombay; he was then the only Muslim barrister in the city.[8] English had become his principal language and would remain so throughout his life. His first three years in the law, from 1897 to 1900, brought him few briefs. His first step towards a brighter career occurred when the acting Advocate General of Bombay, John Molesworth MacPherson, invited Jinnah to work from his chambers.[24][25] In 1900, P.H. Dastoor, Bombay's presidency magistrate, left the post temporarily; Jinnah succeeded in getting the interim position. After his six month appointment period, Jinnah was offered the position on a 1,500 rupee per month salary. Jinnah politely declined the offer, who stated that he planned to earn 1,500 rupees a day – a huge sum at that time – which he eventually did.[24][25][26] Later, as the Governor-General of Pakistan, he refused to accept a high salary from the new state and fixed his salary as 1 rupee a month.[27]As a lawyer, he gained fame for his skilled handling of the 1907 "Caucus Case". This controversy arose out of Bombay municipal elections, which Indians alleged were rigged by a "caucus" of Europeans to keep Sir Pherozeshah Mehta out of the council. Jinnah gained great esteem from leading the case for Sir Pherozeshah, himself a noted barrister. Although Jinnah did not win the Caucus Case, he posted an extremely successful record, noted for his advocacy and legal logic.[28][29] In 1908, his factional foe in the Indian National Congress (Congress), Bal Gangadhar Tilak was arrested for sedition. Before Tilak unsuccessfully represented himself at trial, he engaged Jinnah in an attempt to secure his release on bail. Jinnah did not succeed, but obtained an acquittal for Tilak when he was charged with sedition again in 1916.[30]
One of Jinnah's fellow barristers from the Bombay High Court remembered that "Jinnah's faith in himself was incredible"; he recalled that once Jinnah, on being admonished by a judge with "Mr. Jinnah, remember that you are not addressing a third-class magistrate" shot back "My Lord, allow me to warn you that you are not addressing a third-class pleader."[31] Another of his fellow barristers described him:
Rising leader
Main article: Indian independence movement
Jinnah began political life by attending Congress's twentieth annual meeting, in Bombay in December 1904.[36] Jinnah was a member of the moderate group in the Congress, favoring Hindu-Muslim unity in achieving self-government, and following such leaders as Mehta, Naoroji, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale.[37]. They were opposed by leaders such as Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, who sought quick action towards achieving Indian independence.[38] In 1906, a delegation of Muslim leaders headed by Aga Khan called on the new Viceroy of India, Lord Minto to assure him of their loyalty and to ask for assurances that in any political reforms they would be protected from the "unsympathetic [Hindu] majority".[39] Jinnah's response was to write a letter to the editor of the newspaper Gujarati, asking what right the members of the delegation had to speak for Indian Muslims, as they were unelected and self-appointed.[37] When many of the same leaders met in Dacca in December of that year to form the All-India Muslim League ("Muslim League", or "League") to advocate for communal interests, Jinnah was again opposed; Aga Khan later wrote that it was "freakishly ironic" that Jinnah, who would lead the League to independence, "came out in bitter hostility toward all that I and my friends had done ... He said that our principle of separate electorates was dividing the nation against itself."[40] In its earliest years, however, the League was not influential; Minto refused to consider it as the Muslim community's representative, and it was ineffective in preventing the 1911 repeal of the partition of Bengal, seen as a blow to Muslim interests.[41]
Although Jinnah initially opposed separate electorates for Muslims, he benefited from one in gaining his first elective office, as Bombay's Muslim representative on the Imperial Legislative Council. At the time aged 35, he was a compromise candidate when two older, better-known Muslims who were seeking the post deadlocked. The council, which had been expanded to 60 members as part of Minto's reforms, recommended legislation to the Viceroy. Only officials could vote in the council; non-official members, such as Jinnah, had no vote. Throughout his legal career, Jinnah practiced probate law (with many clients from India's nobility), and in 1911 introduced the Wakf Validation Act to place Muslim religious trusts on a sound legal footing under British Indian law. Two years later, the measure passed, the first act sponsored by non-officials to pass the council and be enacted by the Viceroy.[42][43] Jinnah was also instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped to establish the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun.[6][44]
In December 1912, he addressed the annual meeting of the Muslim League, although he was not yet a member. This followed the following year, although he remained a Congress member and stressed in joining that joining it took second priority to the "greater national cause" of a free India. In April 1913, he again went to Britain, with Ghokle, to meet with officials on behalf of Congress. Gokhale, a Hindu, later stated that Jinnah "has true stuff in him, and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity".[45] Jinnah led another Congress delegation to London in 1914, but due to the start of World War I found officials little interested in Indian reforms. By coincidence, he was in Britain at the same time as a man who would become a great political rival of his, Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu lawyer who had gained considerable attention for advocating satyagraha, non-violent non-cooperation, while in South Africa. Jinnah attended a reception for Gandhi, and returned home to India in January 1915.[46]
Break from Congress
Jinnah's moderate faction in Congress was undermined by the Mehta's death in 1915; he was further isolated by the fact that Naoroji was in London, where he remained until his death in 1917. Nevertheless, Jinnah worked to bring Congress and League together. In 1916, with Jinnah now president of the Muslim League, the two organizations signed the Lucknow Pact, setting quotas for Muslim and Hindu representation in the various provinces. Although the pact was never fully implemented, its signing ushered in a period of cooperation between Congress and League.[47][35]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 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, although, with the war, Britain's politicians were not interested in considering Indian constitutional reform. British Cabinet minister Edwin Montagu recalled Jinnah in his memoirs, "young, perfectly mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with dialectics, and insistent on the whole of his scheme".[48]
In 1918, Jinnah married his second wife Rattanbai Petit ("Ruttie"), 24 years his junior.[18] She was the fashionable young daughter of his friend Sir Dinshaw Petit, of an elite Parsi family of Bombay.[18] There was great opposition to the marriage from Rattanbai's family, and the Parsi community, 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 Bombay, and frequently travelled across India and Europe. The couple's only child, daughter Dina Jinnah, was born on 15 August 1919.[18][49] The Jinnahs separated prior to Ruttie's death in 1929. Later on Jinnah's sister Fatima looked after him and his child.[50]
Relations between Indians and British were strained in 1919 when the council extended emergency wartime restrictions on civil liberties; Jinnah resigned over the action. There was unrest across India, which worsened after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, in which British troops fired upon a protest meeting, killing hundreds. In the wake of Amritsar, Gandhi, who had returned to India and become a widely-respected leader and highly influential in Congress, advocated satyagraha against the British. Gandhi's proposal was also attractive to many Muslims of the Khilafat faction. They sought retention of the Uthman caliphate (which supplied spiritual leadership to many Muslims) in the wake of World War I, a cause which Gandhi supported. Gandhi had achieved considerable popularity among Muslims because of his work during the war on behalf of killed or imprisoned Muslims.[51][52][53] Unlike most Congress leaders, Gandhi did not wear western-style clothing, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply rooted in Indian culture. Gandhi's local style of leadership gained great popularity with the Indian people. Jinnah criticized Gandhi's Khilafat advocacy, which he saw as an endorsement of religious zealotry.[54] Jinnah regarded Gandhi's campaign as political anarchy, and that self-government should be secured through constitutional means. He opposed Gandhi, but the tide of Indian opinion was against Jinnah. At the 1920 Congress session in Nagpur, Jinnah was shouted down by the delegates, who passed Gandhi's proposal, pledging satyagraha until India was free. Jinnah did not attend the League meeting, held in the same city, which passed a similar resolution, and resigned from the Congress and from all positions except in the Muslim League.[55][56]
Fourteen Points
Main article: Fourteen Points of Jinnah
In 1927, the British Government, under Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, undertook a decennial review of Indian policy mandated by the Government of India Act 1919. The review began two years early as Baldwin feared he would lose the next election (which he did, in 1929). The British Government was influenced by Cabinet minister Winston Churchill, who strongly opposed self-government for India; the Government hoped that by having the commission appointed early, the policies for India which they favoured would continue. The resulting commission, led by Liberal MP John Simon, though with a majority of Conservatives, arrived in India in March 1928,[58] to be met with a boycott by India's leaders, Muslim and Hindu alike, angered at the British refusal to include their representatives on the commission. A minority of Muslims withdrew from the League, choosing to welcome the Simon Commission and repudiating Jinnah; however, most members of the League's executive council attended the League meeting in December 1927 and January 1928 which confirmed Jinnah as the League's permanent president. At that session, Jinnah told the delegates that "A constitutional war has been declared on Great Britain. Negotiations for a settlement are not to come from our side ...By appointing an exclusively white Commission, [Secretary of State for India] Lord Birkenhead has declared our unfitness for self-government."[59]
After Baldwin was defeated at the 1929 British parliamentary election, Ramsey MacDonald of the Labour Party became prime minister. MacDonald desired a conference of Indian and British leaders in London to discuss India's future, a course of action supported by Jinnah. Three Round Table Conferences followed over the next three years, none of which resulted in a settlement among the parties. Jinnah was a delegate to the first two conferences, but was not invited to the last.[61] He remained in Britain for most of the period 1930 through 1934, practicing as a barrister before the Privy Council. His biographers disagree over why he remained so long in Britain—Wolpert asserts that had Jinnah been made a Law Lord, he would have stayed for life, and that Jinnah sought a parliamentary seat as well.[62] Early biographer Hector Bolitho denied that Jinnah sought to enter the British Parliament,[63] while Jahwent Singh deems Jinnah's time in Britain as a break or sabbatical from the Indian struggle.[64] Bolitho called this period "Jinnah's years of order and contemplation, wedged in between the time of early struggle, and the final storm of conquest".[65]
In 1931, Fatima Jinnah joined her brother in England. From then on, Muhammad Jinnah would receive personal care and support from her as he aged and began to suffer from the lung ailments which would kill him. She lived and travelled with him, and became a close advisor. Muhammed Jinnah's daughter, Dina, was educated in England and India. Jinnah later became estranged from his daughter, Dina Jinnah, after she decided to marry Christian businessman, Neville Wadia, and when he urged her to marry a Muslim, she reminded him that he had married a woman not raised in his faith. Jinnah continued to correspond cordially with his daughter, but their personal relationship was strained, and she did not come to Pakistan in his lifetime, but only for his funeral.[66][67]
Return to politics
Beginning in 1933, Indian Muslims, especially from the United Provinces, began to urge Jinnah to return to India and take up again his leadership of the Muslim League, an organization which had fallen into inactivity.[68] He remained president of the League,[b] but declined to travel to India to preside over its 1933 session in April, writing that he could not possibly return there until the end of the year.[69] Among those who met with Jinnah to urge him to return and reinvigorate the League was Liaquat Ali Khan, who would be a major political associate of Jinnah in the years to come and the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. At Jinnah's request, Liaquat discussed the return with a large number of Muslim politicians and reconfirmed his recommendation to Jinnah.[70][71] In early 1934, Jinnah relocated to the subcontinent, though he shuttled between London and India on business for the next few years, selling his house in Hampstead and closing his legal practice in Britain.[72][73]Muslims of Bombay elected Jinnah, though then absent in London, as their representative for the Central Legislative Assembly in October 1934.[74][75] The British Parliament's Government of India Act 1935 gave considerable power to India's provinces, with a weak central parliament in New Delhi, with no power over such matters as foreign policy, defence, and much of the budget. Full power remained in the hands of the Viceroy, however, who could dissolve legislatures and rule by decree. The League reluctantly accepted the scheme, though expressing reservations about the centre. Congress was much better prepared for the provincial elections in 1937, and the League failed to win a majority even of the Muslim seats in any of the provinces where members of that faith held a majority. It did win a majority of the Muslim seats in Delhi, but formed only part of the government in Bengal. Congress and its allies formed the government even in the North-West Frontier Province, where the League won no seats despite the fact that almost all residents were Muslim.[76]
According to Singh, "the events of 1937 had a tremendous, almost a traumatic effect upon Jinnah".[77] Despite his beliefs of twenty years that Muslims could protect their rights in a united India through separate electorates, provincial boundaries drawn to preserve Muslim majorities, and by other protections of minority rights, Muslim voters had failed to unite, with the issues Jinnah hoped to bring forward lost amid factional fighting.[77][78] Singh notes the effect of the 1937 elections on Muslim political opinion, "when the Congress formed a government with almost all of the Muslim MLAs sitting on the Opposition benches, non-Congress Muslims were suddenly faced with this stark reality of near total political powerlessness. It was brought home to them, like a bolt of lightning, that even if the Congress did not win a single Muslim seat ... as long as it won an absolute majority in the House, on the strength of the general (Hindu) seats, it could and would form a government entirely on its own ..."[79]
In the next two years, Jinnah worked to build support among Muslims for the League. He was able to secure the right to speak for the Muslim-led Bengal and Punjabi provincial governments at the centre. He worked to expand the league, reducing the cost of membership to two annas (⅛ of a rupee), half of what it cost to join Congress. He restructured the League along the lines of Congress, putting most power in a Working Committee, which he appointed.[80] By December 1939, Liaquat estimated that the League had three million two-anna members.[81]
World War II; Lahore Resolution
Main article: Pakistan Movement
Despite the expectation of a unitary state, other nationalist proposals were being made. In a speech given at Allahabad to a League session in 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal called for a state for Muslims in India. Choudhary Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in 1933 advocating a state for Muslims called in the Indus Valley called "Pakistan", with other names given to proposed Muslim-majority states elsewhere of India.[85] Jinnah and Iqbal corresponded in 1936 and 1937; in subsequent years Jinnah credited Iqbal as his mentor, and used Iqbal's imagery and rhetoric in his speeches.[86] Jinnah also increasingly adopted Muslim dress.[87]
On 3 September 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced the commencement of war with Nazi Germany;[88] the following day, the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, without consulting with Indian politicians, announced that India had entered the war with Britain. There were widespread protests in India. After consulting with Jinnah and with Gandhi, Linlithgow announced that negotiations on self-government were suspended for the duration of the war.[89] Congress on 14 September demanded immediate independence with a constituent assembly to decide a constitution; when this was refused, its eight provincial governments resigned on 10 November and their governors thereafter ruled by decree for the remainder of the war. Jinnah, on the other hand, was more willing to accommodate the British, and they in turn increasingly recognized him and the League as the representatives of India's Muslims.[90] Jinnah later stated, "after the war began, ... I was treated on the same basis as Mr. Gandhi. I was wonderstruck why I was promoted and given a place side by side with Mr. Gandhi."[91] Although the League did not actively support the British war effort, neither did they try to obstruct it.[92]
With the British and Muslims to some extent co-operating, the Viceroy asked Jinnah for an expression of the Muslim League's position on self-government, confident that it would differ greatly from that of Congress. To come up with such a position, the League's Working Committee met for four days in February 1940 to set out terms of reference to a constitutional sub-committee. The Working Committee asked that the sub-committee return with a proposal that would result in "Independent dominions in direct relationship with Great Britain" where Muslims were dominant.[93] On 6 February, Jinnah informed the Viceroy that the Muslim League would be demanding partition instead of the federation contemplated in the 1935 Act. The resulting Lahore Resolution (sometimes called the "Pakistan Resolution", although it does not contain that name) embraced the Two-Nation Theory and called for a union of the Muslim-majority provinces in the northwest of British India, with complete autonomy, similar rights to be granted the Muslim-majority areas in the east, and unspecified protections for Muslim minorities in other provinces. The resolution was passed by the League session in Lahore on 23 March 1940.[94][95]
Gandhi's reaction to the Lahore Resolution was muted; he called it "baffling", but told his disciples that Muslims, in common with other people of India, had the right to self-determination. Congress leaders were more vocal; Jawaharlal Nehru (son of Motilal) referred to Lahore as "Jinnah's fantastic proposals" while Chakravarti Rajagopalachari deemed Jinnah's views on partition "a sign of a diseased mentality".[96] Linlithgow met with Jinnah in June 1940,[97] soon after Winston Churchill became the new British prime minister, and in August offered both Congress and the League a deal whereby in exchange for full support for the war, the British would allow Indian representation on the Viceroy's major war councils and the rulers promised a representative body after the war to determine India's future. No future settlement would be imposed over the objections of a large part of the population. This was satisfactory to neither Congress nor League, though Jinnah was pleased that the British had moved towards recognising Jinnah as the representative of the Muslim community's interests.[98] Jinnah was reluctant to make specific proposals, fearing that any precise plan would divide the League.[99]
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 brought the United States into the war. In the following months, the Japanese advanced in southeast Asia, and the British Cabinet sent a mission led by Sir Stafford Cripps to try to conciliate the Indians and cause them to fully back the war. Cripps proposed giving some provinces the "local option" to remain outside of an Indian central government either for a period of time or permanently, to become dominions on their own or as part of another confederation. The Muslim League was far from certain of winning the legislative votes that would be required for mixed provinces such as Bengal and Punjab to secede, and Jinnah rejected the proposals as not sufficiently recognising Pakistan's right to exist. Congress also rejected the Cripps plan, demanding immediate concessions which Cripps was not prepared to give.[100][101] Despite the rejection, Jinnah and the League saw the Cripps proposal as recognising Pakistan in principle.[102]
Congress followed the failure of the Cripps mission by demanding, in August 1942, that the British immediately "Quit India", with a mass campaign of satyagraha until they did. The British quickly arrested most major Congress leaders, to be imprisoned for the remainder of the war. Gandhi, however, was placed on house arrest in one of the Aga Khan's palaces prior to his release for health reasons in 1944. With the Congress leaders absent from the political scene, Jinnah warned against the threat of Hindu domination and maintained his Pakistan demand, without going into great detail about what that would entail. Jinnah also worked to increase the League's political control at the provincial level—the Punjabi and Bengali Muslim parties foresaw that the advent of Pakistan would mean the division of their provinces.[103][104]
In September 1944, Jinnah and Gandhi, who had by then been released from his palatial prison, met at the Muslim leader's home on Malabar Hill in Bombay. Two weeks of talks followed, which resulted in no agreement. Jinnah insisted on Pakistan being conceded prior to the British departure, and to come into being immediately on their departure, while Gandhi proposed that plebiscites on partition occur sometime after a united India gained its independence.[105] In early 1945, Liaquat and Congress leader Bhulabhai Desai met with Jinnah's approval and agreed that after the war, Congress and League should form an interim government and that the members of the Executive Council of the Viceroy should be nominated by Congress and League in equal numbers. When the Congress leadership was released from prison in June 1945, they repudiated the agreement and censured Desai for acting without proper authority.[106]
Postwar
The British people returned Clement Attlee and his Labour Party later in July. Attlee and his Secretary of State for India, Lord Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, immediately called for a review of the Indian situation.[108] Jinnah had no comment on the change of government, but called a meeting of his Working Committee and issued a statement calling for new elections in India. The League held influence at the provincial level in the Muslim-majority states mostly by alliance, and Jinnah believed that, given the opportunity, the League would improve its electoral standing and lend added support to his claim to be the sole spokesman for the Muslims. Wavell returned to India in September after consultation with his new masters in London; elections, both for the centre and for the provinces, were announced soon after. The British announced that formation of a constitution-making body would follow the votes.[109]
The Muslim League declared that they would fight the elections on a single issue: Pakistan.[110] Campaigning in Ahmedabad, Jinnah echoed this, "Pakistan is a matter of life or death for us."[111] In the December 1945 elections for the Constituent Assembly of India, the League won every seat reserved for Muslims. In the provincial elections in January 1946, the League took 75% of the Muslim vote, an increase from 4.4% in 1937.[112] According to his biographer Bolitho, "This was Jinnah's glorious hour: his arduous political campaigns, his robust beliefs and claims, were at last justified."[113] Wolpert wrote that the League election showing "appeared to prove the universal appeal of Pakistan among Muslims of the subcontinent".[114] Congress dominated the central assembly nevertheless, though it lost four seats from its previous strength.[114]
In February 1946, the British Cabinet resolved to send a mission to India to negotiate with leaders there. The group, which included Cabinet ministers Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence, was the highest-level delegation to try to break the deadlock, and arrived in New Delhi in late March. Little negotiation had been done since the previous October because of the elections.[115] The British in May released a plan for a united Indian state comprising considerably autonomous provinces, and called for "groups" of provinces formed on the basis of religion. Matters such as defence, external relations and communications would be handled by a central authority. Provinces would have the option of leaving the union entirely, and there would be an interim government with representation from Congress and the League. Jinnah and his Working Committee accepted this plan in June, but the plan fell apart over the question of how many members of the interim government, Congress and the League would have, and over Congress's desire to include a nationalist Muslim in its representation. Before leaving India, the British ministers stated that they intended to inaugurate an interim government even if one of the major groupings was unwilling to participate.[116]
Congress soon joined the interim ministry, but the League was slower, not agreeing until October 1946, and coming in without the demands which Jinnah had tried to gain, such as parity with Congress or a veto on matters concerning Muslims. The new government met amid a backdrop of severe communal rioting, especially in Calcutta.[117] There was also bitterness in the government; Congress wanted the Viceroy to immediately summon the constituent assembly and begin the work of writing a constitution, and that the League ministers should either join in the request or resign from the government. Wavell attempted to save the situation by flying Congress and League leaders, including Jinnah, Liaquat, and Jawaharlal Nehru, to London in December 1946. At the end of the talks, participants issued a statement that the constitution would not be forced on any unwilling parts of India. Congress endorsed the statement over angry dissent from some elements, but the League was not willing to do so, and remained outside the constituent assembly.[118] Although Jinnah had been willing to consider continued links to Hindustan (as the Hindu-majority state which would be formed on partition was sometimes referred to) under the Cabinet Mission plan, by December, he insisted on a sovereign Pakistan with dominion status.[119] On the way back from London, Jinnah and Liaquat stopped in Cairo for several days of pan-Islamic meetings.[120]
Following the failure of the London trip, Jinnah was in no hurry to reach an agreement, figuring that time would allow him to gain the undivided provinces of Bengal and Punjab for Pakistan, but these wealthy, populous provinces had sizable non-Muslim minorities, complicating a settlement.[121] The Attlee ministry desired a rapid British departure from India, but had little confidence in Wavell to achieve that end. Beginning in December 1946, British officials began looking or a viceregal successor to Wavell, and soon fixed on Admiral Lord Mountbatten of Burma, a war leader popular among Conservatives as the great-grandson of Queen Victoria and among Labour for his political views.[120]
Mountbatten and partition
On 20 February 1947, Attlee announced Mountbatten's appointment, and that Britain would transfer power in India not later than June 1948.[122] Mountbatten took office as Viceroy on 24 March 1947, two days after his arrival in India.[123] By then, Congress had come around to the idea of partition; Nehru stated in 1960, "the truth is that we were tired men and we were getting on in years ... The plan for partition offered a way out and we took it."[124] Congress leaders decided that having loosely-tied Muslim-majority provinces as part of a future India was not worth the loss of the powerful government at the centre which they desired.[125] However, Congress insisted that if Pakistan were to become independent, Bengal and Punjab would have to be divided.[126]
Jinnah feared that at the end of the British presence in India, they would turn control over to the Congress-dominated constituent assembly, putting Muslims at a disadvantage in attempting to win autonomy. He demanded that Mountbatten divide the army prior to independence, which would take at least a year. Mountbatten had hoped that the post-independence arrangements would include a common defence force, but Jinnah saw it as essential that a sovereign state should have its own forces. Mountbatten met with Liaquat the day of his final session with Jinnah, and concluded, as he told Attlee and the Cabinet in May, that "it had become clear that the Muslim League would resort to arms if Pakistan in some form were not conceded."[130][131] The Viceroy was also influenced by negative Muslim reaction to the constitutional report of the assembly, which envisioned broad powers for the post-independence central government.[132]
On 2 June, the final plan was given by the Viceroy to Indian leaders; the following day, Mountbatten, Nehru, Jinnah and Sikh leader Baldev Singh made the formal announcement by radio.[133][134] Jinnah concluded his address with "Pakistan zindabad" (Long live Pakistan), which was not in the script.[135] On 15 August, the British would turn over power to two dominions. The provinces would vote on whether to continue in the existing constituent assembly, or to have a new one, that is, to form Pakistan. Bengal and Punjab would also vote, both on the question of which assembly to join, and on partition. A boundary commission would determine the final lines in the partitioned provinces. Plebiscites would take place in the North-West Frontier Province (which did not have a League government despite an overwhelmingly Muslim population), and in the majority-Muslim Sylhet district of Assam, adjacent to eastern Bengal. In the weeks which followed Punjab and Bengal cast the votes which resulted in partition. Sylhet and the N.W.F.P. voted to cast their lots with Pakistan, a decision joined by the assemblies in Sind and Baluchistan.[136]
On 4 July 1947, Liaquat asked Mountbatten on Jinnah's behalf to recommend to the British king, George VI, that Jinnah be appointed Pakistan's first governor-general. This request angered Mountbatten, who had hoped to have that position in both dominions—he would be India's first post-independence governor-general—but Jinnah felt that Mountbatten would be likely to favor the new Hindu-majority state because of his closeness to Nehru. In addition, the governor-general would initially be a powerful figure, and Jinnah did not trust anyone else to take that office. Although the Boundary Commission, led by British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe, had not yet reported, there were already massive movements of populations between between the nations-to-be, as well as sectarian violence. Jinnah arranged to sell his house in Bombay and procured a new one in Karachi. On 7 August, Jinnah, with his sister and close staff, flew from Delhi to Karachi in Mountbatten's plane, and as the plane taxied, was heard to murmur, "That's the end of that."[137][138][139]. On 11 August, he presided over the new constituent assembly for Pakistan at Karachi, and told them, "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."[140] On 14 August, Pakistan became independent; Jinnah led independence celebrations in Karachi. One observer wrote, "here indeed is Pakistan's King Emperor, Archbishop of Canterbury, Speaker and Prime Minister concentrated into one formidable Quaid-e-Azam."[141]
Governor-General
The Radcliffe Commission, dividing Bengal and Punjab, completed its work and reported to Mountbatten on 12 August; the last Viceroy held the maps until the 17th, disliking to spoil the independence celebrations in both nations. There had already been ethnically-charged violence and movement of populations; publication of the Radcliffe Line of division sparked mass migration, murder, and ethnic cleansing. Many on the "wrong side" of the lines fled or were murdered, or murdered others, hoping to make facts on the ground which would reverse the commission's verdict. Radcliffe wrote in his report that he knew that neither side would be happy with his award; he declined his fee for the work.[142] Christopher Beaumont, Radcliffe's private secretary, later wrote that Mountbatten "must take the blame—though not the sole blame—for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men, women and children perished".[143] As many as 14,500,000 people relocated between India and Pakistan during and after partition.[143] Jinnah did what he could for the eight million people who migrated to Pakistan; although by now 72 and frail from his lung ailments, he traveled across West Pakistan and personally supervised the provision of aid.[144] According to Ahmed, "What Pakistan needed desperately in those early months was a symbol of the state, one that would unify people and give them the courage and resolve to succeed."[145]Along with Liaquat and Abdur Rab Nishtar, Jinnah represented the League in the Division Council to appropriately divide public assets between India and Pakistan.[146] Pakistan was supposed to receive one-sixth of the pre-independence government's assets, carefully divided by agreement, even specifying how many sheets of paper each side would receive. The new Indian state, however, was slow to deliver, hoping for the collapse of the nascent Pakistani government, and reunion. Few of the members of the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Police Service had chosen Pakistan, resulting in staff shortages. Much of the market for Pakistan's commodities would now be off limits to it, and there were shortages of machinery, not all of which could be made there. In addition to the massive refugee problem, the new government sought to save abandoned crops, to establish security in a chaotic situation, and to provide basic services. According to economist Yasmeen Niaz Mohiuddin in her study of Pakistan, "although Pakistan was born in bloodshed and turmoil, it survived in the initial and difficult months after partition only because of the tremendous sacrifices made by its people and the selfless efforts of its great leader."[147]
The Indian Princely States, of which there were several hundred, were advised by the departing British to choose whether to join Pakistan or India. Most did so prior to independence, but the holdouts contributed to what have become lasting divisions between the two nations.[148] Indian leaders were angered at Jinnah's courting the princes of Jodhpur, Bhopal and Indore to accede to Pakistan – these princely states did not border Pakistan, and each had a Hindu-majority population.[149] The coastal princely state of Junagadh, which did not border Pakistan and which had a majority-Hindu population, did accede to Pakistan in September 1947, with its ruler's nawab, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, personally delivering the accession papers to Jinnah. India occupied the principality in November, and the Bhuttos settled in Pakistan, beginning the powerful political Bhutto family.[150]
The most conentious of the disputes was, and continues to be, that over the princely state of Kashmir. It had a Muslim-majority population and a Sikh maharaja, Sir Hari Singh, who stalled his decision on which nation to join. With the population in revolt in October 1947, aided by Pakistani irregulars, the maharaja acceded to India; Indian troops were airlifted in. Jinnah objected to this action, and ordered that Pakistani troops move into Kashmir. The army was still commanded by British officers, and the commanding officer, General Sir Douglas Gracey, refused the order, stating that he would not move into what he considered the territory of another nation without approval from higher authority, which was not forthcoming. Jinnah withdrew the order. This did not stop the violence there, which has broken into war between India and Pakistan from time to time since.[148][151]
Some historians allege that Jinnah's courting the rulers of Hindu-majority states and his gambit with Junagadh is evidence of ill-intent towards India, as Jinnah had promoted separation by religion, yet tried to gain the accession of Hindu-majority states.[152] In his book Patel: A Life, Rajmohan Gandhi asserts that Jinnah hoped for a plebiscite in Junagadh, knowing Pakistan would lose, in the hope the principle would be established for Kashmir.[153] Despite a United Nations resolution for a plebiscite in Kashmir, this has never occurred.[151]
Gandhi, by threatening a fast until death, caused the Indian government in January 1948 to pay its Pakistani counterpart its share of British India's assets according to the partition agreement. This occurred only days before Gandhi's assassination by a Hindu who believed that Gandhi was pro-Muslim. Jinnah made a brief statement of condolence, calling Gandhi "one of the greatest men produced by the Hindu community". [154]
In March, Jinnah, despite his declining health, made his only post-independence visit to East Pakistan. In a speech before a crowd estimated at 300,000 Jinnah stated (in English) that Urdu alone should be the national language, believing a single language was needed for a nation to remain united. This policy would be strongly opposed by the Bengali-speaking people of East Pakistan, and in 1971 be a factor in their breaking away from Pakistan to form Bangladesh.[155]
Illness and death
In June 1948, he and Fatima flew to Quetta, in the mountains of Baluchistan, where the weather was cooler than in Karachi. He was not able to completely rest there, addressing the officers at the Command and Staff College there, "you, along with the other Forces of Pakistan, are the custodians of the life, property and honour of the people of Pakistan."[161] He returned to Karachi for the 1 July opening ceremony for the State Bank of Pakistan, at which he spoke; a reception by the Canadian trade commissioner that evening in honour of Dominion Day was the last public event he ever attended.[162]
On 6 July 1948, Jinnah returned to Quetta, but at the advice of doctors soon journeyed to an even higher retreat at Ziarat. Jinnah had always been reluctant to undergo medical treatment, but realising his condition, the Pakistani government sent the best doctors it could find to treat him. Tests confirmed tuberculosis, and showed evidence of lung cancer. Jinnah was informed, and asked for full information on his disease and for care in how his sister was told. He was treated with the new "miracle drug" of streptomycin, but it did not help. Jinnah's condition continued to deteriorate despite the Eid prayers of his people. He was moved to the lower attitude of Quetta on 13 August, the eve of Independence Day , for which a statement ghost-written for him was released. Despite an increase in appetite (he then weighed just over 36 kilograms (79 lb)), it was clear to his doctors that if he was to return to Karachi, he would have to do so very soon. Jinnah, however, was reluctant to go, not wishing his aides to see him as an invalid on a stretcher.[163]
By 9 September, Jinnah had also developed pneumonia. It being deemed better for his health to return to Karachi, he was flown there on 11 September. Dr. Ilahi Bux, his personal physician, believed that Jinnah's change of mind was caused by foreknowledge of death. The plane landed at Karachi, to be met by Jinnah's limousine and an ambulance, into which Jinnah's stretcher was placed. The ambulance promptly broke down on the road into town, and the Governor-General and those with him waited for another to arrive; he could not be placed in the car as he could not sit up. They waited by the roadside for an hour in oppressive heat as trucks and buses passed by, unsuitable for transporting the dying man and with their occupants not knowing of Jinnah's presence. At last, the replacement ambulance came, and transported Jinnah to Government House, arriving there over two hours after the landing. Jinnah died at 10:20 pm at his home in Karachi on 11 September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan's creation.[164][165]
Indian Prime Minister Nehru stated upon Jinnah's death, "How shall we judge him? I have been very angry with him often during the past years. But now there is no bitterness in my thought of him, only a great sadness for all that has been ... he succeeded in his quest and gained his objective, but at what a cost and with what a difference from what he had imagined."[166] Jinnah was buried on 12 September 1948 amid official mourning in both India and Pakistan; Indian Governor-General Rajagopalachari cancelled an official reception that day in honour of Jinnah. A million people gathered for his funeral. Today, Jinnah rests in a large marble mausoleum, Mazar-e-Quaid, in Karachi.[167][168][169]
Aftermath
Dina Wadia, Jinnah's daughter, remained in India after independence, before ultimately settling in New York City. Jinnah's grandson, Nusli Wadia, is a prominent industrialist in Mumbai. In the 1964–65 elections, Jinnah's sister Fatima Jinnah, known as Madar-e-Millat ("Mother of the Nation"), became the presidential candidate of a coalition of political parties that opposed the rule of President Ayub Khan, but lost due to rigging of elections in favour of Ayub Khan.[170]The Jinnah House in Malabar Hill, Bombay, is in the possession of the Government of India but the issue of its ownership has been disputed by the Government of Pakistan.[171] Jinnah had personally requested Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to preserve the house, hoping one day he could return to Mumbai. There are proposals for the house be offered to the government of Pakistan to establish a consulate in the city, as a goodwill gesture, but his daughter Dina Wadia has also laid claim to the property, claiming that Hindu law is applicable to Jinnah as he was a Khoja Shia.[171][172]
After Jinnah died, Fatima Jinnah had asked the court to execute Jinnah's will under Shia law. Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, but Jinnah left that branch in 1901.[173] This subsequently became part of argument in Pakistan about Jinnah's religious affiliation. Vali Nasr says Jinnah "was an Ismaili by birth and a Twelver Shia by confession, though not a religiously observant man."[174] In a 1970 legal challenge, Hussain Ali Ganji Walji claimed Jinnah had converted to Sunni Islam, but the High Court rejected this claim in 1976, effectively accepting the Jinnah family as Shia.[175] Publicly, Jinnah had a non-sectarian stance and "was at pains to gather the Muslims of India under the banner of a general Muslim faith and not under a divisive sectarian identity."[173] In 1970, a Pakistani court decision stated that Jinnah's "secular Muslim faith made him neither Shia nor Sunni",[173] and in 1984 the court maintained that "the Quaid was definitely not a Shia".[173] Liaquat H. Merchant elaborates that "he was also not a Sunni, he was simply a Muslim".[173]
Legacy
An Iranian stamp commemorating the centenary of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, printed in 1976.
Jinnah is depicted on all Pakistani rupee notes of denominations five and higher, and is the namesake of many Pakistani public institutions. The former Quaid-i-Azam International Airport in Karachi, now called the Jinnah International Airport, is Pakistan's busiest. One of the largest streets in the Turkish capital Ankara — Cinnah Caddesi — is named after him. In the Iranian capital, Tehran, city's Mohammad Ali Jenah Expressway is named after him. The government of Iran also released a stamp commemorating the centennial of Jinnah's birthday. In Chicago, a portion of Devon Avenue was named as "Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way". The Mazar-e-Quaid, Jinnah's mausoleum, is among Karachi's most imposing buildings.[178] There is a "Jinnah Tower" in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, which was built to commemorate Jinnah.[179]
According to Singh, "With Jinnah's death Pakistan lost its moorings. In India there will not easily arrive another Gandhi, nor in Pakistan another Jinnah."[180] Malik writes, "As long as Jinnah was alive, he could persuade and even pressure regional leaders toward greater mutual accommodation, but after his death, the lack of consensus on the distribution of political power and economic resources often turned controversial."[181] According to Mohiuddin, "Jinnah's death deprived Pakistan of a leader who could have enhanced stability and democratic governance ... The rocky road to democracy in Pakistan and the relatively smooth one in India can in some measure be ascribed to Pakistan's tragedy of losing an incorruptible and highly revered leader so soon after independence."[182]
According to Jalal, while there is a tendency towards hagiography in the Pakistani view of Jinnah, in India he is viewed negatively.[185] Ahmed deems Jinnah "the most maligned person in recent Indian history ... In India, many see him as the demon who divided the land."[186] Even many Indian Muslims see Jinnah negatively, blaming him for their woes as a minority in that state.[187] Some historians like H M Seervai and Ayesha Jalal assert that Jinnah never wanted partition of India—it was the outcome of the Congress leaders being unwilling to share power with the Muslim League. It is asserted that Jinnah only used the Pakistan demand as a method to mobilize support to obtain significant political rights for Muslims.[188] Jinnah has gained the admiration of major Indian nationalist politicians like Lal Krishna Advani—whose comments praising Jinnah caused an uproar in his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).[189]
The view of Jinnah in the West has been shaped to some extent by his portrayal in Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 film, Gandhi. The film was dedicated to Nehru and Mountbatten, and given considerable support by Nehru's daughter, the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. It portrays Jinnah (played by Alyque Padamsee) as a scowling, villainous figure, who seems to act out of jealousy of the title character. Padamsee later stated that his portrayal was not historically accurate.[190]
Moore says that despite any of a number of biases, Jinnah is universally recognized as central to the creation of Pakistan.[191] Wolpert summarizes the profound affect that Jinnah had on the world:
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.[192]
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