Jinnah
and Pakistan
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Gujarati: મુહમ્મદઅલીજિન્ના, Urdu: محمدعلیجناح
(/ɑːˈliː/; About
this sound Hindustani pronunciation (help·info), born Mahomedali
Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a lawyer, politician, and
the founder of Pakistan.[1] 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. He is
revered in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam Urdu: قائداعظم
(Great Leader) and Baba-i-Qaum Urdu: بابائےقوم
(Father of the Nation). His birthday is observed as a national holiday.
Born in Karachi and trained as a
barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London, Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian
National 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 the Congress and the All-India Muslim
League, a party in which Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah 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. In
1920, however, Jinnah resigned from the Congress when it agreed to follow a
campaign of satyagraha, or non-violent resistance, advocated by the influential
leader, Mohandas Gandhi.
By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe
that Indian Muslims should have their own state. In that year, the Muslim
League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate
nation. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders
of the Congress were imprisoned, and in the elections held shortly after the
war, it won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress
and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula for a united
India, leading all parties to agree to separate independence of a predominately
Hindu India, and for a Muslim-majority 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 migrants who had emigrated from the new
nation of India to Pakistan after the partition, personally supervising the establishment
of refugee camps. 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.
Background
Jinnah was born Mahomedali
Jinnahbhai,[a] most likely in 1876,[b] to Jinnahbhai Poonja and his wife
Mithibai, in a rented apartment on the second floor of Wazir Mansion, Karachi.[4]
Jinnah's birthplace is in Sindh, a region today part of Pakistan, but then
within the Bombay Presidency of British India. Jinnah was a Gujarati Khoja
Muslim of Lohana ancestry. His forefathers were Hindus whom converted to
Islam.[5][6][7][8][9] His father was a prosperous merchant who had been born to
a family of weavers in the village of Paneli in the princely state of Gondal
(Kathiawar, Gujarat); his mother was also of that village. They had moved to
Karachi in 1875, having married before their 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.[10][11]Bombay.[10][11]
Jinnah's family was of the Ismaili
Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam,[12] though Jinnah later followed the Twelver Shi'a
teachings.[13] Jinnah was the second child;[14][15] he had three brothers and
three sisters, including his younger sister Fatima Jinnah. The parents were
native Gujarati speakers, and the children also came to speak Gujarati, Kutchi
and English.[16] 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.As a boy, Jinnah lived for a time in Bombay with an aunt and may
have attended the Gokal Das Tej Primary School there, later on studying at the
Cathedral and John Connon School. In Karachi, he attended the
Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam and the Christian Missionary Society High
School.[18][19][20] He gained his matriculation from Bombay University at the
high school. 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. His official biographer, Hector Bolitho, writing in 1954,
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.
In
England
In 1892, Sir Frederick Leigh Croft, a
business associate of Jinnahbhai Poonja, offered young Jinnah a London apprenticeship
with his firm, Graham's Shipping and Trading Company.[22] He accepted the
position despite the opposition of his mother, who before he left, had him
enter an arranged marriage with a girl two years his junior from the ancestral
village of Paneli, Emibai Jinnah. Jinnah's mother and first wife both died
during his absence in England.[23] Although the apprenticeship in London was
considered a great opportunity for Jinnah, one reason for sending him overseas
was a legal proceeding against his father, which placed the family's property
at risk of being sequestered by the court. In 1893, the Jinnahbhai family moved
to Bombay.Soon after his arrival in London, Jinnah gave up the apprenticeship
in order to study law, enraging his father, who had, before his departure,
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 the 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. 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 from studying lawbooks. During this
period, he shortened his name to Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
During his student years in England,
Jinnah was influenced by 19th-century British liberalism, like many other
future Indian independence leaders. This political education included exposure
to the idea of the democratic nation, and progressive politics.[27] 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 majority of three
votes in Finsbury Central. Jinnah listened to his maiden speech in the House of
Commons from the visitor's gallery.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.[30] Even when he was dying, he insisted on
being formally dressed, "I will not travel in my pyjamas."[17] In his
later years he was usually seen wearing a Karakul hat which subsequently came
to be known as the "Jinnah cap".
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. In 1895, at age 19, he became
the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England.[15] Although he
returned to Karachi, he remained there only a short time before moving to
Bombay.
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