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Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah's achievement as the founder of Pakistan,
dominates everything else he did in his long and crowded public life spanning some 42 years.
Yet, by any standard, his was an eventful life, his personality multidimensional and his
achievements in other fields were many, if not equally great. Indeed, several were the roles
he had played with distinction: at one time or another, he was one of the greatest legal
luminaries India had produced during the first half of the century, an `ambassador of
Hindu-Muslim unity, a great constitutionalist, a distinguished parliamentarian,
a top-notch politician, an indefatigable freedom-fighter, a dynamic Muslim leader,
a political strategist and, above all one of the great nation-builders of modern times.
What, however, makes him so remarkable is the fact that while similar other leaders assumed
the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and espoused their cause, or led them to freedom,
he created a nation out of an inchoate and down-trodden minority and established a cultural
and national home for it. And all that within a decade. For over three decades before the successful
culmination in 1947, of the Muslim struggle for freedom in the South-Asian subcontinent,
Jinnah had provided political leadership to the Indian Muslims: initially as one of the leaders,
but later, since 1947, as the only prominent leader- the Quaid-i-Azam. For over thirty years,
he had guided their affairs; he had given expression, coherence and direction to their legitimate
aspirations and cherished dreams; he had formulated these into concrete demands; and, above all,
he had striven all the while to get them conceded by both the ruling British and the numerous Hindus
the dominant segment of India's population. And for over thirty years he had fought, relentlessly and
inexorably, for the inherent rights of the Muslims for an honorable existence in
the subcontinent. Indeed, his life story constitutes, as it were, the story of the
rebirth of the Muslims of the subcontinent and their spectacular rise to nationhood,
phoenixlike.
Born on December 25, 1876, in a prominent mercantile family in Karachi and educated
at the Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School at his birth place,
Jinnah joined the Lincoln's Inn in 1893 to become the youngest Indian to be called
to the Bar, three years later. Starting out in the legal profession with nothing
to fall back upon except his native ability and determination, young Jinnah rose
to prominence and became Bombay's most successful lawyer, as few did, within a few
years. Once he was firmly established in the legal profession, Jinnah formally entered
politics in 1905 from the platform of the Indian National Congress. He went to England
in that year along with Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), as a member of a Congress
delegation to plead the cause of Indian self-government during the British elections.
A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Noaroji (1825-1917), the then Indian
National Congress President, which was considered a great honor for a budding politician.
Here, at the Calcutta Congress session (December 1906), he also made his first political
speech in support of the resolution on self-government.
Early Career
Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the newly-constituted
Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career, which spanned
some four decades, he was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian
freedom and Indian rights. Jinnah, who was also the first Indian to pilot a private
member's Bill through the Council, soon became a leader of a group inside the legislature.
Mr. Montagu (1879-1924), Secretary of State for India, at the close of the First
World War, considered Jinnah "perfect mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the
teeth with dialectics..."Jinnah, he felt, "is a very clever man, and it is, of course,
an outrage that such a man should have no chance of running the affairs of his own
country."
For about three decades since his entry into politics in 1906, Jinnah
passionately believed in and assiduously worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Gokhale,
the foremost Hindu leader before Gandhi, had once said of him, "He has the true
stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the
best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity: And, to be sure, he did become the architect
of Hindu-Muslim Unity: he was responsible for the Congress-League Pact of 1916,
known popularly as Luck now Pact- the only pact ever signed between the two political
organizations, the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, representing, as they
did, the two major communities in the subcontinent.
The Congress-League scheme embodied
in this pact was to become the basis for the Montagu-Chemlsford Reforms, also known
as the Act of 1919. In retrospect, the Luckhnow Pact represented a milestone in
the evolution of Indian politics. For one thing, it conceded Muslims the right to
separate electorate, reservation of seats in the legislatures and weightage in representation
both at the Centre and the minority provinces. Thus, their retention was ensured
in the next phase of reforms. For another, it represented a tacit recognition of
the All-India Muslim League as the representative organization of the Muslims, thus
strengthening the trend towards Muslim individuality in Indian politics. And to
Jinnah goes the credit for all this. Thus, by 1917, Jinnah came to be recognized
among both Hindus and Muslims as one of India's most outstanding political leaders.
Not only was he prominent in the Congress and the Imperial Legislative Council,
he was also the President of the All-India Muslim League and that of the Bombay
Branch of the Home Rule League. More importantly, because of his key-role in the
Congress-League entente at Luckhnow, he was hailed as the ambassador, of Hindu-Muslim
unity.
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