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Quaid-e-Azam
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Early years.
 Quaid-e-Azam,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25th December 1876
at Vazeer Mansion Karachi,
was the first of seven children of Jinnahbhai,
a prosperous merchant. After being taught at home, Jinnah
was sent to the Sindh Madrasasah
High School in 1887. Later he attended the Mission
High School, where, at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation
examination of the University of Bombay. On the advice of
an English friend, his father decided to send him to England
to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made
up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom
of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for
him before he left for England.
In
London he joined Lincoln's Inn, one of the legal societies
that prepared students for the bar. In 1895, at the age of
19, he was called to the bar. While in London Jinnah suffered
two severe bereavements--the deaths of his wife and his mother.
Nevertheless, he completed his formal studies and also made
a study of the British political system, frequently visiting
the House of Commons. He was greatly influenced by the liberalism
of William E. Gladstone, who had become prime minister for
the fourth time in 1892, the year of Jinnah's arrival in London.
Jinnah also took a keen interest in the affairs of India and
in Indian students. When the Parsi leader Dadabhai Naoroji,
a leading Indian nationalist, ran for the English Parliament,
Jinnah and other Indian students worked day and night for
him. Their efforts were crowned with success, and Naoroji
became the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons.
 When
Jinnah returned to Karachi in 1896, he found that his father's
business had suffered losses and that he now had to depend
on himself. He decided to start his legal practice in Bombay,
but it took him years of work to establish himself as a lawyer.
It
was nearly 10 years later that he turned toward active politics.
A man without hobbies, his interest became divided between
law and politics. Nor was he a religious zealot: he was a
Muslim in a broad sense and had little to do with sects. His
interest in women was also limited to Ruttenbai--the daughter
of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a Bombay Parsi millionaire--whom he
married over tremendous opposition from her parents and others.
The marriage proved an unhappy one. It was his sister Fatima
who gave him solace and company.
Entry
into politics.
Jinnah
first entered politics by participating in the 1906 Calcutta
session of the Indian National Congress, the party that called
for dominion status and later for independence for India.
Four years later he was elected to the Imperial Legislative
Council--the beginning of a long and distinguished parliamentary
career. In Bombay he came to know, among other important Congress
personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the eminent Maratha
leader. Greatly influenced by these nationalist politicians,
Jinnah aspired during the early part of his political life
to become "a Muslim Gokhale." Admiration for British
political institutions and an eagerness to raise the status
of India in the international community and to develop a sense
of Indian nationhood among the peoples of India were the chief
elements of his politics. At that time, he still looked upon
Muslim interests in the context of Indian nationalism.
But,
by the beginning of the 20th century, the conviction had been
growing among the Muslims that their interests demanded the
preservation of their separate identity rather than amalgamation
in the Indian nation that would for all practical purposes
be Hindu. Largely to safeguard Muslim interests, the All-India
Muslim League was founded in 1906. But Jinnah remained aloof
from it. Only in 1913, when authoritatively assured that the
league was as devoted as the Congress to the political emancipation
of India, did Jinnah join the league. When the Indian Home
Rule League was formed, he became its chief organiser in Bombay
and was elected president of the Bombay branch.
 "Ambassador
of Hindu-Muslim unity." Jinnah's endeavours
to bring about thepolitical union of Hindus and Muslims earned
him the title of "the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim
unity," an epithet coined by Gokhale. It was largely
through his efforts that the Congress and the Muslim League
began to hold their annual sessions jointly, to facilitate
mutual consultation and participation. In 1915 the two organisations
held their meetings in Bombay and in 1916 in Lucknow, where
the Lucknow Pact was concluded. Under the terms of the pact,
the two organisations put their seal to a scheme of constitutional
reform that became their joint demand vis-à-vis the
British government. There was a good deal of give and take,
but the Muslims obtained one important concession in the shape
of separate electorates, already conceded to them by the government
in 1909 but hitherto resisted by the Congress.
Meanwhile,
a new force in Indian politics had appeared in the person
of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Both the Home Rule League and the Indian
National Congress had come under his sway. Opposed to Gandhi's
Non-co-operation Movement and his essentially Hindu approach
to politics, Jinnah left both the League and the Congress
in 1920. For a few years he kept himself aloof from the main
political movements. He continued to be a firm believer in
Hindu-Muslim unity and constitutional methods for the achievement
of political ends. After his withdrawal from the Congress,
he used the Muslim League platform for the propagation of
his views. But during the 1920s the Muslim League, and with
it Jinnah, had been overshadowed by the Congress and the religiously
oriented Muslim Khilafat committee.
When
the failure of the Non-co-operation Movement and the emergence
of Hindu revivalist movements led to antagonism and riots
between the Hindus and Muslims, the league gradually began
to come into its own. Jinnah's problem during the following
years was to convert the league into an enlightenedpolitical
body prepared to co-operate with other organisations working
for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the
Congress, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the
necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.
To
bring about such a rapprochement was Jinnah's chief purpose
during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He worked toward this
end within the legislative assembly, at the Round Table Conferences
in London (1930-32), and through his 14 points, which included
proposals for a federal form of government, greater rights
for minorities, one-third representation for Muslims in the
central legislature, separation of the predominantly Muslim
Sindh region from the rest of the Bombay province, and the
introduction of reforms in the north-west Frontier Province.
But he failed. His failure to bring about even minor amendments
in the Nehru Committee proposals (1928) over the question
of separate electorates and reservation of seats for Muslims
in the legislatures frustrated him. He found himself in a
peculiar position at this time; many Muslims thought that
he was too nationalistic in his policy and that Muslim interests
were not safe in his hands, while the Indian National Congress
would not even meet the moderate Muslim demands halfway. Indeed,
the Muslim League was a house divided against itself. The
Punjab Muslim League repudiated Jinnah's leadership and organised
itself separately. In disgust, Jinnah decided to settle in
England. From 1930 to 1935 he remained in London, devoting
himself to practice before the Privy Council. But when constitutional
changes were in the offing, he was persuaded to return home
to head a reconstituted Muslim League.
Soon
preparations started for the elections under the Government
of India Act of 1935. Jinnah was still thinking in terms of
co-operation between the Muslim League and the Hindu Congress
and with coalition governments in the provinces. But the elections
of 1937 proved to be a turning point in the relations between
the two organisations. The Congress obtained an absolute majority
in six provinces, and the league did not do particularly well.
The Congress decided not to include the league in the formation
of provincial governments, and exclusive all-Congress governments
were.
Creator
of Pakistan.
 Jinnah
had originally been dubious about the practicability of
Pakistan, an idea that Sir Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to
the Muslim League conference of 1930; but before long he became
convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent
was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the
Muslim way of life. It was not religious persecution that
he feared so much as the future exclusion of Muslims from
all prospects of advancement within India as soon as power
became vested in the close-knit structure of Hindu social
organisation. To guard against this danger he carried on a
nation-wide campaign to warn his coreligionists of the perils
of their position, and he converted the Muslim League into
a powerful instrument for unifying the Muslims into a nation.
Muhammad
Ali Jinnah, addressing a procession on 23rd March, 1940
At
this point, Jinnah emerged as the leader of a renascent Muslim
nation. Events began to move fast. On March 22-23, 1940, in
Lahore, the league adopted a resolution to form a separate
Muslim state, Pakistan. The Pakistan idea was first ridiculed
and then tenaciously opposed by the Congress. But it captured
the imagination of the Muslims. Pitted against Jinnah were
men of the stature of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And the
British government seemed to be intent on maintaining the
political unity of the Indian subcontinent. But Jinnah led
his movement with such skill and tenacity that ultimately
both the Congress and the British government had no option
but to agree to the partitioning of India. Pakistan thus emerged
as an independent state in 14th August, 1947.
-----------------------------------------
Jinnah
became the first head of the new state i.e. Pakistan. He
took oath as the first governor general on August 15, 1947.
Faced with the serious problems of a young nation, he tackled
Pakistan's problems with authority. He was not regarded as
merely the governor-general; he was revered as the father
of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and
disease in Karachi. He died on 11th September,
1948 at Karachi
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