MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH

The Architect of Pakistan

(25 December 1876—11 September 1948)

Dr. L. S. May

“I fervently pray that God Almighty make us all worthy of our past and hoary history and give us strength to make Pakistan truly a great nation amongst all the nations of the world…”[1]

 Introduction

“… I, Sir, stand here with a clear conscience and I say that I am a nationalist first, a nationalist second and a nationalist last…”[2]

These words spoken by Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1925 clearly indicate where he stood during the first and greater part of his political career. He was an Indian nationalist. It meant a broader secular approach because he ignored the role of religion in politics. Stressing faith as predominant in the political ordering of a people signifies a more restricted and, what has been called a communalist, orientation. The terms “patriot” and “country,” therefore, can have, and in India had, a double meaning. They may refer to loyalty to the land and its people as a whole, reflecting unitedness on the basis of a national majority consensus.[3] Or they point to a strong affiliation with a particular community, whose faith defines its educational, social, cultural, including linguistic, and legal traditions and life. It involved geographic distribution. Such a close communal affiliation implies the elevation of one’s own group above any other. It contains the seeds of division. This in fact was the case in India where the large Muslim minority[4] increasingly feared their suppression by the vast Hindu majority. Mr. Jinnah for a long time was a non-communal patriot. He intensely tried to stop the schismatic divisionary trend that resulted in the growing communal (Hindu-Muslim) tensions since the late 1910’s. Although he confessed in October 1920: “I have no voice or power to remove the cause…”[5] he pleaded in the aforementioned 1925 speech:

‘I once more appeal to this House, whether you are a Mussulman or a Hindu, for God’s sake do not import the discussion of communal matters into this House, and degrade this Assembly, which we desire should become a real National Parliament. Set an example to the outside world and our people!’”[6]

His reference to “our people” instead of “our peoples”[7] and his plea for “‘a real national Parliament’ “again reflect his commitment to unity as also to “Home Rule” (swarai). Both remained his utter concern until 1937. That year marks a watershed in his thought and life. He turned increasingly separatist, formally endorsed “the Pakistan movement” in 1940 and effectively worked toward establishing the independent Republic of Pakistan on 15 August 1947! Mr. Jinnah as Quaid-i-Azam (“great leader”) would steer his now sovereign land for another year.

His life, therefore, is divisible into two main parts, namely, (1) as an Indian nationalist until 1937; and (2) as a Pakistan patriot. A discussion of the first phase of his career is essential to understand better why he changed his political viewpoint and thereby so deeply affected the Indo-Islamic community’s future course.

I. Mr. Jinnah as an Indian Nationalist (1906-1935) Born of Muslim parentage at Karachi, the capital of Sind[8] which at that time was a Muslim-majority province within British India, he received his grade-school education at Bombay,[9] then a swaraj stronghold);[10] went to high school[11] in his native city; and, upon a family friend’s advice, in 1892 sailed for London to prepare himself for the bar at Lincolns Inn. Returning home as a full-fledged barrister at the early age of twenty, he settled in Bombay about 1897. He already drew the attention of that city’s political circles to him by becoming the first Indian reader in the chambers of its then Advocate General, Mr. McPherson.[12] He gained some contacts and at the same time familiarised himself with legal and administrative processes grooming him for his subsequent brilliant career.[13] He refused to remain in British Government service, however,[14] The reason was his preference for personal independence so that he could freely argue India’s right to freedom. His political career officially started when he joined All-India National Congress[15] (founded in 1885) in 1906. The press, surprised that he, a Muslim, did not join the All-India Muslim League[16] (set up in late December 1906) drew his response that he “was proud to belong” to the Hindu-majority body.[17] The reasons why Mr. Jinnah felt pride in his Congress membership were:

(a) their acceptance of him as a legitimate member;

(b) his self-awareness that it symbolised a new phase in his life ;

(c) his ability to work for self-rule through an organisation established for that purpose; by signing its pledge, he formally subscribed to its swaraj platform;

(d) his preference for unitary to separatist politics, for secular to religious nationalism.

He did not immediately join the League because

(a) it appeared only toward the end of 1906, viz. it was non-existent so that he could not have entered it;[18]

(b) it mainly focussed upon the Muslims’ needs; and

(c) at first it was less concerned with “Home-Rule”.[19] He nevertheless did not repudiate his Islamic heritage for he demanded a fund to aid the poor and orphaned children (waqf al-aulad), in his 1906 Congress speech marking his political debut It made him popular while his subsequent success in gaining the Wakf Validating Bill (in 1913) widened his Muslim contacts and support.

Running on the Muslim ticket under the 1909 Indian Councils (Reform) Act,[20] incorporating separate electorates[21] to guarantee suffi­cient minority representation in the local assemblies and higher Coun­cils. he was elected in autumn of that year by his co-religionist Bombay Presidency constituents to the Supreme Legislative (Imperial) Council. In addition to his Congress and new Council duties, he accepted the invitation to participate in the 1910 Allahabad Muslim Conference called[22] to attain better Muslim-Hindu understanding, for the majority[23] disfavored the electoral principle; to work with the League Council between 1910 and 1911; and to attend the 191 1-1913 deliberations. He finally joined the League in 1913—upon the eve of the First World War—after it passed its (1913) resolution mirroring his insistence on “national unity . . . by cooperation with other communities,” viz. mainly the Hindus, but also the Sikhs and other faith minorities.[24] To emphasise unity and “harmonious cooperation,” for which he was lauded in that year, he remained in Congress. During the (annual) Bombay 1915[25] Muslim League session, Mr. Jinnah moved a very important resolution to appoint a committee having powers to negotiate with non-Muslim representatives. Even Bengal’s “Lion.” Maulvi Abul-Kasim Fazl-ul-Haq (1873-1062) and the Indian nationalist, Maulana Abul-Kalam Azad (1888-1958)—both of whom then were Leaguers—supported his resolution guaranteeing its unanimous adop­tion After the new committee’s months of difficult negotiations with a similarly appointed Congress group. both approved a “Joint Scheme” of intended reforms. Mr. Jinnah, chairing the 1916 Congress-League Lncknow session. effected its acceptance by both organizations. It in­volved a compromise by allotting to the (Muslim) minority, where they actually constituted a majority, less seats in the Legislatures than numerically justified (principle of underweight age). The percentage-wise proportion was as follows:[26]

Punjab[27]                          50 %

United Bengal                     40 %

Bombay Presidency             33k- % (one-third)

United Provinces                 30%

Bihar                                  25 %

The Hindu stress on “a majority with joint electorates” dissatisfied him as much as other Muslim leaders for fear that the Hindus might impose their will. About one-fifth of the British Indian population, estimated at circa 283 million (1901), and reaching circa 300 million by 1920, were Muslims. The proportion rose to a little under one-fourth in the following decades.

Madras Presidency               15%

Central Provinces                15%

The famed Lucknow Pact as it became known is the high-water mark in twentieth-century Hindu-Muslim relations. It raised Mr. Jinnah’s already considerable prestige as “an ambassador of unity” and out-standing Muslim “parliamentarian”. But the future course of events would disillusion him. Two measure known after their sponsor, Sir Sidney Rowlatt, as the Rowlatt Act(s), promulgated on 21 April 1919 — after the end of the First World War[28] — permitted instant arrest and imprisonment without due process of law of anyone suspect of conspiring against the British raj. Free speech, press, and assembly were forbidden. The results were mass jailings including of nearly all Hindu leaders, communal riots,[29] “passive resistance” (satyagraha), between 1919 and 1922,[30] and bloody British reprisals.[31] The 1919 Government of India Act containing Devolution Rules permitting presumably independence to a Provincial Government within a diarchy or double-headed State seemed an attempt to bypass the central issue of Federation and “distribution of powers”.[32] The British neither granted self rule nor true representation, for which reasons Congress refused to enter the new Government installed in February 1921. Meanwhile, Mr. Jinnah presiding over the Muslim League’s special meeting held on 7 September 1920 at Calcutta, forcefully spoke out against British policies:

“‘One thing there is which is indisputable and that is that this Government must go and give place to a complete responsible Government… One degrading measure upon another, disappointment upon disappointment, and injury upon injury, can lead a people to only one end It led Russia to Bolshevism… May it lead India to freedom.’[33]

His disagreement with Congress on satvagraha as the best way to make the Indians’ will known to the colonialist rulers led to his resignation after his fourteen-year membership. He furthermore refused to “enter the legislature till the Congress lifted the boycott”. He nevertheless did not give up hope for better times. Despite the installment of more Conservative Viceroy. Lord Reading (1921-1926)—and Lord Peel (1867-1937) as Secretary of State—asserting that autonomy (Dominion Status) was out of the question. Mr. Jinnah convened a Muslim League meeting at Lahore in May 1924. He stated as its aims:

to discuss the constitutional issue; improve Hindu-Muslim relations particularly in the Punjab; and to effect “an amicable settlement between the Hindus and the Muslims, as was done at Lucknow in 1916.”[34]

This wish furthermore is enshrined in his 1925 speech, cited above. He nearly succeeded in his attempt to revive the spirit of the Lucknow Pact through his Delhi (Muslim) Proposals presented during the League’s (annual) 1926 Delhi session. Its Resolution,[35] moved by him, insisted on: (1) “adequate and effective representation of the minorities in every province without reducing the majority in any province to a minority or even to equality”; (2) communal representation “by means of separate electorates as at present provided” with the option granted to any community “to abandon its separate electorates in favour of a joint electorate”; (3) “any” possibly needed ‘territorial redistribution… shall not in any way affect the Muslim majority in the Punjab, Bengal and North-West Frontier Province”; (4) “liberty of belief, worship ... propaganda, association and education shall be guaranteed to all communities”; and (5) a three-fourth quorum for passing any “bill or resolution or any part thereof . . . in any legislature”. It furthermore demanded “the speedy attainment of full responsible Government,” a further examination to make the necessary “amendment” of “the present constitution of India,”[36] and Sind’s separation from the Bombay Presidency. In his lengthy speech, Mr. Jinnah insisted upon the revision of the 1919 Act to assure a more democratic government and asserted that League and he, personally, rejected non-cooperation and obstruction to effect the required constitutional reforms. His grateful Bombay constituents re-elected their unopposed able and fearless spokesman to the Assembly in November 1926. If the Punjabi Muslims rejected giving up representation through the electoral principle, the Hindus generally gave a lukewarm reception to the said Proposals. While the League approved them[37] and the Congress Working Committee recommended them to the All-India Congress Committee, Congress affirmed rather than “welcomed” them during its (annual) Madras convention. Amidst high praise from Hindu and Muslim quarters for his zeal and hard work to promote the two causes of Indian unity and freedom, there was critique.[38]

After the All-India Congress Working Committee’s unanimous acceptance of the Muslim Formula,” the matter was referred to an All-Parties Conference which held meetings between February-March and December 1928.[39] After the earlier discussions, it was passed to the Nehru Committee—so called because it was chaired by Motilal Nehru (1861-1931), father of the later Indian Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru (1889-1964)—for further study. The Nehru Report published in August 1928, that is, while Mr. Jinnah was in England on holiday,[40] was negative because it preferred a united instead of a federated India and rejected the separate electoral principle. It further asserted that the Muslims form a large minority, and that “religious liberty… and cultural autonomy” would solve the “communal problem”.[41] While it acknowledged Muslim fears concerning harassment by “the majority,” the Report nevertheless countered the Indo-Islamic community’s preference for a weak rather than a strong centre, an issue which would remain a thorn in all future discussions and negotiations.

Upon Mr. Jinnah’s return, he nevertheless joined with Congress in opposing the Simon Commission[42] (November 1927-Spring 1930) which did not include one single Indian and which Mr. Jinnah amongst others boycotted because “we are denied equal partnership”.[43] He furthermore continued his deliberations with not only Muslim, but also Hindu, politicians, attending the Unity Conference called by the Khilafat Committee and held between 20 and 31 August 1928, at Lucknow, as well as December 1928 All-Parties Conference which met during the last week of December 1928 at Calcutta. Mr. Jinnah insisted on one-third Muslim representation in the Central Legislature whose distribution of seats should be left to the Muslims; the provinces should have full “federal and residuary powers”; Sind’s and the North-West Frontier Province’s separation. His demands for adequate Muslim representation were keyed to his certainty that adult suffrage on a truly national[44] scale would not become a reality so soon. His suggested amendments, despite receiving some Hindu support,[45] were rejected [46]

A “heart-broken” Jinnah confessed to Karachi’s future mayor, Mr. Jamshed Nusserwanji, who had brought him to the train: “Jamshed, this is the parting of the ways.” It was a prophetic statement! He still clung to the hope of effecting better Hindu-Muslim understanding and “harmonious cooperation”. He summarised the last year’s events before the Central Legislative Assembly’s March 1929 hearings on the Nehru Committee Report, but was disillusioned in the Hindu “counter-proposals” which he felt were against the “letter and spirit” of his recommendations. Undaunted, he (apparently) formulated his “Four-teen Points”[47] shortly after the All-Parties Conferenee, held at Calcutta during the Christmas week of 1928. Submitted by him to another All-Parties Muslim Conference, held in Jaunary 1929 at New Delhi, they once more stressed adequate minority representation through separate electorates, thus assuring the smaller religious blocs a voice in the lower and higher legislatures in a free federated India. The last clause of its resolution moved by Sir Muhammad Shafi (1896-1932)48 asserts munal electorates,” vowed to get the imperialists out of India and retain control over its Muslim population. Cf. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Madera Islam in India (London: Victor Gollancz, 1946), p. 186.

The resolution’s third paragraph (viz. what resolution containing the said “Fourteen Points”) refers to “the attitude taken up by the Hindu Mahasabha” which “from the commencement through their representatives at the Convention was nothing short of an ultimatum”(cf. Sayyid, M. A.Jinnah,p.137) They again stress a federal set-up “with the residuary powers vested in the provinces” (1). They shall be granted full autonomy (2) ; “not . . . less than one-third” representation for Muslims in the Central Legislature (4) ; the option to any province to abolish separate electorates which for the time being would continue ; ‘ at least one-third Muslim Ministers” in any “cabinet, either Central or Provincial” (13) ; safeguards for full religious freedom, worship, and all other, including educational and legal, aspects related to the continuance of Muslim life and thought (7 and 12). The alternative provisions to these Points also state that “the question of excess” Muslim representation “in provinces where they are in a minority is to be considered hereafter” (p. 140 in Sayyid, M.A. Jinnah). [48] Sir Muhammad Shad had already disagreed with Mr. Jinnah by prefer-ring cooperation with the Simon Commission. This policy advocated during the previous century by Sayyid Ahmad Khan had as its main reason these leaders’ feeling that it would protect their community against particularly the more extremist Hindu groups. It led to the All-India Muslim League split, which deepened by 1929 when The Aga Khan headed a bloc. called the National Convention; another named the All-India Nationalist Muslim Party (formed in July 1929), contrary to the National Convention, accepted the Nehru Report; a fourth seceded from the League on the Delhi (Muslim) Proposals because it rejected joint electorates; and a fifth, headed by Mr. Jinnah himself, urged Muslim and Hindu-Muslim reconciliation, League and national unity and cooperation, while refusing its unconditional sup-port to the Nehru Report that:

“This Conference emphatically declares that no constitution, by whomsoever proposed or devised, will be acceptable to Indian Mussulmans unless it conforms with the principles embodied in this resolution.’”[49]

Meanwhile, the author of the Fourteen Points, for which he again was highly praised, wrote in his 19 June 1929 letter addressed to England’s (then) Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald:

“…there is a section in India that has already declared in favour of independence, and I may tell you without exaggeration that the movement for independence is gaining ground, as it is supported by the Indian National Congress. . . .”[50]

Total independence rather than Dominion Status had been advocated by the more revolutionary Hindu politicians[51] even at the beginning of this century. Amongst the Muslims, Sayyid Fadl-ul-Hasan Hasrat Mohani (1878-1951) insisted in his December 1921 Ahmedabad Congress speech: “ ‘Swaraj can have only one meaning and that is complete independence.’”[52] On 1 January 1922, he again pounded on the need for a clearer, viz. such a, definition of swaraj and on a thorough transformation of the Indian administration by declaring it a Republic “similar to that of the United States,” but with this difference that “the United States of India” should have “a parallel government”[53] (viz. a dyarchy) so that “the Hindu majority in Madras, Bombay, and the United Provinces will not be allowed to overstep the limits of moderation against the Mussalmans.”[54] Al-though he still proposed a federal structure, the Punjabi politician, Mr. Lajpat Rai (1895-1928), immediatly concluded: “ ‘It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Muslim India.’”[55]

That a Hindu and a Muslim autonomous Government within federated Indian Republic would not work was stated in 1923: “‘ joint Hindu-Muslim State is sheer nonsense, which under no circumstance can exist. . . . The reason is that every State is ultimately dependent on its customs, its national languages and its nation history.”[56]

The two-nation theory which it already implies had been given political expression by Sayyid Ahmad Khan in the nineteenth century.[57] It was crystallised by Dr Muhammad Iqbal in his 29 December 1930 Presidential Speech to Allahabad session of the League:[58]

“I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a con. solidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to be the final destiny, of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.”[59]

Although he gave the option concerning Dominion Status,[60] ht seemingly preferred complete freedom from any “British paramountcy”, Mr. Jinnah in his previously cited 1929 letter expressed himself other) wise:

“I would most earnestly urge upon you at this moment to persuade His Majesty’s Government without delay to make a declaration 1922 Congress to devise a National Pact. Their report presented to the 191 Cocanada Congress silently died. Mr. C.R. Das at the same time had reached polio cal and religious agreements with the Muslim leaders; but the same (1923) Congas rejected them because it felt that they included too many concessions. Sayyid statement (M.A. Jinnah, p. 108) that Mr. Lajpat Rai in his analysis went beyond the federation proposal presented by Hasrat Mohani would imply that some non Muslims agreed that separation was the only solution that Great Britain is unequivocally pledged to the policy of granting to India full responsible government with Dominion status. . . .”[61]

That his, apart from other leaders’, urgent plea carried some weight in the British Government decision for Dominion Status announced on 31 October 1929, is not unlikely. That he disagreed with any separatist idea is clear from his early September 1931 Bombay declaration: “‘I am an Indian first and a Muslim afterwards’”[62]  By then he had settled in London whither he had sailed to attend[63] the first Round Table Conference (12 November 193C-19 January 1931) called. by the Government to hammer out India’s future constitution. Its relatively successful conclusion caused Mr. Jinnah to reassert his long and deeply felt Indian nationalism on his few days’ cited visit to Bombay. He nevertheless returned to London, which now was his home and where he practiced before the Pnvy Council. His hope for a settlement lessened because the second (7 September-1 December 19:1) which he attended,[64] and the third Round Table Conferences (17 November-24 December 1932), to which last one he was not invited, failed to solve the thorny communal representation issue. He further-more did not fully approve the British Government’s 1932 Communal Award announcement[65] because it legitimised the schism for which he held his co-religionists and the Hindus responsible. He in fact criticized during his brief 1932 Oxford visit[66] the “spineless people” found “in the Muslim camp” and accused the Hindus for being “short-sighted and I think incorrigible.” He asked: “‘Where is, between these two groups, any place for a man like me?’[67] “The reason for his verdict was the former’s, including the nationalist Muslims’, insistence on a communal solution to assure adequate safeguards in all elected bodies, and the Congress refusal to come to any immediate decision which, announced only in June 1934, favoured “neutrality” on this key issue.[68] Mr. Jinnah brooding over his country’s situation in London still rejected schism, which apparently was favoured by the British Government by 1933, and probably earlier.[69] Chaudhri Rahmat Ali, while at Cambridge University, circulated a pamphlet, entitled Now or Never, on 26 January 1935. It for the first time contained the name “Pakistan”! Did it reflect Government’s official view?[70] As late as 1935, Mr. Jinnah would denounce “the Pakistan movement” as “a crazy scheme”.[71]

A few months later, in April 1933,[72] a joint parliamentary committee began its review of the London Conferences and the Simon Commission’s proposals so as to develop a draft constitution; it ended its work on 22 November 1934. The voices for Mr. Jinnah’s return to India meanwhile had grown so insistent[73] that he no longer could ignore them. The reasons were : the League’s nearly defunct state; the death or retirement of other prominent Muslims[74] leaving Islamic India leaderless; his Bombay Muslim constituency’s preference for him as their legislative representative; and the nation-wide recognition of his political and parliamentary qualifications, the respect in which he was held, and his popularity. Although he sailed home in April 1934,[75] and was re-elected in that year to the Bombay Legislature,[76] he did not return finally until the beginning of 1935, to take his seat.

The expert administrator began to reorganise the All-India Muslim League at the centre, but its revival actually is dated in April 1936 when it reconvened under Sir Wazir Hasan’s presidency at Bombay and authorised Mr. Jinnah to set up and preside over Its Central Par­liamentary Board with branches to “fight the elections”[77] under the new Government of India Act[78] announced on 2 August 19.55 and taking effect on 1 April 1937. Mr. Jinnah travelled across the land to found the said branches and to win support for the League from the provincial Muslim leaders.[79] It nevertheless fared badly.[80] In the 1936 elections. Congress triumphed,[81] causing Jawaharlal Nehru to state that the Congress and the British were the only two parties in India. A disagreeing Mr. Jinnah added the Muslims and the Indian Princes.[82]

He said on the eve of the National Convention of the Congress held in March 1937 called by its President, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, at Delhi:

“‘I have often said that I am trying to see that Muslims should wholeheartedly and sincerely adhere to the policy and programme of the All-India Muslim League, which is both national and patriotic, and we shall always be glad to co-operate with the Congress in their con­structive programme. . . . In conclusion, I say : Let us now concentrate on those causes which stand in the way of a united front.’”[83]Although he stressed that the League was the only truly national Muslim representative body, which he decided needed to be trans-formed from a middle class into a popular organ, he nevertheless kept alive his long hope for settling outstanding issues amicably with Congress. By late July 1937 he said: “…nobody will welcome an honourable settlement between the Hindus and the Muslims more than I, and nobody will be so ready to help it…”[84] Until that time, he had resisted “the two-nation theory” causing Dr Iqbal to ask him in his letter of 28 May 1937: “Don’t you think the time for such a demand has already arrived?”[85] When Congress rejecting his co-operation offer installed its ministries,[86] it crushed his hope for reaching a work-able compromise with Hindu leadership. He, therefore, followed Dr Iqbal’s suggestion—made right after the Congress President’s speech:

“‘You should immediately hold an All-India Muslim Convention in Delhi to which you should invite members of the new Provincial assemblies as well as other prominent Muslim leaders. To this Convention you must re-state as clearly and as strongly as possible the political objective of the Indian Muslims as a distinct political unity in the country…’”[87]

The Muslim Conference was held at Karachi in October 1938. Its Sind Resolution showed the new way by asserting “that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations.”[88] The Conference members also suggested to the League (President) that it (he) “review” the constitutional question. A sub-committee then wrote a Report stating that the only solution was to create an independent Islamic State whereby it followed the trend of political thought of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Lajpat Rai and Dr Iqbal. Mr. Jinnah after some hard thinking finally accepted its recommendation. He publicized his new stand in 1940! II. Mr. Jinnah, the Pakistan Patriot (1940-1948)

“No power on earth can prevent Pakistan.” That famed Lahore Resolution[89] pronounced by him as League President during its (annual) March 1940 session—it was moved by Fazl-ul-Haq who once again accepted the League as the national Indo-Muslim representative organization—indicates the fundamental change in Mr. Jinnah’s thought. It meant his acceptance of the “Pakistan scheme”. It deeply would affect Islamic India’s (and even Hind’s) future. It shook Congress whose members[90] well understood its implications.

Mr. Jinnah now worked harder than ever to obtain Muslim mass support for the League and convince as yet uncommitted provincial co-religionist leaders of the need to back it rather than their own par-ties His efforts would bear fruit. He also made it clear to everyone, including the Hindus and the British, that they would have to consider his organization as the only one nationally representing India’s Muslims and that it was fully committed to “the Pakistan scheme”,[91] He nevertheless continued his talks with other groups in order to obtain agreement concerning the division of powers guaranteeing proper Muslim status at the Centre in a federated India’s Constituent Assembly[92] The League nevertheless joined the Congress in observing “Deliverance Day” on 22 December 1939, and in rejecting the proposals presented by the Cripps’ Mission[93] which reached and left India respectively on 22 March and 12 April 1942, that is, amidst the Second World War.[94] The Congress reasons were its insistence upon the immediate rather than the post-war withdrawal of the British troops; and its objection to the provision of granting the option to any province or State to remain out of the “Union of India” and with British Government help devise a constitution giving it “similar status” to Hind. On the same day that Sir Stafford broadcast his “draft declaration,” viz, on 11 April--his first announcement came on 30 March—the League Working Committee passed and Mr. Jinnah publicised its resolution rejecting “one Indian Union” and “that the only solution of India’s constitutional problem is the partition of India into independent zones; and it will, therefore, be unfair to the Muslims to compel them to enter such a constitution-making body whose main object is the creation of a new Indian Union…”[95] He com­plained “that ‘the talks had been carried on with the Congress leaders over the heads of the Muslims, and other parties had been utterly ignored.’”[96] He thereby consistently followed his March 1940 declaration that they constitute a separate nation and the said Lahore Reso­lution. His reiteration of the League stand in response to the Cripps’ Mission provoked the Hindu feeling that Sir Stafford’s declaration was “an open invitation for Muslims to create a Pakistan,”[97] The reason for its withdrawal was lack of “sufficient support,” implying that the British Government itself was not prepared to back up Sir Stafford. After the Congress Working Committee’s 6 July 1942 Wardha resolu­tion approving “the Quit India movement,”[98] Mr. Jinnah severely criticised it for “blackmailing the British and coercing them to concede a system of government and transfer power to that government which would establish a Hindu Raj immediately . . . , thereby throwing the Muslims and other minorities and interests at the mercy of the Cong­ress Raj.”[99] These words reflect his anxiety, shared with many of his compatriots, that Hindu supremacy resulting from immediate independence would blot out the League and give the deathblow to its programme which at least since 1942 was supported by all non-League Muslim parties[100] as well. How strong that organisation had become between 1942 and 1943 is clear from (a) its gaining by late 1942 such important members as the Sindhi, Mr. Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah, who succeeded in pushing a resolution affirming that India’s Muslims form a separte nation and therefore are entitled to their independence through his provincial legislature in the fall of 1942; (b) the inclusion of two Leaguers—apart from one non-Leaguer and two Hindus—in his ministry installed at about the same time ; and (c) the establishment of its ministries as a result from the 1937-1943 provincial by-elections in Bengal[101] on 24 April and in the North-West Frontier Province on 25 May 1943.[102] Feeling the need for its reorganisation at the Centre and in the provinces in order to respond better and give further leadership, the League set up a Committee of Action and a Planning Committee during its December 1943 Karachi plenary session. Their job was to devise political and economic policies.[103] “Why should we not undertake planning ?” Mr. Jinnah had asked during his presidential speech. His question partly was motivated by the growing division,[104] and partly by the economic “clash between Hindu and Muslim interests,” causing many amongst the urban Muslim middle class “to work as labourers” or in petty Government jobs.[105] The aggravated Muslim-Hindu schism was apparently encouraged by the Viceroy[106] who undoubtedly supported by his Government actually forbade League-Congress negotiations by late 1942.[107]

The British nevertheless insisted on conserving India’s “territorial unity”. They thus practiced a double policy respectively of “divide and rule” and by professing the need for retaining the Union. Mr. Jinnah during the afore-mentioned December 1943 League session had reformulated the Pakistan Resolution in capsule form: “Divide and Quit”.[108] It responded to the country’s general longing for swaraj, within or without Dominion Status, and to the consensus of many Muslims except for those remaining Indian nationalists,[109] that separatism was the answer. To this end, he conferred with Mr. Gandhi between 9 and 27 September 1944.[110] They apparently disagreed on four major issues:[111]

(1) “a provincial government” to supervise a referendum in those provinces to be divided; partition; and boundary adjustments—rejected by Mr. Jinnah fearing that a Hindu administration in a free India might not honour such a commitment ;

(2) a referendum to be held amongst those provinces’ Muslim and Hindu inhabitants—Mr. Jinnah insisting on a Muslim plebiscite only in the affected regions ;

(3) “matters of common interest,” meaning “defence, foreign affairs” and “internal communications”—Mr. Jinnah asserting that they can be agreed upon only after separation; and

(4) the boundary issue, Mr. Gandhi envisaging a Pakistan consisting of “contiguous” Muslim-majority “Districts” embracing Sind, N.W.F.P., Baluchistan, parts of the Punjab and Bengal, and “one District in Assam” Mr. Jinnah complaining that “ ‘the present boundaries of these provinces would be maimed and mutilated beyond redemption and leave us only) with the husk.’”[112]

Mr. Gandhi asserting that he did not really represent Congress, whose members since July 1942 again had been jailed, gave Mr. Jinnah, despite his assertion that Mr. Gandhi nevertheless acted in such a capacity, the opportunity to claim that any settlement reached with him, therefore, would not be binding on that Hindu organisation.[113] Fearing virulent attacks upon him because these conferences failed, Mr. Gandhi instead was criticised severely by a “very bitter” Mahasabha, the angry Punjabi and Bengali Hindus, and the Sikhs un‑happy at the prospect of their stronghold’s (Punjab’s) division without their consultation and consent. The Mahasabha leader, Mr. V.D. Savarkar, cuttingly remarked: “‘The Indian provinces were not the private properties of Gandhiji and Rajaji so that they could make a gift of them to anyone they liked.’ Despite their strong resentment,[114] the partition tide could not be stopped. Mr. Jinnah announced on 27 September his deep regret that he could not come to terms with the Hindu party because, as he already had written in his 25 September letter to Mr. Gandhi, the Lahore Resolution’s main principles had been rejected. He added, however: “‘We trust that this is not the final end of our efforts.’”[115] While the new Viceroy, Lord Wavell, was intent on pursuing the setting up of an acceptable “transitional government,”[116] Sir Tej Bahadur and Mr. Gandhi took the initiative in calling for a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Non-Party Conference[117] on 19 November 1944, when it was decided to found a special committee “‘to examine the whole communal and minorities question from a constitutional and political point of view’”[118] and consult all parties concerned. Sir Tej, commissioned to appoint this “conciliation committee,” assured the press also on 19 November after the session that no member of a political party or anyone else known for his public statements on the communal issue would be appointed so as to lift it above partisan politics.[119] His request for a December meeting with the League President was declined. Mr. Jinnah frankly stated that he could recognise neither the Conference nor any of its committees, because their members mostly were Hindus, including Mahasabhais, while the few Muslims belonging to it were unrepresentative non-Leaguers.

Lord Wavell’s four Simla Conferences, held with a select group of communal representatives at the Viceregal Lodge between 25 and 27 June, and on 29 June 1945, too, were fruitless. So were his 27 June evening and 11 July[120] private talks with Mr. Jinnah. The chief stumbling blocks were his refusal to accept the Muslim leader’s demands for (a) the inclusion of five Leaguers instead of the Viceroy’s insistence upon four plus one independent Punjabi Muslim in the proposed Executive Council ; and (b) safeguards through possibly a three-fourth Council quorum to protect minority interests. The Britisher furthermore gave Mr. Jinnah to understand that, not as yet having consulted with Congress, he was uncertain whether that organisation would agree to his arrangements, including a double “parity” respectively between League and Congress, Muslims and Hindus in the said Council. During the last 14 July Simla gathering,[121] the Viceroy formally announced the failure of these Conferences. The line had been drawn! Islamic India’s mood can best be gauged from the joint non-League and Congress Muslims’ March 1945 memorandum to the Sapru Committee asserting “that they ‘concede the right of Self-Determination on a territorial basis.’”[122] Additional efforts made toward “the end of August 1945” by the nationalist Abul-Kalam Azad (1888-1950,[123] to effect “a communal settlement”[124] again floundered on the key issues of the composition of the Executive Council and Interim Government Mr. Jinnah again insisting on Leaguers only—distribution of powers and adequate minority safeguards in these supreme bodies. India’s Muslims by fall 1945 were closer than ever to “their goal of a separate State.”[125]

The Congress nevertheless still refused to acknowledge that the Union could not be saved.[126] Mr. Azad’s attempts timed with Lord Wavell’s 21 August 1945 announcment[127] that elections would be held “in the cold weather,” in preparation for independence, which the Indian leaders hailed. Mr. Jinnah touring mostly North-West India urged his constituents chiefly concentrated in that part of Hind and in Bengal: “‘Vote for a Muslim Leaguer even if it be a lamp-post’”![128] The results announced by late December 1945 showed League triumphs, for it won all of the thirty Muslim seats in the Central Legislative Assembly,[129] and 427 out of a combined total of 507 such seats in the provincial parliaments.[130] The All-India Muslim League declared 11 January 1946 as its Victroy Day. Its President, for whom its sweep was a personal success, undauntedly declared to a (British) Parliamentary Delegation having arrived on 5 January his conditions for entering an Interim Government, namely: its acceptance of (a) Pakistan; (b) “parity” as stated by Lord Wavell during their previous year’s private meetings; and (c) two constituent assemblies (respectively for Pakistan and India). The Viceroy in his 28 January seven-minute address to the newly elected Central Legislature announced his Government’s intention to set up one such body. Mr. Jinnah on 4 April pointed out to the Cabinet Mission,[131] which had reached New Delhi on 24 March and would leave on 29 June, that they, the Secretary of State for India and Parliament, ignoring India’s composite nature erred in regarding Hind as one indivisible land. He furthermore stood by the 1940 Pakistan Resolution. His stand was re-affirmed by the 8 and 10 April (1946) Delhi-held Muslim Convention—Composed of then recently elected legislators which passed a resolution moved by the Bengali minister, Mr. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy (1893-1963), favouring a v holly independent instead of an autonomous Indian-Union-contained Pakistan. They furthermore agreed that “ ‘the zones comprising Bengal and Asam in the north-east and the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan in the north-west of India, namely, Pakistan zones, where the Muslims are in a dominant majority, be constituted into a sovereign independent State.’”[132] Their resolution embodied and further crystallized all previous proposals for Pakistan’s geographical composition.[133] It would bear fruit exactly thirteen months after the July 1946 elections to the provincial assembly with this differ­ence that the Punjab and Bengal would be divided. It consequently could form ministries in Bengal[134] and in Sind,[135] but for lack of a full majority could not do so in the Punjab[136] and in the N.W.F.P.,[137]

Where Hindus out of their numerical proportion and strong provincialism formed obstacles. As future events showed, their Muslim constituents were pro-Pakistan. Yet, the 16 May 1946 Cabinet Mission statement (“Plan”) rejected partition, preferred a “Union of India” with single executive and one legislature, advanced the principle of a Federal and Province-grouping each province being allowed to have its own “executives and legislatures”.[138] Communications a foreign affairs and defence were to remain under Central control; while the “group government” would deal with subjects delegated to them by the respective provincial assemblies. Congress already having resolved at its 6 July 1946 Bombay session to enter the new Constituent Assembly--after ratifying its Working Committee Resolution rejected the grouping principle.[139] Toward the end of that month, elections to the 290-seat Constituent Assembly had taken place. Lord Wavell wrote a letter to Messrs Nehru as Congress[140] and Mr. Jinnah as League President on 22 July asserting that (a) each party will “have an equitable share of the most important portfolios”; (b) once they have submitted names of their respective candidates and entered the Government, such a portfolio distribution would be made; (c) a coalition could work only if both parties assent to iron out the “major communal issues”.[141]

Mr. Nehru, asserting that the Cabinet Plan could be changed as Cong­ress wished and that foreign affairs included currency, customs and even foreign trade, invited criticism from Mr. Azad and put off the League and its President. Its Council, therefore, and because of fear of Hindu control, rejected the Cabinent Plan at its 27 July Bombay meeting when it also decided on direct action and on renouncing the titles of all of its members. Mr. Jinnah replying on 31 July to the Viceroy’s 22 July letter formally advised him of the League Council decision. Lord Wave]] answering on 2 August expressed his regret, re-assured his eminent Muslim correspondent once more concerning adequate minority representation and safeguards—although he could not promise a three fourth quorum as one way to effect that no measure would be adopted against the will of any small group -and informed him at the same time that he had asked Congress to initiate steps toward forming an Interim Government. On 16 August, three days after Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru had accepted this request, the League organised “Direct Action Day”. Its President nevertheless continued his conferences with the British authority and Hindu leaders. He wrote to the Viceroy on 13 October[142] that since his request for the inclusion of five Leaguers in the Interim Government, installed at New Delhi on 2 December with Mr. Nehru as its President, and it would be contrary to “‘interests of Mussulmans and other communities . . . to leave the entire field of administration of the Central Government in the hands of the Congress… we have decided to nominate” them.[143]

After his ensuing interview, in which Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan (1895-1951)[144] accompanied him, with the Viceroy, Mr. Jinnah appointed the Leaguers[145] on 14 October. A formal press communique publicising the League’s decision to enter the Interim Government—which was reconstituted to accommodate its new members on 15 October was released on that same day. It was welcomed “with relief” and raised the hope that the Union still would be saved. Now the question of portfolios had to be straightened out. The Viceroy suggested that either the Home or External Affairs or Defence portfolio ought to be transferred to the League. The Congress leaders objected.[146] They instead offered Law, Communications, Health and Finance, believing “that the League would not be able to manage Finance and would have to decline the offer”.[147] Mr. Jinnah half-heartedly accepted the Finance portfolio because he was not sure whether anyone in his Cabinent could handle this awsome responsibility. When Chaudhry Muhammad Ali of the Finance Department heard the news, however, he “immediately” called his chief, told him that it was an unexpected “windfall” and promised to assist in these duties. Mr. Jinnah thereupon consulted and appointed. Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan as his Finance Minister.[148] Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan not only could scrutinise every single measure, but could control appointments, meaning interference in “every Department,” and, holding the veto, he could dictate Government policy. It thus gave him extraordinary powers.

The new Interim Government, including the Leaguers, formally took office on 26 October. Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan, however, said that it “‘consisted of a Congress bloc and a Muslim bloc, each functioning under separate leadership’”.[149] The League obviously rejected Mr. Nehru’s presidency. Although it now formed part of the transitional Government, it still had not entered the Constituent Assembly. The Viceroy advised Minister Liaqat Ali Khan on 20 November that the League could not stay in the Government without also joining the Assembly. A final London conference[150] held on 2-6 December—attended by him and Mr. Jinnah as League representatives and Messrs Jawaharlal Nehru and Baldev Singh as Congress delegates—Mr. Singh being the Sikh emissary—failed to produce any concrete results. Amongst the chief reasons were the Congress leaders regretting their Finance offer trying to change their previous commitment and Mr. Nehru’s said redefinition of foreign affairs. The League rejecting this approach remained insistent on necessary safeguards, so that no law contrary to the well-being of Muslim or other minority, and preference, would be passed, and on an adequate balance of power in the Assembly as at the Centre. The British Government had no choice but to announce the intensive Conferences’ failure on 6 December. The problem also was that each party gave its own interpretation[151] to the principles of the Cabinet Mission Plan and that section of the 6 December “statement” referring to “part of the country,” which Mr. Nehru understood in terms of “parts of a province”. The League consequently was absent from the opening (9 December) and sub­sequent sessions of the Constituent Assembly.

During 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, the events in Indiat[152] rushed to their conclusion. The Congress-League[153] dissent continued. That Hindu body sent its first demand that the League, because of its refusal to join the constitution-making organ, resign from the Interim Government, to the Viceroy on 5 February. Mr. Nehru repeated this demand in his 13 February letter to Lord Wavell and added the Congress threat that it would leave both unless the League withdrew. He had created an “either/or”[154] situa­tion. The Congress nevertheless did not follow up its threat and the said Assembly proceeded with its constitution-drafting work. It and the British leader(s) admitted, however, that such a Charter “could not be imposed on the unwilling Muslim-majority provinces.)[155] Prime Minister Attlee’s[156] 20 February 1947 statement to Parliament[157] announcing the desire of King George V to grant independence to India not later than by June 1948, and that a new Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, sympathetic to his cousin’s preference, would oversee the “peaceful transfer of power,” augured in the last months of hectic negotiations toward that end. Immediately upon his arrival[158] at New Delhi on 22 March, he began his innumerable consultations, including another 8-10 May round of Simla Conferences He meanwhile had received a new plan[159] replacing the Cabinet Mission Proposals, from London. The “Mountbatten Plan,” as it became known, provided for: partition between Islamic and Hindu India, as well as between the Punjab and Bengal; the right of every province to seek its own destiny; of the States to secede, become fully independent from the Indian Union, and have their own respective constitutions. It further involved the setting up of a new successor Dominion, viz. Pakistan Government, in addition to the existing Indian Dominion Administration; the creation of a second Constituent Assembly ; and the development of an interim Charter. Mr. Jinnah and the League objected[160]. The January 1947 unrest in the Punjab provoked by the Government’s forbidding its voluntary Muslim National Guards corps also affected the N.W.F.P. to provincial division on a communal basis; Mr. Nehru and Congress16o rejected those provisions particularly relating to the options given to all provinces and States to secede as they would undermine India’s geographical and political unity and endanger some of its strategic areas. He warned that it would arouse enmity between his country and Great Britain. Both leaders, as well as the then Congress President, Mr. J.B. Kripalani, and Mr. Baldev Singh, apart from other notables,[161] not only accepted the Plan after the conference held at the Viceroy’s House on 2-3 June, but also Lord Mountbatten’s suggestion that the independence date should be predated to 1947 in accordance with the “Statement’s” new clause under paragraph 20 headed “Immediate Transfer of Power”. Other questions discussed related to “notional partition,” to safeguard Sikh interests, referendum inclusive of Calcutta, the tasks of the Boundary Commission, devolution of power on a Dominion basis. The Viceroy then broadcast over India Radio on the evening of 3 June the decisions taken, after a brief review of his con­sultations; Messrs Jinnah, Nehru and Baldev Singh respectively on behalf of the A11-India Muslim League, ALL-India National Congress, and the Sikh community followed him to publicise their consent to the new proposals. The League Council and Congress ratified the 3 June Plan, as it also became known, respectively on 10 and 14 June. Prime Minister Attlee simultaneously broadcast His Majesty’s Government decision[162] that failing any League-Congress agreement, “partition becomes the inevitable alternative”. Its next step was to draft the “Indian Independence Bill”.[163] Having passed the Commons on 15 July and the House of Lords on the next day, it received Crown assent on 18 July. It stipulates “the fifteenth day of August, 1947” as the Day on which “two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan”. Meanwhile, a referendum was held in the legislatures of the affected provinces. Its results are well known: the Punjabi[164] and Bengali,[165] Muslims, together with those of and Sind,[166] opted to join Pakistan. And so it came to be that they officially formed the sovereign the N.W.F.P.,[167] Baluchistan[168] Islamic Republic of Pakistan on le August. Lor Mountbatten, having appoint­ed Mr. Jinnah as their country’s first native Governor-General (with the King’s blessings), had flown from New Delhi to Karachi on 14 August to inaugurate the newly independent country’s Constituent Assembly.

The 15^th of August was the greatest triumph for Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah who drove amidst a jubilant crowd through Karachi. It was a personal homecoming for the architect of Pakistan. His grateful people honoured him during his life by bestowing upon him the title of Quaid i-Azam and post-mortem by building his magnificent mausoleum overlooking his native city and by celebrating his birth centennial!

Conclusions

Two diverse currents bore on the Quaid-i-Azam’s thought formation. He was born under Islam conceiving of socially concerned and responsible humans being as God’s vicegerents on earth. It, therefore, teaches not only obedience to His Revelation, but also active involve­ment in life. It spawned the zest of the eat her free Muslim generations resulting in their attainment of eminence in the sciences as in law and government, in literature as in manuscript illumination, in music as in architectural design.

English education involving politics and law, philosophy and (Western) history, literature and social sciences, stressed independent and critical analysis as well as the individual’s worth and rights, and Eulogized a free and moral society. The Muslims, too, had self-esteem and exercised these faculties. If the Mongol onslaught had under• mined their rationalistic spirit, colonialism dampened their creativity and their hope, Western schooling revived the critical faculty and its daring novel reconstruction[169] of the Qur’anic principles. Modernism, in fact, implied a total re-analysis. Although Mr. Jinnah was not a philosopher, he nevertheless was influenced by this Muslim school of thought emerging during the nineteenth century.[170] European training furthermore stirred in him (as in others who experienced it) a strong desire to strive toward selfhood (khudi). Dr Muhammad Iqbal defined it in terms of self-respect, involving also taking a new attitude, and of intensive activity.[171] The Western stream of thought thus released and reinforced the Islamic doctrine and conception of the in­dividual. Mr. Jinnah being a sensitive and brilliant student deeply absorbed the said aspects of his own and foreign tradition. He furthermore belonged to the new Muslim middle-class intelligentsia which began to develop as a result of participating in this novel European training toward the end of the nineteenth century. They took the initiative that led to the first Simla Deputation in 1906, demanding safeguards through separate electorates for their co-religionists, and, by that year’s end, to the founding of the All-India Muslim League to give them their own nation-wide representation. Mr. Jinnah’s associa­tion with Congress, instead of this League, between 1906 and 1913, meant his total acceptance of that Hindu body’s platform: swaraj. He joined the League only after it incorporated independence in its resolution. His continued Congress membership (until 1920 reflected his other main desire : to retain Hindu-Musiim cooperation and Indian unity, to which the 1916 Lucknow Pact attests. His resignation from Congress did not mean his abandonment of this aim, which he nourished even after his change of mind in 1940 One facet of his personality must be stressed: his unflinching adherence to a principle once he had embraced it. That was as true of swaraj and unity, as it was, after 1940, of his full dedication to the Pakistan Resolution. He henceforth gave all his talents, energies, efforts, and time to rebuilding the League and I shaping it into the most repectable national Muslim organisation for the purpose of carrying through its new platform. It is furthermore to his credit that he won the confidence of the most eminent and fiercely independent provincial Muslim leaders during the 1940’s (and even before). Their willing cooperation helped carry the A11-India Muslim League platform to victory in 1947! Nearly thirty years have now passed. Much has been said and written about the Quaid-i-Azam and the many leading mostly deceased—personalities whom he knew personally. What ultimately caused the Muslim-Hindu disagreements? Mr. Jinnah as early as 1920 held the British Government intimately responsible for sowing discard. He accused Lord Wavell of changing the balance of power in the Cabinet by adding one more non-Muslim than originally agreed upon, implying that the British did not always keep their promises. Indian notables even today point to the British divide-and-rule policies, including the holding of private interviews with and making contrary promises to one and then another individual.[172] Communalism sparked by colonialism in any case blocked the development of a secular two-party system possibly desired by Mr. Jinnah similar to that found hitherto in the United States of America.

The final question: Could partition have been prevented? remains.

If one takes the view of history that no human can oppose, but must swim with, its tide, then what occurred had to happen. If one assumes the opposite view that individuals with leadership qualities play an active rule in shaping the events, then the conclusion is that particularly the 1940-1947 years were a kind of chess game in which each player made his moves and tried to overcome his opponent. Mr. Jinnah won, for an independent Pakistan came to be:

“‘Such glory shall the man of clay

Own far above the angels’ light

That with big star of destiny

He’ll make the earth like heaven bright.’”[173] 

NOTES