Daily Times

Last week, we read that Allama Iqbal had instructed Colonel (retd) Amjad Hussain Syed and Hameed Nizami to meet Jinnah whenever he came to Lahore. This is what Shahji told me about his meeting with Jinnah:

“In 1936, Jinnah came to Lahore in connection with a case at the Lahore High Court (LHC). We learnt that he was staying at the Faletti’s Hotel. We went there and were told that we should talk to his personal assistant, Mr Lobo. We found Mr Lobo in the lobby and said, “Assalam-u-laikum” but he replied, “Good morning, what can I do for you?” Now, I found that to be very peculiar — a Muslim leader having a Christian personal assistant! In our broken English we conveyed to him that we were students of Islamia College and that Allama Iqbal had sent us to see Barrister Jinnah. Mr Lobo smiled and said, “Mr Jinnah is no ordinary person. He is a very busy and important man. There are many people lining up to see him. One needs an appointment to see him and the earliest appointment you two could be given would be tomorrow.” We were too excited to wait till the next day so we implored him to just let us catch a glimpse of Barrister Jinnah. He told us to wait while he checked with his boss. To our very great surprise he came back and said that Mr Jinnah had agreed to meet us but strictly for five minutes.

When we entered the room we saw Barrister Jinnah sitting on a sofa. It felt as if floodlights were on, he exuded that much radiance. He was immaculately dressed and looked supreme. He looked at us and said, “Yes, boys, what can I do for you?” We replied in whatever English we could manage, “Sir, we are humble students. We are devotees of Allama Iqbal. He has instructed us to see you and do whatever you tell us to do without asking any questions.” He seemed both pleased and amused and then enquired, “Have you taken permission from your college to see me?” We said, “No, sir.” He then asked if we were office bearers of the students’ union and enjoyed some protocol and authority. We replied in the negative once again. He then said to us, “Go to your principal and get a formal invitation for me. If I have time I will visit Islamia College.” We wanted to shake hands with him, but Jinnah refused to shake hands with us. When we came out I said to Hameed Nizami, “He is a narr mard (real man). He is a man of few words. What he says, he means. He is a man of destiny.”

Then we went to our principal, Mr B A Qureshi, and told him that we had met Jinnah and wanted to invite him to the college. He became angry and said we were mischief-mongers. Jinnah was a politician; why should he be coming to our college? In those days, Punjab was under the rule of the Punjab Unionist Party. We replied that Allama Iqbal had ordered us to go and see him. We urged him to find out from the head of the Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam (the patron body of Islamia College) if we could invite Mr Jinnah to the college. To our great shock, we were told that the president of the Anjuman had ordered us to be rusticated from the college.

That created a stir as we were not allowed to enter the college. We gained the sympathy of many students. Among them was Abdus Sattar Khan Niazi. He was a man of fiery temperament. The students went on strike, which lasted for three days. After about two weeks the principal summoned us and told us that we had been reinstated. In those days the Muslim League was not a major player in Punjab politics. Iqbal was the president and the secretary was Khan Ghulam Rasul Khan who lived on Temple Road. One day, we were informed that Khan sahib wanted us to see him. When we met him he asked us if we had some relatives in the Muslim League. We told him that we did not and that we were just poor students who were devotees of Allama Iqbal. Upon hearing this he said, “You have been invited by Barrister Jinnah personally to attend the Lucknow session of the Muslim League (held in 1937 after the provincial elections in which the Muslim League had fared very badly). Here are two third-class railway tickets for you.”

In Lucknow we met Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan who said to us, “So, you are the two naughty boys from Lahore. You have been nominated as members of the executive committee, which shall prepare the future line of action of Muslim politics in India.” All this was beyond our wildest expectations. Besides Jinnah and Liaquat, other members of the committee who I remember included Prime Minister of Punjab Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, Abdullah Haroon from Sindh, Haji Sattar Seth from Madras, Chowdhury Fazlul Haq from Bengal, Nawab Ismail Khan, Begum Mohammad Ali, and Maulana Hasrat Mohani from UP and CP, and from Punjab Maulana Zafar Ali Khan as well. Barrister Jinnah said to Hasrat Mohani, “Maulana, you once introduced a resolution in the Congress working committee demanding the freedom of India from British rule. Now, you must introduce a resolution for the freedom of Mussalmans.”

Now, while the deliberations were going on, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan interrupted us and said a pause was needed so that he and others could offer the Isha prayers. Jinnah reacted with visible irritation and said, “Look Maulana, we are discussing the freedom of the Mussalmans and you are concerned only with prayers. You can go out and perform them but we shall continue our meeting.” During that historic session on one public occasion Mian Ferozdin Kaada from Lahore’s walled city raised the slogan, ‘Shehanshah-e-Hindustan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’. Jinnah responded, “I am not shehanshah of Hindustan; I am only a servant of the Mussalmans of India.” The title Quaid-e-Azam, however, came to be associated with him thereafter. Its inventor was Mian Ferozdin Kaada of Lahore.”

(To be continued)

The writer is a visiting professor, LUMS, Pakistan, professor emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University, and honorary senior fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Latest publications: Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Book award at the Karachi Literature Festival: The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, Oxford, 2012; and Pakistan: The Garrison State, Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Oxford, 2013. He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com