Daily Times

Today as we celebrate our independence day, it would help us to revisit the life and legacy of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and how it was that this most liberal and secular of leaders came to be the maker of Pakistan, ostensibly a separatist Muslim demand. He joined politics in the Congress Party in 1904 as an Indian Nationalist and a moderate. Congress itself was roughly divided into two camps, moderates and extremists. The moderate camp was led by GopalKrishanGokhale and the extremist camp was led by BalGangadharTilak, both of whom Jinnah enjoyed excellent relations with. The former he wanted to emulate and the latter he represented in the famous Tilak Sedition Case where he won an acquittal for his comrade from the Bombay High Court. Within the Congress he unflinchingly stood for the struggle for self-rule through constitutional means.  In 1906 when a group of influential Muslims petitioned the Viceroy for separate electorates, Jinnah was amongst the loudest critics of the proposition. In 1910 Jinnah, as a Congressman, defeated a Muslim League candidate to become the representative of Bombay’s urban Muslim constituency. He was admitted to the Viceroy’s Council where he forwarded the cause of self-rule and greater Indianization of the bureaucracy. Jinnah also spoke fervently in support of Gandhi’s movement in South Africa against racial injustice meted out to the Indians there.

The demand for Pakistan was an attempt to arrive at a power sharing agreement between Muslims and Hindus, which formed the two main communities of the subcontinent.  It was also a rebellion against any constitutional formula that would perpetuate caste Hindu rule in the country, a common grievance of not only Muslims but also lower caste Hindus and the scheduled castes

In 1913, encouraged by his Congress colleagues, Jinnah also joined the All India Muslim League on the condition that his work there would not hamper or in any way come before his commitment to the Indian national cause to which his life was dedicated.  The idea was to bring Muslim League closer to the point of view of the Congress on the issue of Indian self-rule, something which Jinnah delivered.  Not only was the Muslim League’s aims amended to include the demand for self rule but in 1916 Muslim League entered into the Lucknow Pact with the Congress – a veritable charter of Hindu Muslim Unity aimed at achieving a self governing Indian dominion.  Such was his repute and his nationalism, that he was widely hailed as the “Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity” by leading Indian politicians including Sarojini Naidu, the poetess and Congress leader.  In 1918, Jinnah’s services, especially in the Town Hall agitation against Governor Willingdon, were recognized and a hall dedicated in his name through subscription by citizens of Bombay.

Things began to change with the advent of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on the Indian scene.  Upon his return from South Africa, Gandhi initially scorned the efforts of the Congress and Indian Nationalists arguing for unconditional loyalty to the crown.  By 1919 however Gandhi came to dominate the Congress and the Home Rule League, after having been nominated as president of the latter by none other than Jinnah.  Gandhi felt that the masses could only be mobilized through an appeal to religion, both for Hindus and Muslims. He gave the call for non-cooperation and began using the Hindi vernacular and religious idiom for the Hindus. As for Muslims he began championing the cause of Khilafat, which he said was the only way to save the cow from the Muslim knife.  Cow protection Gandhi said was the central plank of Hindu faith and that by championing the Muslim cause he aimed to convince Muslims to give up cow slaughter.  Gandhi also urged the Anglicized elites, lawyers and professionals in the Congress to give up western clothing and instead use home spun Khadi.

Jinnah was alarmed by this blatant and unrestrained use of religion by Congress’ new leader. His attempts to get Congress to reconsider Gandhi’s motions on non-cooperation and Khilafat ended in failure. He then tried to reason with Gandhi informing him that his policy would turn Hindus against Muslims, and Muslims against other Muslims.  Gandhi however was convinced that his way was the right way, and with the help of his new found supporters who now swelled the ranks of Congress, many of them pious Muslims, Gandhi maneuvered Jinnah’s exit from the party.  This was the beginning of the long road that ended with the partition of the country.  There were many stops on the way. In response to the Nehru Report, which was denounced by the then Muslim leadership, Jinnah, playing the role of the bridge builder, attempted once again to bring Congress and the League together on one platform with his Delhi proposals which would have conceded joint electorates and resolved the Hindu Muslim question.  However his proposals were summarily dismissed by the Congress, which questioned his representative credentials.  It was then that Jinnah was firmly forced into the Muslim camp led by Aga Khan and his colleagues. With his faith in Hindu Muslim Unity bright as ever, Jinnah began to work to prove his representative status. In 1936 as the President of the Muslim League, he made radical changes to the party re-organizing it along modern lines and giving it a manifesto that was very close in spirit to that of the Congress.  In 1937 after the elections Jinnah attempted once more to get Congress to agree to coalition ministries in UP and Bombay, but he was spurned yet again.  Now he began to cobble together coalitions in the Muslim majority provinces where the League had done badly. By 1940, when the Lahore Resolution was passed, Jinnah had managed to bring under the League umbrella the powerful premiers of Punjab and Bengal. He could now effectively claim to speak for Muslims of India at the center.

The demand for Pakistan was not based on religion per se. This is a fallacy that has been propagated by supporters and critics of Pakistan alike.  The demand for Pakistan was an attempt to arrive at a power sharing agreement between Muslims and Hindus, which formed the two main communities of the subcontinent.  It was also a rebellion against any constitutional formula that would perpetuate caste Hindu rule in the country, a common grievance of not only Muslims but also lower caste Hindus and the scheduled castes. This is why Muslim League was supported at key junctures by Dalit leadership, Christians and even some Hindus. The idea was not to have two separate majoritarian states born out of a bloody partition but to re-constitute India along a Hindustan and a Pakistan, which would then come together in a federation of India.  This is why Jinnah, the ardent partitionist of our imagining, jumped at the idea of the Cabinet Mission Plan.  Cabinet Mission Plan was a consociationalist solution that would have – if allowed to run- in due course laid the foundations of a truly secular society in the subcontinent, where the overarching ambitions of Hindu and Muslim elites could be checked by effective safeguards.  Unfortunately the proposal was shelved owing to the centralizing priorities of the then Congress leadership, which denounced the plan as worse than partition.   In 1947 Pakistan and India were born as two separate dominions.  Though one claims to be an Islamic Republic and the other a secular one, both countries have an atrocious record in treatment of minorities. Both are majoritarian states, which marginalize minority groups from effective governance as well as a share in the economic pie.

It is therefore important to underscore Jinnah’s vision for the country, which he repeatedly propounded in several of his statements but most notably and unambiguously on 11 August 1947 wherein he envisaged a modern secular and democratic state, which while a Muslim majority state would none the less work towards eliminating such distinctions and create a unified Pakistani nation.

Published in Daily Times, August 14^th 2017.