Jinnah – Beyond the Pages…

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“No nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

As the month of August arrives, the most important day shared and celebrated by both Indians and Pakistanis, is the – Independence Day. While the 14^th and 15^th of August, bring with them joyful memories of freedom from the 150-year-old oppressive British rule for the two countries, these memories are often marred by the tales of despair and grief of those who fled from their homelands in search of asylum. When we think back to the creation of these two 75-year-old nations, the two most prominent leaders who come to our minds are Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Through the course of this article, I aim to bring forth the extremely fascinating personal and political life of Jinnah, mainly – his story and life beyond the ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ of Pakistan.

A portrait of Jinnah’s father – Jinnahbhai Poonja

The year is 1876; the location – a small, rented apartment on the second floor of the Wazir Mansion in Karachi, Bombay Presidency of British India. Mahomedali Jinnahbhai, was born to the couple Jinnahbhai Poonja and his wife Mithibai, most likely on 25^th December 1876 (although this date is subject to contention now), as the second child of their eight children. Jinnah’s parents were natives of the village of Paneli (now in Kathiawar, Gujarat), and came from a family of textile weavers. Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved to Karachi because the city was enjoying an economic boom at the time. While most of the siblings grew up speaking Kutchi, Gujarati and English fluently, Jinnah preferred to converse in English more than either of his mother-tongues – Urdu & Gujarati. As of today, we know very little about any of Jinnah’s siblings except his sister Fatima Jinnah, who also went on to become a prominent face in Pakistani politics.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah with his sister and confidante Fatima Ali Jinnah; (Left) – circa 1947, (Right) – circa 1948

As he grew up, the 16-year-old Jinnah was offered an apprenticeship at the firm Graham’s Shipping and Trading Company, by the owner who also happened to be a close friend of Jinnah’s father. Despite his mother’s strong opposition, Jinnah chose to take this job but not before his mother arranged for a suitable ‘match’ for him. And so, in 1892 Mahomedali Jinnahbhai married his first cousin from his native village in Gujarat – Emibai Jinnah, who passed away merely a few months later, when Jinnah was still abroad. Barely a few months after his arrival in London, Jinnah gave up his business apprenticeship in order to pursue a degree in law, an act, that for obvious reasons, enraged his father. With enough money to survive in a foreign country for almost 3 years, Jinnahbhai enrolled himself in Lincoln’s Inn. It was during his course of study here, that Jinnah decided to drop the ‘bhai’ from his surname, officially changing his name to – Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

The only surviving picture of Emibai Jinnah, Muhammad Jinnah’s first wife

During his brief stay at London, Jinnah also met ‘The Grand Old Man of India’ – Dadabhai Naoroji, who was the First Asian to become a member of the British Parliament. He had the privilege to hear Dadabhai’s very first speech in the House of Commons from the visitor’s gallery. As he interacted and assisted Dadabhai during the 3 years he spent there, the young Jinnah discovered a passion for nationalist politics and at the age of 19, he became the youngest British Indian to be called to the bar in England. The very next year Jinnah returned to Mumbai, and became the only Muslim barrister in the city.

While we now remember Jinnah chiefly as the founder of Pakistan, his career as a barrister was also extremely impressive and successful. In one such incident, when Jinnah’s factional nemesis in the Indian National Congress,Balgangadhar Tilak was arrested in 1916, on the charge of sedition, he came to Tilak’s aid and succeeded in obtaining a bail for him. One of Jinnah’s associate in the Bombay High Court recalled that –

“Jinnah’s faith in himself was incredible”

Jinnah’s co-worker

Narrating one such occurrence, Jinnah’s aid recounted that when the judge slammed Jinnah by saying – “Mr. Jinnah, remember that you are not addressing a third-class magistrate”; a seething Jinnah snapped – “My Lord, allow me to warn you that you are not addressing a third-class pleader.”

Jinnah as a barrister

In yet another such incidence, when Jinnah was arguing a case in the Bombay High Court, the presiding British Judge interrupted him several times by exclaiming, “Rubbish!”. A furious Jinnah shot back – ‘Your honour, nothing but rubbish has passed your mouth all morning.’ Impressed by such a gutsy display of behaviour a judicial member of the Bombay provincial government, offered Jinnah a permanent employment in 1901 at a salary of ₹1,500. But Jinnah refused, declaring, almost prophetically, that he would earn that amount in a day.

What made Jinnah so popular in the country was his ability to push British officials to an extent of utter frustration, but not enough to get him expelled and completely out of the political foreground. He learnt to strike a balance very early in his political career, something that proved to be extremely handy later on.

Jinnah in 1910

Contrary to popular belief, in his early years, Jinnah was actually one of the main voices to fight against the secular divisions created by British government. An active and successful member of the INC from the very beginning, he had resisted joining the Muslim League until 1913, seven years after its establishment. The Lucknow Conference of 1916 was one of Jinnah’s first political victory. He presided over this session on behalf of both, the League and the Congress, and was successful in bridging the Hindu-Muslim gap, albeit temporarily. Notably, this was the closest the two parties ever came. At this point, Jinnah described himself as ‘a staunch Congressman’ who had ‘no love for sectarian cries’.

The first major sign of a divide between Jinnah and Gandhi was evident in the issue over the ‘Khilafat Movement’ (which was aimed at forcing the British government to retain the Ottoman Caliphate, a spiritual leader to most Muslims). Jinnah saw this movement as an endorsement of religious fanaticism, while Gandhi was a staunch supporter. Soon enough, Jinnah started drifting away from the Congress’s ideals and began to lean towards the Muslim League, which, up until now, had very little power in the subcontinent – a situation that would soon change drastically with Jinnah’s arrival in the party.

(Left) – Jinnah and Gandhi arguing in 1939; (Right) – Gandhi and Jinnah in Bombay, circa 1944

It was in the year 1918, that Jinnah decided to remarry, this time to a Parsi girl – Rattanbai (Ruttie) Petit, who was popularly known as ‘the flower of Bombay’. This alliance was largely frowned upon, because the two belonged to different faiths and the their age gap was almost 24 years. Ruttie was barely 18-years-old when she married a 42-year-old Jinnah, converting to Islam as well, although she never practiced the faith. With her, Jinnah had his only child, a daughter – Dina Wadia. Later on, in her last few years, Ruttie developed intestinal ailments with cancer speculated as the cause. On 21^st February, 1929,Rattanbai Petit passed away, at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, on her 29^th birthday. Ruttie was also a victim of depression, an ailment that was not understood at the time. A few decades later in 1968, a close friend of Ruttie’s disclosed that she had indeed committed suicide, by overdosing on sleeping medication, and that she chose to die on her birthday. Years after his wife’s death, Jinnah admitted that marrying her was a probably a mistake –

“She was a child; I shouldn’t have married her. It was my mistake.”

Jinnah on his second marriage

Jinnah’s second wife – Rattanbai Jinnah (née Petit)

The loss of his wife hit him hard, and Jinnah decided to move to London with his daughter Dina and his sister Fatima Jinnah. He staged his comeback into Indian politics only in 1930, when Liaquat Ali Khan (Pakistan’s First Prime Minister) and a few other Indian Muslims pleaded him to do so. But this time, he returned with the demand for the creation of a Muslim state – ‘Pakistan’, as the President of the Muslim League. However, initially, his return wasn’t an entirely successful one. By now, Jinnah was completely devoted to the cause of securing Muslim rights in the country. Although his initial efforts were futile, the League soon started to garner the votes of the Muslim community, and Jinnah felt confident enough to campaign for the creation of Pakistan.

Jinnah and the Mountbatten’s – Louis and Edwina (1947)

Kuldeep Nayyar, a popular Indian journalist who worked closely with leaders like Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi and Shastri, shared a very interesting excerpt of his first meeting with Jinnah when he was a second-year student in a law college in Lahore; circa 1945. Jinnah had arrived in the college to give a speech, after which he said he would answer a few questions, and the following conversation ensued –

Kuldeep Nayyar’s interaction with Jinnah (swipe left for the continuation)

With the Second World War drawing to a close in 1945, the creation of a new Muslim majority state was inevitable. As Lord Mountbatten took the office as British India’s last viceroy, the plan of the partition was already on the table and ready to be executed. Nehru admitted, in 1960, that –

“The truth is that we were tired men and we were getting on in years… The plan for partition offered us a way out and we took it.”

Jawaharlal Nehru on the Partition

Nehru and Jinnah on a walk in Shimla (1946)

Jinnah’s relationship with Mountbatten was known to be thorny one, with both the parties holding an equal amount of dislike for the each other. On Jinnah’s part, the mistrust arose due to Mountbatten’s close friendship with Nehru. 4 days before the formal creation of Pakistan, on 11^th August 1947, Jinnah made a speech in the new constituent assembly for Pakistan at Karachi –

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan… You may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the State… I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

Jinnah’s words that echoed on 11th August, 1947

Jinnah announcing the creation of Pakistan over All India Radio on 3 June 1947

The large-scale riots that came with the Partition of 1947, was something that Jinnah never expected. According to Mian Iftikharuddin, a member of both the INC and the League, when Jinnah witnessed the millions of deaths that took place due to the partition, he put his head in his hands and whispered, ‘What have I done?’

Finally, on 14^th August 1947, the dominion of Pakistan was created. Sadly, the ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ (the ‘Great Leader’) passed away barely a year after Pakistan’s creation on 11^th September 1948, aged 71, due to tuberculosis. His long-standing habit of smoking almost 50 or more cigarettes a day, along with Cuban cigars, finally caught up to him as his health further deteriorated in his last few months. Due to the heavy smoking, evidence of lung cancer was also discovered.

Jinnah addressing the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 14 August 1947

Jinnah was buried on 12^th September 1948, with over one million people attending his funeral. A day of official mourning was declared in both India and Pakistan. The Indian governor general C. Rajagopalachari cancelled an official reception that day in honour of the late leader. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was laid to rest in a large marble mausoleum – the ‘Mazar-e-Quaid’, in Karachi. When the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru heard of his passing, his reaction was a mixture of sadness and genuinity. Nehru said –

“How shall we judge him? I have been very angry with him often during the past years. But now there is no bitterness in my thought of him, only a great sadness for all that has been… He succeeded in his quest and gained his objective, but at what a cost and with what a difference from what he had imagined.”

Jawaharlal Nehru on Jinnah’s passing

Sources:

Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity – The New York Times

Muhammad Ali Jinnah – Wikipedia

Rattanbai Jinnah – Wikipedia

Jinnah expected India and Pakistan to be best of friends – Telegraph India