Muhammad Ali Jinnah`s interpretation of Islam. by Arsalan Ahmad Sohail. Spring Institute for Archeology, Conservation and History

Transcription

1 Muhammad Ali Jinnah`s interpretation of Islam by Arsalan Ahmad Sohail Spring 2014 Institute for Archeology, Conservation and History University of Oslo 1

2 Contents Objectives, historiography, sources and method, 5 Part one: Jinnah`s historical context, public life and different approaches to Islam, 9 Geography of South Asia, 9 The Islamic rule in India and its attributes, 9 The arrival of Europeans, 10 Jinnah`s early life and role as a nationalist politician, 14 Jinnah breaks up with the Congress party, 16 Post-congress years, London Interlude and Comeback, 18 Muslim league and Pakistan, 21 Jinnah as the Governor-General of Pakistan, 29 Two different approaches to Islam, 31 The sources of Islam give different answers to the same questions, 32 Regarding Quran and Hadith/Sunna, 34 Regarding fiqh, 38 Regarding Ijma, 39 The differences between Deen and Mazhab, 40 Further elaboration of tradition and modernity in Islam, 42 Part two: Jinnah, secular or Islamic? 43 Jinnah`s early phase: secular-muslim or purely secular? 43 Jinnah`s transformation: The gradually changing Jinnah, 46 Jinnah`s transformation: The transformed Jinnah, 47 The first claim: Jinnah was a secular democrat (The Munir quote ), 48 The second claim: Jinnah being secular because he opposed theocracy, 50 The third claim: Jinnah vetoing a resolution to call Pakistan an Islamic state, 51 The fourth claim: Jinnah used Islam as a propaganda tool, 54 2

3 The fifth claim: the Establishment of Pakistan has transformed Jinnah`s image from that of a secularist to that of a deep-thinking Islamic scholar in recent years, 55 The sixth claim: Jinnah`s speech of 11 august 1947 was the clearest exposition of a secular state since Jinnah advocates the protection of minorities, 55 The seventh claim: Jinnah never used the words ideology of Pakistan. In fact no one used the words until at least 1962, 57 The eighth claim: Jinnah merely sought a homeland for the Muslims, not an Islamic state, 58 Jinnah on the Quran, Prophet Muhammad and democracy, 59 Jinnah on Muslim nationhood and unity, 60 Jinnah and Quran on freedom of religion, martyrdom and charity, 61 Jinnah and Quran on minority rights, women`s rights and Islamic rituals, 63 Was Jinnah Shia or Sunni? 65 Part three: Jinnah`s Islamic context: 67 Jinnah`s relation with the orthodoxy, 68 Maududi`s concept of an Islamic State, 71 Jinnah`s relation with Iqbal, 75 Iqbal on Muslim Unity, 77 Iqbal on non-muslims, the contemporary problems of the Muslims and their solutions,78 Iqbal`s regard for Islam as a political system and the Quran, page 82 Iqbal about the orthodoxy, 84 The similarities of thought between Iqbal and Jinnah, 86 Who was Parwez and what was his relation to Iqbal and Jinnah? 88 Aims and objectives of Tolu-e-Islam,88 Parwez` Islamic approach, 89 Parwez on Jinnah, Pakistan, Islamic sources and Islamic fundamentalism, 92 Who was Muhammad Asad and what was his relation to Iqbal and The Pakistan Movement? 94 Asad`s elaboration of an Islamic state, 96 Some notes on Asad, Jinnah, Iqbal and Parwez,100 3

4 The Objectives Resolution, 100 The first constituent Assembly of Pakistan, 101 Why an Objectives Resolution in the first place? 101 The Objectives Resolution on the question of sovereignty representation and judiciary,102 The Objectives Resolution on minorities, depressed classes and distribution of wealth,103 The Objectives Resolution`s Quranic principles and its ideological value, page 105 Some notes on the Objectives Resolution, 106 What happened to the Objectives Resolution? 107 A final discussion on Jinnah`s understanding of Islam, 108 Conclusion, 112 Reference list, 113 4

5 Objectives, historiography, sources and method The period I am mostly focusing on is popularly known as the British Raj in India, which spans over 90 years going from 1857 to 1947.The person I am focusing on is Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a historical figure who was born in British India in 1876 and who died in the newly independent state of Pakistan in The topic I am focusing on is what interpretation the late Jinnah had of Islam. The first part of this work will provide the reader a contextual background to both Indian history, Jinnah`s public life and Islam. I will follow the Muslims from their earliest incursions into the subcontinent and their subsequent dominance to the arrival of the British who overthrew them and changed them into a backward minority who struggled for parity against the Hindus in economy and education. With time, this minority revived itself and decided to embrace modernity and the contemporary realities. Jinnah was born in that historical context. I will follow Jinnah`s life from a general point of view from his early career as a Congress politician and ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, through his exile in London where he for one moment seemed to have freed himself completely from the noise of India, to his political comeback and transformation into the sole spokesman for the Muslims of India eventually leading to the creation of a separate state for them. The first part will be completed by introducing the reader to Islam and the different approaches towards it. This is important so the reader can decide what approach Jinnah was having. The second part will consist of the basic question and simultaneously the eternal debate in Pakistan asking whether Jinnah was secular or Islamic. (Before we discuss what kind of Islam he adhered to) Here I will use the work of a British-Asian researcher Saleena Karim, 1 who has gone through the work of prominent scholars having the secular stance about Jinnah. Her work is one of a kind when it comes to a Meta-analysis of the secular-jinnah prophets of South Asia. Kareem`s book is espescially focused on highlighting the falsehood of a certain quote attributed to Jinnah by the late justice Munir of Pakistan where Jinnah seems to give a secular vision of Pakistan. This quote has been referred to by many scholars later and has therefore had a strong significance on the perception of who Jinnah was. I will in this part also consult Jinnah`s speeches and statements and see if he made any references to Islam or not. In the third part, I will explore Jinnah`s Islamic context for a deeper understanding. I will see what relation he had with contemporary Islamic thinkers like Abul ala Maududi, Muhammad Iqbal, 1 Saleena Karim, Secular Jinnah & Pakistan: What the nation does not know, (Karachi: Paramount Publishing Enterprise, 2010) 5

6 Ghulam Ahmed Parwez and Muhammad Asad and what kind of approach these people had towards Islam and Pakistan. I will explore the constitution making process after the creation of Pakistan. Finally, I will discuss Jinnah`s Islamic beliefs before I conclude my findings. South Asian history is very rich due to the fact that many different ethnic groups, religions and cultures have co-existed and still co-exist here and because South Asia has been a crossroad of history to a greater extent than many other areas of the world. Simultaneously, this poses a greater challenge to the historian when it comes to objectivity. The contemporary situation of conflict between Pakistan and its neighbor India lays the foundation for a biased view on the past as well as very simple religion-based narratives. It makes it more difficult to comprehend times when religion played a less important role for group-identities than class/social position and it also clouds the conflicts within religions like sectarian and ethnic conflicts among Muslims and caste conflicts among Hindus for instance. Another challenge is to see through the bias of the British colonial rule against the natives of all religions and especially Muslims. Another challenge is the resentment found among both Indians and Pakistanis against the colonial rule. This does not mean that the colonial rule did not bring with it a lot of misery for the locals but rather that the historian`s conclusions must be based on facts rather than emotions and prejudice and that every fact contrary to current politics and self-interests must be included and highlighted in order to come closer to the ultimate goal of complete objectivity. In order to avoid the abovementioned traps I found it crucial to use biographies by British, Indian and Pakistani scholars. Jinnah is highly regarded in Pakistan for obvious reasons. But this has also led to an avoidance of any criticism on his person and a hagiographical approach towards him. 2 Ahmed points to a post-independence deification of Jinnah and a depiction of him as George Washington is depicted in the US, Gandhi in India and Lenin (was) in former Soviet Union and calls this scholarship at its simplest. 3 Jalal also points to the hagiographical Pakistani approach towards Jinnah but simultaneously mentions the negative attitudes to be found against him among not very perceptive Indian and British chroniclers. 4 Akbar points towards the defeat of both the British and the Indians at the 2 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin (London, Routledge, 1997), ibid 4 Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, (Lahore, Sang-e-Meel, 2010), 221 6

7 hands of Jinnah as one reason for their dislike of him. 5 He also points to the exaggerated dislike among Muslim Indian scholars such as Sheikh Abdullah and M.J Akbar as the man responsible for the misery of Indian Muslims. He takes note of Hindu scholars such as Arun Shourie, who find Jinnah to be the demon who divided the land and the man who broke up India, and popular Hindu notions where Jinnah is depicted as Ravan, a villainous figure of Hindu mythology who opposed Ram, the most popular deity of the Hindu mythology. 6 The British scholarly approach has been very colored by the Mountbatten school of thought, an approach which views Jinnah negatively and where scholars have been using mostly Indian and British sources while depicting Jinnah. 7 Akbar points to the stereotypical approach and lack of understanding British scholars during the last days of the raj had of Jinnah as a westernized lawyer not understanding what he meant to the Muslims of his time. 8 He also takes notice of the journalists who have been swallowing the Mountbatten line after independence depicting Jinnah as cold, frigid and haughty. 9 The famous movie Gandhi of Richard Attenborough is by Ahmed said to follow the same line. 10 There are several single and multivolume primary sources on Jinnah available in the market. Some of them focus on his public speeches only. Others focus on virtually everything he left after him of documents including documents from his career as an attorney like Z.H. Zaidi`s Jinnah Papers. It has presently 19 large volumes and Zaidi has promised many more. 11 I found Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yusufi`s four volume collection of Jinnah`s public speeches, distributed by Bazm-e-Iqbal in Lahore, as the most suitable one both in the sense of time/capacity of this work and of fulfilling the need of getting an impression of the ideological content of his public speeches. The primary source I have used on Islam is the Quran. Here I have used Muhammad Asad`s well-known Message of the Quran and Dr. Shabbir Ahmad`s Quran As It Explains Itself. I have tried to use a variety of sources, such as books, magazines, newspaper articles, encyclopedia articles and reports. Most of these sources have been consulted physically but there are also several available online. I have used sources both in English and Urdu languages. 5 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, 28 6 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, 27 7 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, 24 8 ibid 9 ibid 10 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, 31 7

8 There are works directly linked to my topic also. One is the work of Saleena Kareem which is generally focused on Jinnah having a strong relation to Islam (with reference to his speeches) in addition to the meta-analysis mentioned above. Another work which touches my topic is a book by the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust a governmental body aimed at highlighting the ideology behind Pakistan. Its name is Quaid e Azam Kay Islami Afkar meaning the Islamic beliefs of the Great Leader. 12 Both the books give many references to Jinnah`s relation to Islam but do not discuss the theological aspects of Jinnah`s beliefs. The Kareem book is telling what Islam was in Jinnah`s eyes but not focusing on what Islam was not in his eyes. The Nazaria book is a long list of Jinnah`s speeches related to different Islamic topics mixed with Quranic verses, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad and poetry. They help the reader who has hitherto doubted Jinnah being anything but secular in discovering a man who had high regard for Islam but do not tell the reader what kind of Islam Jinnah was referring to. What were the Islamic sources Jinnah referred to? What kind of resulting beliefs and practices did come out of Jinnah`s approach to Islam and how did they differ from or how similar were they to others people of his times, both Islamic thinkers and laymen. To find out this is exactly the objective of my work and it is important for two reasons. Firstly, it will help us gain a deeper understanding of the history of Pakistan. Secondly, it has a great significance for contemporary Pakistan. By simply knowing that Jinnah made a lot of references to Islam or that he was Islamic does not solve problems such as the cover story of a monthly Newsline in Pakistan. Its edition of February 2014 depicts Jinnah with a beard (photo shopped of course because he never had any in his lifetime) and a cover line reading The Islamisation of Jinnah, The hardline right-wing is on a mission to reinvent Jinnah and the Pakistan he envisioned. 13 It is authored by Ayesha Siddiqa who happens to have a secular stance on Jinnah. We shall see in our work whether the right-wing religious groups of Pakistan or Ayesha Siddiqa or none of them are right in their claim of understanding Jinnah`s relation to Islam. 12 Muhammad Sharif Baqa: Quaid-i-Azam kay Islami Afkar (Lahore, Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust, 2009) 13 Siddiqa, Ayesha: The Islamisation of Jinnah, Newsline, Feb 2014,

9 Part one: Jinnah`s historical context, public life and different approaches to Islam Geography of South Asia South Asia or the Indian subcontinent has the Indian Ocean on its south, the Bay of Bengal on its east and the Arabian Sea in its west. In the north east lies deeply forested mountainous regions with the Arakanese mountain range which runs through both Burma and the north eastern part of India making a natural border. In the north it is separated by the mighty Himalaya Mountains also known as the roof of the world which effectively separates it from the Tibetan plateau. In the North West, the Baluchistan desert and the Hindukush mountain range have isolated the peninsula from the western and central parts of Asia although they lie outside the Indian plate itself. Hence, despite its large size, it is relatively isolated geographically and the Khyber Pass and Bolan Pass has served as traditional migration and invasion routes from Eurasia to South Asia. The Islamic rule in India and its attributes The first case of direct Muslim rule was established after a young Arab general, Mohammad Bin Qasim, conquered the province of Sindh and parts of present day Pakistani Punjab for the Umayyad caliphate in the years A.D. India was at this time politically divided into several small and medium sized princely states and it was only after the later Muslim conquests that the country was consolidated under one banner. But unlike the initial Arab conquest, all the later incursions into the subcontinent were done by non-arab Muslims, namely Afghans and central Asian Turks. Generally speaking, the Islamic expansion in India followed the pattern of conquest and war in its initial phase followed by immigration of servants, traders, experts of Islamic law, craftsmen and clergy. 14 There were few examples of forced conversions of the local Hindus and they enjoyed the status of dhimmi 15 in most of the Islamic political entities. 16 The Hindus were given important positions in society, especially in 14 Pamela Price, Eldrid Mageli and Arild Engelsen Ruud: Indias Historie med Pakistan og Bangladesh (Oslo, Cappelen, 2004), protected subject 16 Pamela Price, Eldrid Mageli and Arild Engelsen Ruud: Indias Historie med Pakistan og Bangladesh, 116 9

10 trade but also as consultants and generals. 17 Most of the Muslim rulers allowed the construction and repair of Hindu temples. 18 The Muslim presence in India led to the birth of south Asian Islam 19 which is a syncretic form resulting from centuries of mutual cultural influence between Hindus and Muslims. Islam as a political force affecting the state behavior was less apparent in this early era due to the majority of the subjects being of another faith. Hence, the rulers were secular in which they separated between the affairs of the state and Islam. This is especially true during the long reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar. He forbade the slaughter of the cow which is common in Islamic feasts due to its religious importance in Hinduism. He abolished the Jizya 20 and even unsuccessfully attempted a syncretic religion called Deen-e-Ilahi consisting elements from both Hinduism and Islam. Religion as a political and dividing force became more apparent during the British colonial rule. 21 It is therefore inaccurate to perceive Indian history during these times as divided between two large religious groups because their religious divide was not always a part of their consciousness. 22 Despite the lack of a permanent harmony between the religions, there were other factors than religion which created conflicts in the Indian society of that time. 23 The arrival of Europeans During the rule of the Chagatai Turkish Mughals, a period of political stability, law and order and economic prosperity reached hitherto never-arrived-at heights. The Mughal period was the last period of Muslim rule over most of the Indian subcontinent. It was during this period that the different European powers arrived for trade purposes. European powers were represented only indirectly by their mercantile East India companies. They built trade stations along the long coast of the subcontinent like the Portuguese built Goa and there was mutual rivalry between the Europeans. Trade taxation had less importance for the Indians because 17 ibid 18 ibid 19 Pamela Price, Eldrid Mageli and Arild Engelsen Ruud: Indias Historie med Pakistan og Bangladesh, Tax non-muslim subjects used to pay during Islamic rule, but not enforced in all eras and areas 21 Pamela Price, Eldrid Mageli and Arild Engelsen Ruud: Indias Historie med Pakistan og Bangladesh, ibid 23 ibid 10

11 their main source of income was agricultural production and conquest. 24 The influx of gold and silver was essential for the Indians due to the lack of metals at home. Hence, metals from the New World found their way to India. 25 The Mughal effective central control saw its end with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 A.D being the start of another period of instability and chaos in Indian history. From now on the provinces gained local autonomy both by not obliging to the central command and by not sending tax income to Delhi. However, the symbolic rule of the emperor residing in his Delhi palace was to remain for another 150 years. The British East India Company followed these developments from the fringes of India. They had by this time already control over one of the wealthiest pieces of land in the whole subcontinent, namely the province of Bengal. This power vacuum was all that was needed for the Brits to subdue all the different groups of India one by one and become the new lords of what they later coined the crown jewel of the British Empire. Regarding the resistance against the British, there was a major difference between the Muslims and the non-muslims. The Muslims were the ones who were losing power in India, while the other groups like the Sikhs and the Rajputs were fighting for independence. Hence, subduing the Muslims became the British` first priority. By making alliances with other locals, the British effectively put down all local resistance. The historical milestone was the last battle over India which was fought in The British called it the Sepoy Mutiny, referring to a mutiny in the local armed forces, while the Indians called it Jang-e-azadi 26. It put an end to the Mughal rule which by this time was only restricted to the Mughal emperors` palace. It tells something about the Indian environment that during the first stages of war, the Hindu soldiers were in the majority and they were all heading to Delhi which was the centuries old Muslim capital of India. This tells about the local Indian national dissatisfaction with the British and also about the still very much alive Hindu-Muslim alliance. It also denotes that the Hindus were more satisfied during the Muslim rule than the British despite that some of them had been fighting for autonomy. After the war the then Mughal emperor, the much-softer-than-his-predecessors and talented poet, Bahadur Shah Zafar was blinded and sent to exile in Burma where he died a few years later. 24 Pamela Price, Eldrid Mageli and Arild Engelsen Ruud: Indias Historie med Pakistan og Bangladesh, ibid 26 Meaning the war of independence in Persian and Urdu 11

12 The first interesting point is that during the much contested trial of Zafar, the 1857 war was portrayed as a global Islamizing movement by the British, something which again tells us about the contemporary attitudes. The second important thing to happen was that the East India Company saw the end of its hold on India and all its territories came under direct rule of the crown. A third point to be noted is that the next 90 years of British rule were very harsh against the local population, both Hindus and the Muslims. Among many examples is the killing of 10 million natives over a period of 10 years after 1857 along with the state policy afflicted famines This does not mean that the previous years during the company rule did not cause unbearable pain for the natives. Hence, the colonial behavior resulted in a strong movement for independence. The fourth point is that the Hindus were in a better position than the Muslims already in 1857 causing a revivalism among the Muslims to educate themselves and regain their lost position in economy and politics. The fifth point is that this movement ended as a twofold demand for independence, one Hindu and the second Muslim. This is in contrast to the sentiments of the earlier years of the period between 1857 and 1947 when the demand for independence was largely national. Naureen Talha describes the evolution of the Muslim people in India from being its masters and rulers and enjoying many centuries of unrivalled power to their most miserable condition as a backward minority in a predominantly Hindu society ruled by the British, lagging behind in education, employment, trade, industry and politics. 29 Talha argues that the Muslims lived in miserable economic conditions compared to the Hindus who were favored by the colonial rule but that this also resulted from the Muslim peoples own inability, not wanting to see the bitter reality. She describes this awakening to the reality as a miracle. 30 She emphasizes that while the states were largely responsible for inculcating nationalistic sentiments in their populations in Europe, the colonial states were challenged by the very same sentiments from their colonial subjects Amaresh Misra: War of Civilisations: India AD (Delhi, Rupa Publishers,2008 ) inside cover 28 Sutapas: Three Million Dead in Artificial Famine in Bengal, BBC.CO.UK, from 29 Naureen Talha: Economic Factors in the Making of Pakistan (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 2001), Naureen Talha: Economic factors in the making of Pakistan , Naureen Talha: Economic factors in the making of Pakistan ,

13 The situation led to some Muslims taking the lead towards modernization. A person who reached prominence in his modernization efforts was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. He started his career as a clerk in the British East India Company. The encyclopedia Britannica introduces him as a Muslim educator, jurist, and author, founder of Anglo-Muhammad Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival of Indian Islam in the late 19th century. 32 Sir Syed`s life-long efforts in the education sector mirrors the miserable state of education among the Muslims of India. One can measure Syed`s concern regarding the education of the Muslims by the fact that he even asked them to abolish politics and concentrate solely on education and most Muslims followed his advice. 33 He was also against Muslims joining the Congress, a party which fought for a parliamentary democracy in India. He thought this would work against the Muslims. 34 Syed established several small schools and worked to make one of them, the Aligarh school into a college after his retirement. 35. This college gave birth to a whole generation of educated Muslims and increased the literacy rate among them significantly. Another area of Sir Syed`s contributions which has special importance for my thesis is his work on Islam. He wrote a commentary on the Quran seeking to harmonize the Islamic faith with the scientific and politically progressive ideas of his time 36 and was condemned as an infidel by the orthodox Islamic scholars for doing so. The Muslims educated themselves but there were more problems waiting for them. Talha highlights the problem Muslims faced when they were seeking jobs in different sectors. They were opposed everywhere by the Hindus who had gathered a stronghold. 37 This could have played a role in awakening their sentiments for the necessity of a Muslim solution to the constitutional problems of India. Nevertheless, they were in a better position to do so because they were the educated ones among a mainly illiterate Muslim population. The Muslim backwardness was to change into a more equal position of power during the British Crown era. It was against this backdrop that the Muslim demand for a separate state grew in the years to come. And it 32 S.M Ikram: Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan in Encyclopedia Britannica, derived from 33 ibid 34 ibid 35 ibid 36 ibid 37 Naureen Talha: Economic factors in the making of Pakistan ,

14 was in these times Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the future leader of the Muslim independence movement was born. Jinnah`s early life and role as a nationalist politician Few individuals alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three. 38 Mohammad Ali Jinnah was born in the city of Karachi in the Bombay Presidency of British India in 1876 to a Gujarati merchant. Jinnah`s fathers company was closely associated with the leading British managing agency in Karachi, Douglas Graham and Company. 39 Sir Frederick Leigh Croft, Graham`s general manager, obviously liked Jinnah, and recommended the young man for an apprenticeship to his home office in London in Wolpert finds such an opportunity to be given to less than one in a million Indians. 41 He left for England in 1893 and his father deposited enough money in his account in a British bank to live in London for 3 years. 42 Jinnah gave up his apprenticeship in London and instead started legal education at Lincoln`s Inn on the 25 June 1983, infuriating his father. 43 This academy was among the best in Britain and had educated people like Thomas More, William Pitt, and half a dozen other British prime ministers. 44 In 1895, he became the youngest Indian to pass. 45 He returned to India in 1896 to practice in Bombay being the sole Muslim barrister in the city. 46 During his student years in England, Jinnah was influenced by nationalist politics. 47 He became an admirer of the Parsi Indian political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji, whom he assisted, 48 and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. The former had become the first member of parliament of Indian extraction shortly before Jinnah's arrival. Jinnah listened to his maiden speech in the House of Commons from the visitor's gallery A place he visited as often as possible fascinated by 38 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 2000), preface 39 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, 7 40 ibid 41 ibid 42 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, 8 43 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, ibid 45 Akbar S. Ahmed: Jinnah, Pakistan and the Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin, p.3 46 ibid 47 ibid 48 ibid 49 Bolitho, Hector: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan (Karachi, Oxford University Press, 2012),

15 the glamorous world of politics. 51 Being the sole Muslim barrister in such an important and big city of India again emphasizes the educational position of Muslims of that time as discussed earlier. On the other hand, the opportunity of apprenticeship gives impression of the opposite, namely the integration of Muslims into the economic life of the now more modern India. Jinnah began his political life by attending the Congress's twentieth annual meeting, in Bombay in December He was a member of the moderate group in the Congress, favoring Hindu Muslim unity in achieving self-government, and following such leaders as Mehta, Naoroji, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale. 53 However, the triumvirate was opposed by the other faction of Congress, by leaders such as Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai, who sought quick action towards freedom. 54 Lala Lajpat Rai was an intellectual apparently very concerned about the British exploitation of India taken into account his book England`s Debt to India which elaborated the economic costs of the foreign rule for the locals. This factional split exploded in a meeting at Surat in 1907 and left Congress torn apart for almost a decade, consequently leading to an increase in revolutionary violence and official repression. 55 In 1912, Jinnah attended the annual meeting of the Congress along with the council meeting of the Muslim League, the opposing Muslim-dominated party fighting for the interests of Muslims in India, where he was permitted to speak but was not yet a member. 56 He agreed to join the Muslim League the following year, although he remained a member of the Congress as well and stressed that loyalty to the first would not interfere with the national cause of the latter 57 By 1914, Jinnah`s reputation as an all India leader had been fully established. 58 Jinnah's moderate faction in the Congress was weakened by the deaths of Mehta and Gokhale in 1915 and Naoroji in 1917, but despite that he continued to bring the Congress and League together. In 1916, as president of the Muslim League, he managed to get the Congress`s president accept the Lucknow Pact, setting quotas for Muslim and Hindu representation in the 50 Singh, Jaswant: Jinnah, India-Partition, Independence (New Dehli, Rupa.Co 2009), Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Jaswant Singh: Jinnah: India Partition Independence, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, ibid 56 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Jaswant Singh: Jinnah: India Partition Independence, 89 15

16 various provinces. The Lucknow pact was never implemented but marked the height of Indian nationalism in British India. It provided a constitutional framework for governing the subcontinent of South Asia but the British were not ready to give the Wilsonian right of selfdetermination to their Indian subjects yet. 59 Jinnah breaks up with the Congress party During the First World War and the two years after, Jinnah and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (the later foremost leader of the Indian National Congress) developed serious conflicts of interests. This is said to be the first battleground between him and the man later to become so prominent, namely Gandhi. 60 The issues which resulted in conflict between these two prominent figures with Jinnah subsequently leaving the congress contained the issue of the Indian Khilafat movement, the terms and conditions of the British soldier recruitment in India, Gandhi`s change of the Congress creed from a secular nationalist one to a Hindu popular movement, Gandhi`s non-cooperation movement and the bona fides of Gandhi s concept of home-rule. Jinnah regarded Gandhi's proposed Satyagraha (non-cooperation) campaign as political anarchy, and believed that self-government should be secured through constitutional means. The movement lasted from September 1920 to February 1922 and was an unsuccessful attempt organized by Gandhi designed to pressurize the British to grant India self-rule. 61 The movement was to be nonviolent consisting of the resignations of titles, boycott of government educational institutions, the courts, government service, foreign goods, and elections; and the eventual refusal to pay taxes. 62 It was started in 1920 and interrupted by Gandhi himself in 1922 after a violent incident where an angry mob killed some police officers. Point to be noted is that this movement marks the transition of Indian nationalism from a middle-class to a mass basis. 59 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Encyclopedia Britannica: Non-Cooperation Movement, derived from: 62 ibid 16

17 The Khilafat movement was a Muslim campaign launched in India in defense of the Ottoman Empire and its leader also known as the Caliph. 63 The Ottoman Empire was the political and spiritual leader state for the Muslim faithful and in war with the entente powers during the First World War. The Muslim demand was to make the British refrain from disintegrating it during the peace deals in the aftermath of the war. Khilafatists somehow believed that they could pressurize the British government to be kind against the Ottomans who were now defeated and uphold the promises they had made during the war. The Muslim League had appointed Jinnah to lead their delegation to the Paris peace conference. 64 Jinnah later backed out from supporting this movement due to it being hijacked by more radical and fundamentalist factions in the society. Gandhi, on the other hand won popularity by melting this movement with his Satyagraha movement. In addition, he also won official confidence by urging the Indians to enlist in the British Army. Jinnah opposed the soldier recruiting in India though and insisted upon equal rights before that could happen. 65 Another issue of conflict between them was that Gandhi was taking the congress in a Hindu nationalist direction to the dislike of Jinnah. One example being Gandhi`s renaming of the working committee from Home Rule League to the Hindi Suraaj Sabha making Jinnah resign from it. 66 Renaming of the working committee was to signal a change of Congress` creed becoming confirmed in the next session at Nagpur where the party sought to attain Swaraj (Home Rule) within one year with Jinnah being the only dissenting voice. 67 His objection to Gandhi`s proposed resolution was due to the lack of clarification about what Swaraj actually meant. 68 The last Congress meeting he ever attended was the Ahmedabad session in 1921 where all the delegates were supposed to sit on the ground and were required to spin the wheel. Jinnah was perhaps the only one there wearing western clothes not spinning the wheel. 69 This must have left no doubt whatsoever in his mind about the future course of the Congress. There are other examples from the 1920s which indicate that the congress party was drawn towards a Hindu nationalist direction excluding not only Muslims but all minorities compared to the party s 63 An Arabic term loosely translated into god`s vicegerent on earth 64 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Shabbir Ahmed: Father of the nation , (Florida, Galaxy publications, 2001), Jaswant Singh: Jinnah: India Partition Independence, ibid 69 Jaswant Singh: Jinnah: India Partition Independence, 91 17

18 earlier profile of being an Indian nationalist platform. Gandhi is recorded to have said: if Muslims or Christians slaughter one cow, we will shed rivers of blood in India! 70 Post-congress years, London Interlude and Comeback During the 1920s, the polarization between the ruler and the ruled escalated, especially after the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919, where dozens of peaceful protesters were killed and wounded by the British government. Simultaneously, the polarization between the Muslims and the Hindus also escalated during this time. So did popular politics and agitation. Jinnah devoted most of his time to law after 1921, but still remained politically active. He continued to be a member of the Muslim League. By mid-1922, he unsuccessfully tried to form a moderate political party by inviting former congress colleagues. 71 In 1923, Jinnah was elected as a Muslim member of the Central Legislation Assembly for Bombay. A legislative body created through the Government of India act of 1919 from the former Imperial Legislative Council. A commission named The Simon Commission arrived in India in March 1928, the purpose thereof being to report the working of the Indian constitution made by the government of India act of They were met with a boycott by India's leaders, Muslim and Hindu alike, angered at the British refusal to include their representatives on the commission. Although a minority of Muslims repudiated Jinnah and welcomed the commission, most members of the League remained loyal to Jinnah (Jinnah group), attending the League meeting in December 1927 and New Year s Day 1928 which confirmed him as the League's permanent president for another 3 years. At that session, Jinnah was very uneasy saying that by appointing an exclusively white commission, the British had declared the native`s unfitness for self-government. 73 The resulting two-volume report was mainly the work of Simon himself and the report proposed provincial autonomy in India but not at the Centre Shabbir Ahmed: Father of the nation , Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Encyclopedia Britannica: Simon Commission, derived from: 73 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Encyclopedia Britannica: Simon Commission, derived from: 18

19 The British challenged Indians to come up with their own proposal for constitutional change for India which made the Congress convene a committee under the leadership of Motilal Nehru, the father of the later congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru. The resulting Nehru Report favored constituencies based on geography on the ground that being dependent on each other for election would bind the communities closer together, in other words, joint electoral rolls for both communities. Jinnah opposed the report calling it unacceptable for the Muslims. 75 He later came up with his fourteen points. Among the important demands was that 1/3 of the cabinets, whether the center cabinet or all local ones were to have Muslims representation and there should be equal rights for all communities. These points were presented in March 1929, after which Jinnah was invited to attend the famous Round Table Conferences. The round table conferences were a series of meetings held in three sessions from November to December They were arranged by the British government to consider the future Constitution of India. Jinnah met Mohammad Ali, the once leader of the Khilafat movement at the first session. Ali had become disenchanted with Gandhi and joined hands with Jinnah, supporting his 14 points rather than the Nehru report. 76 The second meeting was attended by the other great man of modern south Asian Muslim history, the famous poet-philosopher, barrister and politician, Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Iqbal had already emphasized the need for a separate Muslim state in North West India and had addressed the fear for civil war if India was to remain undivided with a democratic framework. 77 He and Jinnah met many times during this session but Jinnah did not adhere to Iqbal`s arguments despite his disillusionment. 78 Only later did Jinnah admit that he had finally been led to Iqbal`s conclusions, as a result of careful examinations and study of the constitutional problems facing India. 79 Present at this conference was Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a student at the University of Cambridge, famously known for his presentation of a pamphlet at the conference titled: Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever. 80 In this pamphlet he asked for a separate Muslim state in North West India named Pakistan. 81 The Hindu press 75 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Hector Bolitho: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan, ibid 79 ibid 80 K.K Aziz: Rahmat Ali: A Biography (Lahore, Vanguard Books, 1987), being an acronym of the five prospected provinces 19

20 criticized the idea and the word Pakistan used in it. 82 The pamphlet became famous as Pakistan Declaration. The word Pakistan grew in popularity and gave a name to the Muslim freedom movement of South Asia, the Pakistan Movement 83 The result of these deliberations was the Government of India Act, 1935, establishing provincial autonomy and also a federal system that was never implemented. 84 Another result was mutual hostility and disharmony between the different parties. 85 Now, that which was once a movement of national Indian independence from the British rulers had grown into two parallel demands. The first came from the Congress which had people from all religious groups asking for national independence, but criticized for not addressing the minority problems and for not ensuring the future concerns of the Muslims. The second demand came from South Asian Muslims about a separate state. This demand was based upon the twonation theory which said that the Muslims were a nation different from the Hindus in most aspects of life. Jinnah remained in Britain for most of the period from 1930 to1934, practicing as a barrister before the Privy Council, where he dealt with a number of Indian-related cases. Later, he very expressively gave the reason for remaining in London in a speech to the students of Aligarh in 1938 saying that it happened because he was disappointed by Hindus on one side and the Muslim flunkeys at the other During 1933, Jinnah was invited back to India to revive the Muslim League. Especially Muslims in the Muslim minority provinces were worried due to upcoming British reforms through the Communal Award were unfavorable to the Muslim minorities. 88 The Muslim League was in a very weak position in early 30s suffering among other problems from misuse of finances K.K. Aziz: Rahmat Ali: A Biography, K.K. Aziz: Rahmat Ali: A Biography, Encyclopedia Britannica: Round Table Conference, derived from: 85 Hector Bolitho: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan, Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yousufi: Speeches, Statements and Messages of the Quaid-E-Azam, (Lahore, Bazm-i-Iqbal, 1996) vol 2, Hector Bolitho: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan, Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan,13 89 Hector Bolitho: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan, 98 20

21 In April 1934, at a meeting of the Muslim League Council, he was still open for cooperation between the Muslims and the Hindus as long as the former were given safeguards for the protection of their rights The abovementioned clarifies to the reader his intentions. He, until then, wanted a united and free India with the guarantee of equal rights for all the different groups of India. But his mind was to change after watching the subsequent developments closely. Muslim league and Pakistan The next milestone of British Indian history was the 1937 provincial elections that were the first ones where large masses of Indians were eligible to participate. The Congress won the elections with the Muslim League suffering from terrible poor results. The election of 1937 destroyed the foundations upon which Jinnah had built his strategy since his return in Jinnah`s aim was to make the League the spokesman for the Muslims at an all-india level which could only be possible if the League won the majority seats in the Muslim majority provinces and also received plentiful Muslim votes in the Muslim minority provinces. This could have made Jinnah powerful enough to offer the Muslim provinces alliance to the Congress at the center in order to make a combined assault against the federal provisions of the 1935 act, and solid League backing in the minority provinces to the Congress against the British Old Guard (local subjects) whom the British depended upon. 94 The next two years were equally crucial, if not more, for the future developments of the whole region. Partly because of Congress` policies and actions, and partly due to the League`s reforms and comeback. The Congress did not pay much heed to the League after the elections, something which made sense at the moment taken into account the circumstances, but which was to prove as the gravest mistakes of the Congress leadership in the history of the party. 95 Meanwhile, the League empowered itself. Jinnah restructured the League along the lines of 90 Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yousufi: Speeches, Statements and Messages of the Quaid-E-Azam, vol 1, Hector Bolitho: Jinnah: creator of Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, 38 21

22 the Congress, among other adopting the Congress` method of election for the League Council and putting most power and control in the center over the provincial Leagues, but had to face the limitations on that power against the realities in the provinces even on the paper. 96 Jinnah worked to build support among Muslims for the League. He reduced the cost of membership to half of what it cost to join the Congress. 97 By December 1939, Liaquat estimated that the League had more than three million members. 98 The Congress ministries resigned when the British viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India at war with Germany (after the famous Neville Chamberlain declaration of war on Germany, of course) 99 and did not bother to accept the Congress offer of conditioned support against the forming of a Indian constitution and the promise of full independence after the war. 100 Jinnah on the other hand called upon all the Muslims to help the Raj by honorable co-operation at a critical and difficult juncture against more protection for the Muslims and recognition of the League as the only organization which can speak on the behalf of the Muslims. 101 Jinnah`s offer came very timely after the Congress had stated its demands. Linlithgow was looking for an opening which he could use to prove that the Congress was not speaking on behalf of all India, an opportunity soon given to him by Jinnah, and gave a positive statement to the League, which was interpreted by the League as a repudiation to the Congress claim to represent the whole of India and simultaneously an acknowledgement of the Muslim League for being the sole representative of Indian Muslims. 102 Another very important factor was that the two yearlong Congress rule was very harsh towards the Muslims, acting as a taste for an undivided India in the future from the Muslim point of view. During this time, the All-India Muslim League appointed a committee which presented the Pirpur report in 1938, detailing 96 Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, R.J.Moore: Jinnah and the Pakistan demand, Modern Asian Studies (1983) from 99 Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, Stanley Wolpert: Lecture by Stanley Wolpert, derived from ibid 102 Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, 48 22

23 Congress high-handedness against the minorities in the provinces where it held ministries. The report revealed widespread discrimination against the minorities in the political, economic, cultural, social and educational sphere. 103 This included a higher frequency of communal riots in Congress-controlled provinces due to largely the natural outcome of the disregard for law and order and disrespect for life and property preached by irresponsible Congressmen. 104 Upon the collective resignation of the Congress ministries in 1939, Jinnah on December 22, declared a day of deliverance for the Indian Muslims against Congress` unjust regime. 105 The next milestone was the Muslim League`s Lahore Resolution of 1940, better known as the Pakistan Resolution. The Muslims understood the different dimensions of their backwardness during these times. 106 They did not lag behind in education and employment in the twentieth century but rather because of the British collaboration with the Muslim elites in the Muslim majority provinces instead of universal suffrage. 107 They now wanted an independent state where they could live according to their own social and cultural values. 108 The Lahore Resolution was presented in Lahore in March The last part of its famous third paragraph read: the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north western and eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign. 109 The name Pakistan was not explicitly mentioned in the resolution. The newspapers headlines the next day pronounced it a single Pakistan Resolution. 110 The Congress leader`s reaction was mixed. Gandhi called it a baffling situation but held the Muslims of India`s right to claim self-determination. 111 Other leaders reacted more strongly. Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the later first Governor General of India, and hence Jinnah`s 103 Sayyid Mohammad Mehdi: Pirpur Committee Report, Pirpur: ibid 105 Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yousufi: Speeches, Statements and Messages of the Quaid-E- Azam, vol 2, Naureen Talha: Economic factors in the making of Pakistan , Naureen Talha: Economic factors in the making of Pakistan , ibid 109 Stanley Wolpert: Jinnah of Pakistan, ibid 111 ibid 23