JINNAH: A POLITICAL SAINT Part-2

JINNAH: A POLITICAL SAINT

Part-2

The parting of ways with the Congress came in 1920 when in the Nagpur session of the Congress, M.K.Gandhi changed the Congress creed to direct action and non-cooperation. Mr. Jinnah also resigned as President of Home rule League when Gandhi after his election as its President in 1920 unilaterally changed its constitution and nomenclature. So the year 1920 marked a clean break between Mr. Jinnah and all that the Congress stood for.

Mr. Jinnah now started to concentrate on reorganizing the Muslim League that was in disarray both at the central and provincial levels. It was an uphill task because he had to struggle single-handedly on this gigantic task but he was not deterred. Remember he once said, “Most of the coins in my pocket are base coins” or words to that effect. But it must be said to his credit that he used these “base coins” very judiciously for the Muslim cause. However, he had the unstinting support and loyalty of many young and budding politicians like M.A.H. Isphahani, Raja of Mahmoodabad, IftikharMamdot, Sardar Shaukat Hayat and Qazi Muhammad Isa.

With his determination, uncanny resolution and help of this young brigade he shaped the League into an effective political body. With all his dedication to the League and the Muslim cause, Mr. Jinnah considered Hindu-Muslim unity as pre-condition for Indian freedom. He attended many unity conferences, suggested incorporation of the muslim demand for a federal structure as against theunitary form as envisaged in the Nehru Report for India’s future constitution. All his suggestions were streamrolled. He then came up with his famous “Fourteen Points”. These points became the combined voice of all the Muslim organizations and the basic Muslim demand at the ensuing Round Table Conferencein London in 1930 – 32.

Congress-League relations as propounded and advocated by Mr. Jinnah took a sudden confrontational posture starting with the outcome of the 1937 general elections under the 1935 Government of India Act when the Congress swept the polls. In the Muslim minority provinces, inspite of a tacit pre-elections understanding, the Congress of Nehru refused to accommodate the elected Leaguers except for those who were prepared tomerge with the ruling party.

This was followed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s “two forces” doctrine in 1936 being inserted into the body politics of India when he stated that “there are only two forces in India today – The British imperialism and the Indian National Congress representing Indian nationalism”, to which Mr. Jinnah retorted that, “I refuse to accept this. There is a third party in this country as well and that is Muslim India”. Jinnah was dismayed and with a heavy heart finally pulled down the curtain on Congress-League collaboration and finally closed the chapter of hindu-muslim unity, that up to that day was the core of hispolitics and panacea for the Indian Independence.

In the 1937 general elections, the League came out very poorly. In the Punjab, one of the four Muslim majority provinces League could account for only two seats in the provincial assembly and even out of these two, one legislator became a ‘lota’ at the time of ministry formation, leaving a sole League representative in the assembly. Congress volte-face to accommodate League representatives in Hindu majority provinces and then Nehru’s “two forces” doctrine injected into Indian body politics, finally forced Jinnah to take the cudgels on behalf of his community that was so far floating like a rudderless ship in the stormy waters of Indian politics.

The year was 1937 when Mr. Jinnah took up the task of welding the disjointed pieces together and brought them up to the status of a nation from that of a minority community. This was the first step that he had in mind for advancing to their final emancipation. For doing this he met with lot of resistance from within; there were the feudals who were eager to protect their jagirs and positions bestowed on them by the British and then there were the clerics who even called him “Kafir-e-Azam” and Pakistan as “Dar-ul-Harb”. He remained undaunted and continued with his task of consolidating the down trodden community and organizing the League at all levels. 

Disregarding his ill health he worked hard, infact very hard with selfless devotion and as a result he won the hearts of the overwhelming majority of Muslims. People trusted him, his integrity, his political acumen and statesmanship. In his mammoth public meetings where almost over eighty percent of the participants could not understand even one single word of English, they would listen to him in pin drop silence and amazingly would clap and raise zindabad slogan at the points of emphasis in his speech.

It was universally known that elderly people in the remote villages when talking to young people hearing radio or reading newspaper would ask, “what has Baba said today?” but in the same breath would reply themselves “whatever he has said must be true”. These villagers would call Jinnah, ‘Baba’ with affection.

Harry Truman, a former President of America could not be more right when he said, “Mr. Jinnah was the recipient of a devotion of loyalty seldom accorded to any man.” The grateful nation called him “Quaid-e-Azam” the great leader. From Mr. M.A. Jinnah in the teens he was

Quaid-e-Azam in the late thirties, to his people and to the world at large. Even Gandhi in his letter on 16 January 1940 was obliged to address him as “Dear Quaid-e-Azam”. It was in this very letter that Gandhi, perhaps sarcastically asked him, “shall I call you Quaid-e-Azam or continue to address you Mr. Jinnah as before”. To which the Quaid-e-Azam retorted “Call a rose by whatever name you may, it will always smell like a rose.”