Muhammed Ali Jinnah: The Father of Pakistan

The great leader and father of the modern state of Pakistan, Muhammed Ali Jinnah rose to prominence by being a leader in putting an end to British rule over India and pushing for Muslim-Hindu unity. The first governor-general of Pakistan, though Jinnah always wore Western attire as an adult, his commitment to the culture and religious values of his people were well-grounded. Though Jinnah is not without controversy, Jinnah was without a doubt the most powerful figure in the creation of a distinct Muslim Pakistan.

Born on the 25th of December, 1876 in Karachi, modern day Pakistan, Jinnah was born into an Ismaili Muslim family and given a proper English education. A strong student, he became the youngest South Asian to be admitted to the bar in England at age 19. He was to marry twice during his life, once to a distant cousin of his who died of natural causes only after a few months after they had wed, and the second time to a Zoroastrian woman Maryam Jinnah, who defined her family and converted to Islam to marry him. She bore him his only child, Dina Jinnah, who would go onto to defy him later on in life and marry a Parsi Christian.

Jinnah's political career began in 1920 when he broke with the Hindu-dominated party known as 'Congress' to become president of the Muslim League, all based in London. Unlike Gandhi, who wore traditional dress and spoke usually in one Indian language or another, Jinnah did his best to wear western attire and speak in English. Jinnah also claimed that Gandhi's way of peaceful protests would lead to the division of Hindus and Muslims in India. His vision of the future couldn't be more correct.

Jinnah didn't return to London until 1934 to actually take charge of the Muslim League. When elections were held in 1937, the Muslim League managed to capture many votes and become one of the more competent political parties of India. Jinnah offered to be a part of an alliance with Congress but in return, they would have to accept separate electorates and allow the League to be the sole representative of the alliance's Muslims. Congress refused, already having Muslim leaders within it, and wouldn't accept the offer because Congress was officially secular, whereas the League was Muslim.

After the failure of these talks, Jinnah began to propagate the idea of 'a Muslim state in what is now Northwest India' that would be known as Pakistan. Congress completely rejected this idea, which would in the early 1940s the Muslim League's official goal. Jinnah would even suffer a failed assassination attempt in 1943 because of growing tension between Congress and the League. The League gained popular support amongst Muslims till the mid-forties. By then the League went on strike and violence began breaking out throughout India. Congress then in 1946 came to realize that the League was right in that the League and Congress couldn't cooperate to form a coalition government. The League on August 14th, 1947, had their dreams of statehood become reality when the state of Pakistan was born.

Jinnah had contracted tuberculosis sometime during the 1940s. The workload brought on by leading a nation to independence and then shaping it's domestic and foreign policy was a lot for Jinnah. That, coupled with the stress of massive population exchanges of millions of Muslims and Hindus between states put an unimaginable workload on Jinnah's head. An estimated million people died during the violence that occurred when the population exchange occurred. Jinnah also pushed for some unpopular measures such as making Urdu, a language spoken by only a very small minority of Muslims of Pakistan, the sole official language. Bengalis pushed for Bengali to also gain recognition as an official language alongside Urdu because it was spoken by about half of all Pakistanis; Jinnah claimed that Bengali was a Hindu language and thus had no right to become an official language in Pakistan. On September 11th, 1948, Jinnah died due to the complications of stress and tuberculosis.

In his honor, a massive coliseum was built in his memory. His funeral was attended by a million Pakistanis and funeral prayers were led by a Sunni Muslim Imam, Shabbir Ahmed Usmani. Dina Wadia, Jinnah's only kin, remained in India until she finally moved to New York City, U.S.A. . In Pakistan, he is remembered as 'Father of Pakistan' and as the 'Great Leader'. Pakistan's most busy international airport is also named in his honor. Though it is likely he never actually wanted to partition India and only did so because of conflict between Congress and the Muslim League, Jinnah's powerful personality and his extraordinary level of intelligence had permeated into the very fabric from which the state of Pakistan was stitched. He will always be Pakistan's greatest leader.

Works Cited

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"Muhammad Ali Jinnah -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 20 June 2009 .

"Muhammad Ali Jinnah [1876-1948]." The Most Comprehensive Reference on the Political History of Pakistan. 20 June 2009 .

"Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah." Yahoo! GeoCities: Get a free web site with easy-to-use site building tools. 20 June 2009 .