Mohamed Ali Jinnah:

Grit and determination, his hallmark

by K.D.M. Kittanpahuwa

'Who told you the Muslim League gave us Pakistan? I brought Pakistan with my stenographer,' a defiant Mohamed Ali Jinnah, who midwifed the birth of Pakistan exploded into mild anger.

Aloof and arrogant, imperious in manners and brusque at times, Jinnah in his typical English accent would address somebody as, “My dear fellow... His boyhood name was Jinnabhai which he abandoned in later life. He looked a typical country English gentlemen always nattily dressed and travelled in the first class railway compartments to avoid the masses unlike his adversary Mahatma Gandhi who chose to travel in the third class railway carriages mingling with all sorts of people.

For Jinnah order, discipline and hard work were top priorities. This made him a crusader to secure freedom from the British exclusively through constitutional means. Jinnah dismissed Gandhi's non-lethal weapons of Satyagraha, civil disobedience and non-cooperation as ‘mere vague and philosophical ideas'. His trademark monocle, perhaps modelled on British Prime Minister Chamberlain, bore the imprint of an English country squire.

Barrister

He 'baptised' himself as ‘Mr. Jinnah’ and when Gandhi addressed him as “my dear brother”, he responded ‘Mr. Gandhi'.

A Lincoln Inn's barrister, Jinnah on his return to pre-independent India launched his career as a ‘briefless lawyer’ and lived a Spartan life of strict economy. Later he built his career as the most successful lawyer in Bombay.

Victorian-era statesman Gladstone, four times British Prime Minister and a member of Parliament for 60 long years, was Jinnah's ‘object of admiration'.

Dr. Seyed Ahamed Khan, a brilliant lawyer was the first to inspire Jinnah to think of a separate country for the Muslims in the sub-continent. This jolted Jinnah to plunge headlong into the rough and tumble of politics. Throughout his struggle for nationhood, he strictly maintained his identity in the face of overwhelming odds.

Carving out a Pakistan from Hindu India was a formidable task since to Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and master strategist Sardar Patel, the motherland was sacred. They had implicit faith in the unity of India against fissiparous tendencies and Jinnah's intransigence. The Hindu majority failed to dispel Muslims’ fear that the Indian National Congress was essentially a Hindu organisation. This prompted Jinnah to consectrate himself to create a Pakistan. To some historians, it was the communal representation as recommended by the Morely-Minto reforms, that fostered the concept of a separate country.

Faith

Jinnah always pinned his faith in constitutional means such as negotiations with the powerful British authorities to achieve his promised land.

Ultimately when the British Civil servant Sir Cyril Radcliffe defined the frontiers for Pakistan Jinnah was last, yet as a true constitutionalist he accepted the verdict despite other Muslim leaders protesting against the grave injustices perpetrated on the Muslims.

Jinnah was a chain smoker. His passion for newspapers was amazing since a large part of his study had been reserved for old newspapers. He was six-foot high weighing only 120 pounds. A non-conformist, Jinnah spurned religious orthodoxy. There is barely any reference to the six members his brothers and sisters of the family, save his life-long companion, his sister Fatima. She stood by him during good and bad times. When Gandhi once asked him how he should be addressed, he quipped, “A rose by any other name would also smell as sweet”.

“Never was there a nature whose outer qualities provided so complete an antithesis of its inner worth.

Languid

Tall and stately, but thin to the point of emaciation, languid and luxurious of habit’, said the famous Indian poet and politician Sarojini Naidu of Jinnah.

He attacked the caste system as the bane of India. Jinnah referred to Nehru as “a literary figure who should have been an English professor, .... an arrogant Brahmin.”

Jinnah married Ruthenbai, a Parsee of ravishing beauty. Elegant and urbane, she was her husband's 24-year-old junior. Ruthie was called the, “Flower of Bombay”. Vast difference of age, temperament and social life were far apart between them and their marriage was shattered. Lonely and embittered, Jinnah dedicated himself to the noble task of translating his dream of creating a country for his people-the Indian Muslims.

Afflicted with pneumonia he passed away peacefully. When his doctor said, “Sir, you are going to live, he said, “No, I am not”.