Road to Pakistan

The Life and Times of Mohammad Ali Jinnah

B. R. Nanda

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136704765
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This is a biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the story of the creation of Pakistan. At a time of much interest and concern about Pakistan in the international community, this volume provides a historical context which helps in an understanding of the present. It traces the development of the Muslim identity on the Indian subcontinent and follows Jinnah as he rode the wave of Muslim communalism to ultimate success in the demand for the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan at independence from British rule.

Jinnah's successful espousal of the demand for Pakistan was a remarkable feat. In achieving this success, Jinnah traversed a long distance from the beliefs with which he entered public life. He started out a nationalist, as a protégé of senior Congress leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji. However, the introduction of separate electorates for Muslims after the Minto–Morley reforms in 1909 led him to change his position in order to appeal to his changed constituency. Even so, it was not until 1937 that he unabashedly played the religious card. He now began to see the Congress and the Hindus as his adversaries rather than the British. Through these twists and turns of posture, the one constant factor was his underlying ambition to remain in a position of leadership and eminence.

This volume traces the zigzag course of Jinnah's political life and the establishment of Pakistan within the broader framework of the Indian freedom struggle. Indeed the main players in this struggle with three protagonists were the Indian National Congress and the British rulers. This work demonstrates how this bigger struggle opened the door for Muslim separatism led by Jinnah. It was through this opening, aided by British moves to use the Muslim League as a foil to the Congress, that Jinnah very astutely led his party to success in its demand for the creation of Pakistan.

Chapter 1

EARLY YEARS

Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was born on 25 December 1876 at Karachi. He was the eldest of seven children of Jinnahbhai Poonja, a Khoja merchant whose father had emigrated from Gondal State of Kathiawar to Karachi, and Mithibai, who also belonged to a Khoja family of Gondal. There was hardly anything in his family background to indicate that young Mohammad Ali was cut out for a great role in the history of his country. Jinnahbhai Poonja had little formal education, but had a smattering of English. He built a thriving business in import and export trade by collaborating with Grahams Shipping and Trading Company, a British concern, which had an office in Karachi. Though a port and a trading centre for northwestern India, Karachi, with its population of 50,000 in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was socially and politically a backwater. Mohammad Ali’s education began in an infant vernacular school from where he went on to a Gujarati-medium madrasa. A bright, handsome and self-willed child, he seemed more interested in playing marbles with children of his own age than in books. This may have been due to indifferent teaching; perhaps the curriculum was unexciting and could not sufficiently awaken the interest of an intelligent child. He developed such an aversion to studies that he told his father he would rather work in the family shop than go to school. Jinnahbhai may have been surprised, but the child had already learnt the three R’s and the prospect of his eldest son joining him in business may not have been unwelcome. A few weeks of slogging in the shop from early morning till late in the evening, however, chastened the boy and he went back to school. He could not, however, bring himself to take his studies seriously; his teachers despaired of his making any progress; he was pronounced ‘horribly poor’ in mathematics. It was decided to send him to Bombay where a loving aunt sent him to a school there. However, his mother missed him badly and he was recalled to Karachi.

The six-month stint in Bombay gave Mohammad Ali his first exposure to the world beyond his hometown. On returning to Karachi he rejoined the Sind Madressah- tul-Islam in Karachi, where he learnt both Gujarati and English. In March 1892, he was admitted to the Christian Mission School. This was his first opportunity to meet non- Muslim teachers and students. He remained a mediocre student, who shone neither in the classroom nor on the sports ground. He had been in the Mission School for hardly seven months when Sir Frederick Graham, head of the Karachi branch of Grahams Shipping and Trading Company, with which Jinnahbhai was collaborating, offered to arrange for Mohammad Ali to get training in business at the Company’s headoffice in London. Mohammad Ali, who had never been too happy in the various schools he had attended, jumped at the idea of going abroad. His father was pleased at the new vistas opening for his son, but his mother was distraught. She could not bear the thought of parting with her son for two years. In addition, she dreaded the ultimate disaster of having on her hands an English daughter-in-law, and relented only when Mohammad Ali agreed to marry before he left India. Emibai, a 14-year old girl, was chosen from the ancestral village of Paneli in Gondal State. The marriage was celebrated in October 1982. Soon after, 16-year-old Mohammad Ali sailed for England.

II

Mohammad Ali arrived in London in early December 1892. Like most Indian students who came to England, he felt lonely. He was particularly ill-equipped for his new life. His schooling in Karachi’s Gujarati-medium madrasa had been somewhat indifferent; he had not even passed the matriculation examination of Bombay University. His knowledge of English needed brushing up. But he quickly adapted himself to his new surroundings. He discarded his long Kathiawari coat and turban and switched over to western-style suits. He began his apprenticeship with Grahams Company in Threadneedle Street in right earnest. But as he pored over the files and ledgers of the company day in and day out, he became bored. He began to wonder whether a business career would suit him at all. We do not know which options he considered and why, but after ruling out commerce, he settled upon the legal profession. He may have been impressed, while he was a child, by the prestige commanded by English-trained barristers in Karachi and Bombay. At the turn of the century every ambitious Indian boy aspired to join the Indian Civil Service or, if that was not possible, to qualify as a barrister. Jinnahbhai was furious when he learnt that his son was giving up the coveted business apprenticeship for a career with an uncertain future. He ordered him to return home. Mohammad Ali was, however, adamant; he argued that there were better prospects in the legal profession; he assured his father that he would not ask him for more money but stretch the allowance he had been given for two years for another year, the time needed for a law degree. He decided to take the entrance examination, known at that time as ‘Little Go’, to secure admission to one of the Inns of Court. His petition for exemption from the Latin portion of the preliminary examination was granted, and in June 1893 he joined the Lincoln’s Inn.

Having made up his mind to become a lawyer, Mohammad Ali, for the first time in life, took his studies seriously. It was an uphill task. He made three attempts to pass the Bar examination in 1894, but failed. This may have been due to his indifferent schooling in Karachi and weak grounding in the English language. But he persevered and in April 1895 qualified in all the papers, and was declared successful — the youngest among the fifty-three students who had qualified. In April 1896, on completing twelve terms, he was formally called to the Bar. He had put the intervening period to good use. He studied the English system of justice at work. He went to the courts and heard lawyers argue their cases. At dinners in the ‘Great Hall’ in the Lincoln’s Inn, he took part in discussions between the students and the ‘benchers’, the senior members of the Inns of Court. Above all, he had the opportunity of serving his apprenticeship in an English barrister’s chamber. All these experiences made an indelible impression on him.

Of one thing there seems no doubt. Young Mohammad Ali made the transition from rural Karachi to cosmopolitan London with remarkable speed and aplomb. He took to the English language, western dress and western mode of living, and felt perfectly at home. Five years earlier, young M.K. Gandhi had tried to ape ‘the English gentleman’, but, as we learn from his autobiography, he was too much of an introvert to continue the experiment for more than a few months. Jinnah’s anglicism was uninhibited and permanent. He aspired to the lifestyle of an upper-class Englishman, achieved it and revelled in it.

III

Legal studies did not wholly absorb young Jinnah’s student days. He developed an interest in politics, and especially the politics which concerned his country in England. It is doubtful if in his home or school in Karachi there was anything to awaken interest in politics. Indeed, it is doubtful if he ever read an English newspaper before he arrived in England. It was not unusual for Indian students coming to England to suddenly become aware of the fact that they were citizens of a subject country. This had happened to Aurobindo Ghose, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose; it may have happened to Jinnah too. All his life he spoke with great reverence of Dadabhai Naoroji, one of the founding fathers of the Indian National Congress, who was residing in England. Jinnah’s sister, Fatima Jinnah, tells us in her brief memoirs that her brother was deeply stirred by the controversies surrounding the election of Dadabhai to the House of Commons, and ‘threw himself heart and soul into his election campaign and thereby caught the eye and won the esteem of Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India.’ She also tells us that her brother went to the House of Commons to hear Dadabhai Naoroji’s maiden speech. This story has one snag. The polling for the Central Finsbury constituency, from which Dadabhai was elected as a Liberal MP (Member of Parliament), took place on 6 July 1892, and he delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 9 August. However, Jinnah did not arrive in England until December 1892. Even if he had been there it is doubtful that 67-year- old Dadabhai Naoroji would have enlisted the services of a 16-year-old Indian boy, freshly arrived from India, for his electioneering.

Another myth about Jinnah’s nationalist sympathies which has gained currency is that he was elected a member of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress. The records of the Committee do not show that Jinnah was considered for its membership while he was a student in England. Indeed, he was not eligible for its membership. The British Committee in London had Sir William Wedderburn as its chairman and its members were British politicians and retired civil servants who were sympathetic to Indian political aspirations, such as A.O. Hume, Alfred Webb, Henry Cotton and C.J. O’Donnell. Leading Congressmen from India during their visits to England were elected temporary members of the Committee: these included Pherozeshah Mehta, R.C. Dutt, Surendranath Banerjea, B.C. Pal, Lajpat Rai and Gokhale. Jinnah was elected a member of the Committee for the first time in 1906 for the period of his stay in England, and then again during his subsequent visits in 1913 and 1914.

One may discount the exaggerated claim for Jinnah’s political activism in England during his student days, but there is evidence to indicate that he had developed a keen interest in politics. He became an avid reader of newspapers; he watched the British parliamentary system at work; he followed the controversies in the press between the protagonists of the two parties; and he occasionally sampled political oratory in Hyde Park, as well as from the visitors’ gallery of the House of Commons. He took time off to attend lectures in London on subjects pertaining to India, and participated in discussions which followed. In 1896, when he was not yet 20, his comments reveal his ardent patriotism and the courage of his convictions. On 17 February 1896, five months before he returned to India, he was present at a meeting held under the auspices of the East India Association. The speaker was an Indian journalist, Alfred Nundy, and his subject was ‘The Indian National Congress: Its Origin, Aims and Objects’. The Journal of East India Association (Vol. XXVIII) recorded the comments by young Mohammad Ali Jinnah at some length:

Mr. Jinnah was glad the paper had been read before a society which badly needed its information. He had the greatest respect for the English nation, but this was a time for truth, not adulation. The Congress was not revolutionary. It did not mean to take up arms against the English. It only wanted to be heard, and it must be heard. If this were constantly refused, statesmen would understand what would be the consequences. The people of India wanted the same rights and privileges that Englishmen had. Mr. Nundy had referred to the simultaneous examinations [for the ICS] and the salt duty. The latter was an iniquitous tax, unheard of in any other country.

A fortnight after the East India Association meeting, Jinnah was present at a lecture delivered on 4 March 1896 by Mr Turkhud, the former Principal of a college at Rajkot, under the auspices of the National Indian Association in London. Lord Reay, the former Governor of Bombay, was in the chair. Jinnah took part in the discussion and criticized the speaker for omitting to speak ‘of the better qualities of the people of Kathiawar, of their social system, and of the ethical principles which they hold. Lucidly as he had dealt with the subject, he had shown the darker side only, and he had given, mainly, accounts of the chiefs and princes of Kathiawar, while what the speaker [Jinnah] had expected to hear was about the people.’¹

IV

During his three-and-a-half years in London, to law and politics were added another passion: the theatre. His secret youthful ambition, he told his sister, was to play the role of Romeo at the Old Vic. He was attracted by the idea of taking to the stage. The temptation was so strong that even after having been called to the Bar in 1896, he accepted a job in a theatrical company, which performed Shakespeare’s plays. When he wrote to his father that he was abandoning law and taking to the theatre in England, he received a sharp reprimand: ‘Do not be a traitor to the family’. Jinnah’s mother and young wife had already died when he was in England. He did not want to break his father’s heart, and decided to return to India immediately. His employers waived the three months’ notice stipulated in the agreement, and let him go. One wonders what would have happened if he had defied his father again and returned to the stage. He may have made a name as an actor and settled in England for the rest of his life. There was, in his adolescent years, a strange restlessness in him. It seems in these early years Jinnah had an ‘identity crisis’; he was groping towards something which he himself did not quite know. However, after returning to India in July 1896, he quickly settled down in the profession of law. His time in England had transformed him. His perfect attire and manners secured him access to the best European society in Bombay. He had acquired a good command of the English language. Despite his incipient patriotism, the stirrings of which he had left in England, he developed great admiration for the English way of life, for the English judicial system, and for the liberal and democratic political institutions of England. He even anglicized his name. In April 1896, three months before he left to India, the Lincoln’s Inn accepted his application to change his name from ‘Mohammad Ali Jinnabhai’ to ‘Mohammad Ali Jinnah’, and he later started signing simply as M.A. Jinnah.

V

On 24 August 1896, M.A. Jinnah, Esq., Bar-at-Law, was registered as an Advocate of the Bombay High Court. He was nearly 20 years old at the time. He rented a room in a hotel on Charni Road and walked to and from his office in the Fort near the High Court every day, but hardly any brief came his way. The Bombay Bar was crowded, and Jinnah, as a new entrant, found himself in the ranks of briefless lawyers. Five years earlier, another young barrister, M.K. Gandhi, had the same experience after returning from England; despairing of making a decent living in Bombay, he reconciled himself to a modest practice in Rajkot, his hometown, in the interior of Gujarat, where he remained until he received a year’s contract for a civil suit in South Africa. For Jinnah, his briefless interlude in Bombay was very trying; he could hardly make ends meet. Luckily he caught the eye of J.M. MacPherson, the Advocate-General of Bombay, who took a liking to the young, smart Khoja barrister, who behaved and even looked like a young Englishman. Thanks to MacPherson’s recommendation, Jinnah was posted in leave vacancies as a Third Presidency Magistrate in Bombay. He heard petty criminal cases, but made an excellent impression. According to Jinnah’s own account, Sir Charles Olivant, Law Member of the Governor’s Council, offered him a permanent place in the judicial service on a salary of Rs 1,500 a month, a princely salary in those days, but he declined, saying he hoped to earn that much in a single day.

This stint as Presidency Magistrate in Bombay proved a watershed in Jinnah’s career. He attracted the notice of judges, fellow lawyers and potential clients. By 1903, there was no dearth of briefs; his reputation grew and he rapidly climbed to the top of his profession. According to his nephew, Akbar Peerbhoy, Jinnah’s income rose to Rs 20,000 a month during the war years, an estimate which was confirmed by Mohammad Ali Chaiwalla, Jinnah’s onetime solicitor.

Formal, fastidious, discreet and sharp-tongued, Jinnah was a formidable advocate in the courtroom. He laboured hard at his briefs. When he stood up in the court and adjusted his monocle and looked at the judge, he made his presence felt as few of his contemporaries could. A number of anecdotes narrated by his contemporaries testify to his keen wit, great ability and high integrity as a lawyer. There was a client who was so pleased with Jinnah’s services that he sent him an additional fee, which he declined with a note that he could not accept more than what had been originally agreed upon between them. Then, there was a judge who sought to reprimand Jinnah with the remark: ‘Remember, you are not addressing a Third Class Magistrate’. ‘Allow me to warn you’, retorted Jinnah, ‘that you are not addressing a Third Class Pleader’.

Jinnah’s forte was not the knowledge of law, but the ability to advocate the case of his client. M.C. Chagla, who worked as Jinnah’s junior for nearly six years and later rose to be Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, has left a perceptive profile of Jinnah. He describes him as ‘a poor lawyer but a superb advocate’, who had ‘a very striking personality’, and whose ‘presentation of a case … was a piece of art.’²

Chagla read Jinnah’s briefs, went with him to the court and listened to his arguments. What impressed him most was Jinnah’s lucidity of thought and expression: ‘There were no obscure spots or ambiguity about what Jinnah had to tell the court. He was straight and forthright and always left a strong impression, whether his case was intrinsically good or bad.’ Jinnah believed that, however bad the case might be, it was the professional obligation of the lawyer to do his best for the client.³ This was quite unlike M.K. Gandhi who, during his practice in SouthAfrica, refused to take up cases which were false, and who insisted on his clients making a clean breast of any violation of the law they might have committed and then appealing to the judge to take a lenient view.

Chagla pays high tribute to Jinnah’s legal ability. But he also tells us that when he was struggling at the Bar and was in ‘dire circumstances’, he had received no sympathy from Jinnah.⁴

I do not remember [Chagla writes] in all those years, Jinnah ever enquiring of me how I managed my finances or how I fared at the Bar. I have never ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Road to Pakistan
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. The Early Years
• 2. Politics Calling
• 3. The Rising Star
• 4. The Making of a Muslim Gokhale
• 5. The Advent of Gandhi
• 6. Eclipsed
• 7. Down But Not Out
• 8. In the Council Chamber
• 9. The Communal Tangle
• 10. On Centre-Stage
• 11. Dead End
• 12. Leader in Search of a Role
• 13. First Round Table Conference
• 14. Second Round Table Conference
• 15. Self-Exile
• 16. The Raj at Bay
• 17. Image of a Nationalist
• 18. Electoral Arena
• 19. The Moment of Truth
• 20. On the Off ensive
• 21. The Congress Response
• 22. British Response
• 23. Inching Towards Partition
• 24. Declaration of War
• 25. The Die is Cast
• 26. Phantom to Reality
• 27. Towards Transfer of Power
• 28. Post Partition
• 29. Epilogue
• Notes
• Select Bibilography
• About the Author
• Index