Write an essay on 'the movement for Pakistan'. How would you evaluate Muhammad Ali Jinnah's leadership of that 'movement'?

Introduction and Stand:

The purpose of this essay is to evaluate and analyse the contributions of Mohamed Ali Jinnah to the creation of Pakistan as a sovereign state. It also aims to criticise his aims and ambitions in doing so. With the aim of depicting M.A. Jinnah as a man who led the movement for Pakistan with personal power as one of his motivating factors, this essay will prove the aforesaid hypothesis and yet go on to show that despite his own motivations, M.A. Jinnah led the movement in a highly admirable manner.

Jinnah's Beginning:

To begin at the beginning, the idea of a separate state for Muslims was not an idea that Jinnah liked or supported. Being a highly secular man, trained in British law and practicing constitutional, democratic politics, the idea of a separate state was not something he encouraged until his return to India after his self-imposed exile in Britain (1937). When the idea of a separate Muslim state was first conceptualised by the Islamic poet, Mohamed Iqbal and a nationalistic minded student in Britain told Jinnah of the plan, he slapped the student in outrage . He resented being typecast as a 'Muslim', according to his good friend, “He was very very British” . Being a member of both the Muslim League and Indian National Congress, he spent his early political career working to bring them together. It was due to Jinnah's leadership and liaison role that the 1915 session of the Muslim League coincided with that of Congress, and at that session, Jinnah played a significant role in negotiations, which resulted in the Lucknow pact of 1916. This pact was one of the first formal Hindu-Muslim agreements granting rights to Muslims, and it was the only time that the Muslim League and Congress came to a voluntary agreement about India. The Lucknow Pact granted Indian Muslims a separate electorate, and 'weightage' in legislative councils that had a Muslim minority. It had but a temporary effect on Hindu-Muslim relations as it represented only the agreement of a 'tiny political elite' of the two communities. There were many reasons that resulted in the most dramatic change in a man that history has ever seen; religious, personal and otherwise. The aim of the question is to 'evaluate' Jinnah's 'leadership' of the 'movement' for Pakistan, as such, before analysing his work, we must first analyse the situations before and after his 'policies' were put into action.

His 'Transformation':

The main reason for the increasing sense of nationalism among the Indian Muslims at that time was due to a growing fear of their increasing marginalisation, and not just in India.
It is often suspected that Jinnah's sudden change from secular constitutional leader to a pro-Islam figure had a lot to do with his disillusionment of the non-constitutional and increasingly Hindu-oriented policies practiced by his fellow congress leader and good friend Mohandas K. Gandhi. It was Gandhi's 'Civil Disobedience Campaign' that Jinnah was ill-at-ease with and he resigned soon after Gandhi gained control of the Congress party in 1920. There was in India at that time, a growing fear of the 'British Raj' being replaced by 'Ram Raj' . Jinnah was shrewd enough to realise that Hindu extremists could make life difficult for Muslims in India.
Increasing this fear was the marginalizing of minorities in Germany under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Golwalkar's 'We Or Our Nationhood Defined' (1938), which argued that, if German Jews could be exterminated by Hitler, so could Indian Muslims by Hindus. Jinnah commented in relation to the increasingly tense situation of Indian Hindus and Muslims that, “Hitler's attempt at purity was a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by” . The sheer enormity of his linking the German genocide to India showed his growing concern, and that of the masses of Muslims in South Asia about the growing threat of Hindu extremism.
Another factor frequently attributed to the growing fear of being sidelined among the Muslims was the collapse of Ottoman Caliphate Empire. This was the loss of one of the biggest Islamic powers in the world. However, although Jinnah sympathized with his fellow Muslims, he was not convinced that Muslims should march out of British India and migrate to Muslim states like Afghanistan.
Another reason often attributed to Jinnah's sudden departure to England was the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919. These reforms posed a significant setback to Jinnah's career; education, public works and local self-governance were all transferred to the control of local ministers in a diarchal system. This was a good opportunity for politicians with strong local support which Jinnah lacked as he had always seen himself representing India in its entirety and lacked a landed or tribal powerbase. Although he tried to carry on in his previous role as a Hindu-Muslim negotiator, he was not on the best terms with Nehru and many of his proposal were often rejected , and his mediatory role was taken over by Mian Fazl-I-Husain who had a much stronger provincial base and thus greater authority in negotiating on the behalf of Muslims in India.

His return and alliances formed:

One of the biographers of M. A. Jinnah, Stanley Wolpert of UCLA said: "Few individuals significantly 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. Hailed as 'Great Leader' (Quaid-I-Azam) of Pakistan and its first governor-general, Jinnah virtually conjured that country into statehood by the force of his indomitable will. His place of primacy in Pakistan's history looms like a minaret over the achievements of all his contemporaries in the Muslim League." "We are a nation," Jinnah said, three years before Partition, "with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitude and ambitions - in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life." When in 1934 the Muslims of India elected Jinnah as their representative to the Central Legislative Assembly, in his absence, and the 1935 Government of India Act gave him an opportunity to regain his former influence, Jinnah returned to India and worked towards the creation of a separate state for Muslims by uniting the various disparate Muslim groups scattered throughout India
Jinnah knew exactly what he was doing throughout his leadership of the Pakistan movement. He was “an able, single-minded political tactician who took full advantage of the dramatic political changes which occurred after India's entry into the Second World War” . However, even before the advent of the Second World War, Jinnah made his alliances and manipulated them to benefit his cause. His alliance with Sikander Hayat Khan, after the 1937 elections where the Unionist Party won the majority of Muslim votes, was a recognition of the latter's power and the need for the support of rural landowners who controlled the majority of rural votes. In exchange for Khan's support in National politics, Jinnah allowed him control over the organisation of the Muslim League. By 1939, the Muslim League had greatly increased their influence; this was largely due to the blunders of Congress. After the 1937 elections, Congress had won the mandate to form ministries in 7 out of 11 provinces, which put many Muslims under Congress (largely Hindu) rule. This would have been an apt opportunity for Congress to establish itself as an all-India party and shed its 'Hindu' mantle, however, the reality was quite the opposite. Congress made no effort to empathize with or respect Muslim culture and religion . This boosted the Muslim League's rhectoric that it alone could safeguard Islamic interests in India. It was after this period that the demand for Pakistan intensified. Even the British agreed with this viewpoint, in 1939, Linlithgow dubbed Congress 'a Hindu organisation', implicitly accepting the right of the Muslim League to speak for all Indian Muslims.

It could be said that the outbreak of World War Two was a watershed in the movement for Pakistan. World War Two served to firstly accelerate British departure and also to put Muslim League and Congress on the same platform. The 1942 Crippes Mission, which was a British attempt to garner wartime support from India in exchange for self-government, conceded the theory of partition. “The British could not contemplate the transfer of their present responsibility for the peace and welfare of India to any system of government whose authority is directly denied by large and powerful elements in India's national life.”

The Psychological Game:

Jinnah's creation of a 'modern Muslim persona' was the binding force that brought about the uniting of the Muslims in India. The main divisions among them at that time were a common dress, language, political organization, sect and territory. Jinnah brought together the various factions with his vociferous talk for a 'common land' - Pakistan. In this 'Muslim utopia', Urdu would be the common language; the Muslim League a central political organisation and Jinnah's own dress sense and lack of any particular sect the common practices. Just as Nehru and Gandhi used clothes to unite and bring together the majority of Hindus, Jinnah amalgamated the various forms of Islamic dress to form a common attire that would appeal to all sects of Muslim society. By dressing in an Islamic fashion, he managed to completely divide himself from his previous counterparts, Gandhi, Nehru and the largely Hindu Congress party. When he was once asked for his sect (Sunni or Shia), he responded by asking what was the prophet . This again brought about a sense of unity among the Muslims of India, divided among themselves on the basis of their Islamisation. Some were Hindu converts from the time of the Mughal empire, others were of Arab or Turkish descent. Jinnah's answer, radical as it might have been for that time, united all of them as Muslims.

Also, Jinnah made all Muslims feel an affinity with this new 'dream nation', which would have a place for all Muslims, and thus served to unite the people of the future Pakistan. Professor Ziauddin Ahmad, the biographer of “Quaid-e-Azam”, commented, "When he defined Muslim nationhood in such tangible terms, every Muslim found himself testifying to the justice of this claim, and subscribing to the logical corollary of the fact and recognition of separate Muslim nationhood, viz., the demand for a Muslim homeland."

There are many factors that go to show that Mohamed Ali Jinnah did ensure that the newly created nation of Pakistan would be a fair and just nation for all its citizens, regardless of sect or gender. In a social system where women were, more often than not, oppressed, Jinnah brought about woman's rights, human rights and minority rights.

Was it all for power?

His sincerity in ensuring the creation of a land for his followers could be seen in his repeated rejection of the offer to be the first Indian prime minister in exchange for giving up the idea of Pakistan and maintaining a united India. There is a common misconception that Jinnah wanted a separate state for Muslims, even if it was at the expense of many innocent lives. However, Jinnah did actually accept the Cabinet Mission plan for a united India with Muslim-majority areas to be under Muslim rule. The Cabinet Mission plan advocated a union of India comprising both British India and the Indian States, with a central government to deal with foreign affairs, defence and communications. The union would have an Executive and a Legislature. Each province would maintain power over all other areas. The provinces were also to be divided into three sections. Provinces could opt out of any group after the first general elections. Lastly, there would be an interim government having the support of the major political parties. It was only when Nehru rejected the plan as a 'stop-gap' , after Congress had first accepted it on 24th May 1946, that Jinnah, for the first time in his political career, turned to a non-constitutional move and called for a communal mobilisation among the Muslims, resulting in rapidly spreading horrific violence, starting in Calcutta, India seemed to be on the brink of a civil war . It was only when Viceroy Wavell invited the League to join Congress in forming the interim government that the violence decreased.

Conclusion:

Jinnah began his leadership of the Pakistan movement around the time he turned 40, the age Muslims believe is a turning point in life. The death of his wife ended his family commitments and his children were grown. Repeated appeals to return to India to guide the Muslims could have been a way for him to get back with God and Islam. Whatever his motivations, Jinnah was indeed a leader who despite his personal motives, served to unite the Islamic people of India and give them a land to call their own.
By analysing his motives however, we can see that he seemed to be motivated largely by both a quest for personal power and to a desire to carry out his politics in the diplomatic manner he saw fit as opposed to Gandhi's anti-British movements, and to perhaps prove the superiority of constitutional politics as opposed to anti-constitutional means.
His psychological method of using himself as an example in terms of dress, religion and politics to unite the Muslims was an extraordinary. His inclusion of minority and women's rights made him a politician with support on all sides and a very wide base to work with. He realised after the 1937 elections and the poor showing of the Muslim League that theories were good but grassroots participation was needed to establish power.
He was shrewd in his dealings with his opponents and made use of the unionists to garner support crucial for the Muslim league in 1936 and then moved to essentially put them down in 1944
Jinnah leadership of the moment was impeccable for the uniting of the disparate Muslim factions but it was lacking in that there was no 'successor' capable of replacing Jinnah's place after his death. Knowing that his death was close, Jinnah ought to have groomed a successor to prevent Pakistan from falling into the quagmire it did. However his quest for power could have stood in the way of that. The other factor that could have possibly influenced his decision not to 'share' his power and leadership could have been that at that stage, Pakistan needed one strong leader and power could not have been shared. As such, as Lord Mouthbatten called Jinnah, a “psychopathic case ” or otherwise, Mohamed Ali Jinnah used the Pakistan demand to hoist himself to power and succeeded remarkably at the same time managing to create a nation-state which was, for a short time, the dream of many an Indian Muslim.