A Historical Document (14-August-1947) ... **Tribute to the Freedom Fighters of Pakistan Movement 1947**

Date : 14 August 1947. Vice President. Muslim Students Federation, Muslim University, ALIGARH. I have Great pleasure in certifying that "Mr. Khalil-Ur-Rehman" was a student of this University for the last 4 years. He belonged to those groups which were sent by Prof. A.B.A. Haleem, then President of U.P Muslim Students Federation at different places. He worked for ''MUSLIM LEAGUE'' on the following various spots: 1) With Mr Sardar Bahadur and Alam khan in N.W.F.P. 2) In the Constituency of Raja Mahmood at Lucknow. 3) In the Constituency of Sir Roshan Zaman khan at Goundh. . Due to the services rendered by him in the Pakistan Movement Elections of 1945-46, he is worthy of all praise and admiration. I wish him Success.

ESTABLISHMENT OF PAKISTAN

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Lord Mountbatten announced that the transfer of power would take place on August 15, 1947.On June 9, the Council of the All-India Muslim League met in Delhi and passed a resolution in favour of the Plan. The Council gave the Quaid full authority “to accept the fundamental principles of the Plan as a compromise " and to take all-necessary steps and decisions in connection with it”.

On June 14, the All-India Congress Committee passed a resolution accepting the Plan, although it regretted “the secession of some parts of the country." The time from June 3, 1947, when the partition plan was announced, to August 15, 1947 the date of the transfer of power to the two new Dominions – the Union of India and Pakistan was seventy-two days in all. The Indian Independence Act was passed to set up the Dominions of India and Pakistan. So on August 14, 1947,within seven years after the adoption of Lahore Resolution, Pakistan emerged as an independent sovereign State under the relentless, able and dynamic leadership of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

IN THE END

The Quaid's last Message
It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: "The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can". In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote richard Symons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survivial". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".

A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the recipient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint.

The Aga Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia", and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as "an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. "Mr Jinnah", he said on his death in 1948, "was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatest of all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide". Such was Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.

A LEADER

Rajagopalacharia continued his efforts to bring about a Hindu-Muslim accord and in this regard Rajaji formula got famous. It was on 17 July, 1944 that Gandhi set the ball rolling by writing to Jinnah: "I have not written to you since my release. Today my heart says that I should write to you. We will meet whenever you choose. Do not disappoint me." Jinnah, who at that time was in Kashmir, replied that he would be glad to receive Gandhi at his residence in Bombay on his return. They met at Jinnah's house in Bombay on 9 September and thereafter corresponded at some length. They did meet a number of times up to 26 September, but without arriving at an agreement. They did not keep any record of their oral discussions but the text of their letters is available.
The Quaid-i-Azam and M.K. Gandhi talking to pressmen in Bombay, 1944


The first letter in this series was written by Jinnah to Gandhi on 10 September, and it is learnt from it that during their meeting on the previous day, Jinnah had tried to persuade Gandhi to accept the Pakistan Resolution of March 1940, while Gandhi had put forward the Rajaji Formula. The main points that emerged during the debate were as follows:

Jinnah complained the Gandhi's claim that he had come to discuss Hindu-Muslim settlement in his individual capacity raised "great difficulty" in his way because he himself could speak only in his capacity as the president of the Muslim League. Gandhi characteristically claimed, "though I represent nobody but myself, I aspire to represent all the inhabitants of India", to which Jinnah replied, "I cannot accept that statement of yours. It is quite clear that you represent nobody else but Hindus, and as long as you do not realize your true position and the realities, it is very difficult for me to argue with you."

For his part, Gandhi questioned the right of the Indian Muslims to call themselves a nation, "I find no parallel in history", he wrote in one of his letters, "for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock", to which Jinnah gave the famous reply:

"We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and, what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions. In short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life. By all canons of international law we are a nation."



The two leaders also differed with regard to the boundaries of Pakistan and how the issue of whether India should be divided at all, was to be determined. Gandhi was adamant on the question of partition and although he appeared to be conceding the possibility of partition he did everything he could to persuade the Quaid to give up his demand for the establishment of two sovereign States.

The British had been watching with anxiety the progress of the Gandhi-Jinnah talks and were making plans to meet the situation if the Congress and the League arrived at an agreement. The failure of these talks spurred the Viceroy to make renewed efforts to break the political deadlock in India.

The Quaid-i-Azam with M.K. Ghandhi in Bombay, 1944


Though the Gandhi-Jinnah negotiations failed to achieve the avowed goal of the Hindu-Muslim unity, they brought to Jinnah and the Muslim League two important political gains. Firstly, the leadership of the Congress had now offered to discuss the question of Pakistan seriously -- before that, the Congress and Mahatama had kept the door to that subject uncompromisingly shut. Secondly, the Congress could no longer justifiably claim that it stood for all the communities in India including the Muslims.


Jinnah-Gandhi Negotiations, 1944

A LEADER

While in England, the Quaid had been watching the events that were happening in India and was saddened to see how Muslim interests were being sacrificed by the chaotic situation within the Muslim League. The Muslim League was in the hands of rich landlords or some middle class intellectuals with limited horizons, while the All India Congress was emerging as the leading party for Indian independence.

In 1933, the "Now or Never" pamphlet by Choudhry Rehmat Ali was published in which the concept of a separate Muslim state was not only highlighted but the name "Pakistan" was also proposed for it. This motivated the young intellectuals of Aligarh and other universities to accelerate the growth of Muslim political consciousness throughout India.




Jinnah-Gandhi Negotiations, 1944

Rajagopalacharia continued his efforts to bring about a Hindu-Muslim accord and in this regard Rajaji formula got famous. It was on 17 July, 1944 that Gandhi set the ball rolling by writing to Jinnah: "I have not written to you since my release. Today my heart says that I should write to you. We will meet whenever you choose. Do not disappoint me." Jinnah, who at that time was in Kashmir, replied that he would be glad to receive Gandhi at his residence in Bombay on his return. They met at Jinnah's house in Bombay on 9 September and thereafter corresponded at some length. They did meet a number of times up to 26 September, but without arriving at an agreement. They did not keep any record of their oral discussions but the text of their letters is available.
The Quaid-i-Azam and M.K. Gandhi talking to pressmen in Bombay, 1944


The first letter in this series was written by Jinnah to Gandhi on 10 September, and it is learnt from it that during their meeting on the previous day, Jinnah had tried to persuade Gandhi to accept the Pakistan Resolution of March 1940, while Gandhi had put forward the Rajaji Formula. The main points that emerged during the debate were as follows:

Jinnah complained the Gandhi's claim that he had come to discuss Hindu-Muslim settlement in his individual capacity raised "great difficulty" in his way because he himself could speak only in his capacity as the president of the Muslim League. Gandhi characteristically claimed, "though I represent nobody but myself, I aspire to represent all the inhabitants of India", to which Jinnah replied, "I cannot accept that statement of yours. It is quite clear that you represent nobody else but Hindus, and as long as you do not realize your true position and the realities, it is very difficult for me to argue with you."

For his part, Gandhi questioned the right of the Indian Muslims to call themselves a nation, "I find no parallel in history", he wrote in one of his letters, "for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock", to which Jinnah gave the famous reply:

"We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and, what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions. In short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life. By all canons of international law we are a nation."



The two leaders also differed with regard to the boundaries of Pakistan and how the issue of whether India should be divided at all, was to be determined. Gandhi was adamant on the question of partition and although he appeared to be conceding the possibility of partition he did everything he could to persuade the Quaid to give up his demand for the establishment of two sovereign States.

The British had been watching with anxiety the progress of the Gandhi-Jinnah talks and were making plans to meet the situation if the Congress and the League arrived at an agreement. The failure of these talks spurred the Viceroy to make renewed efforts to break the political deadlock in India.

The Quaid-i-Azam with M.K. Ghandhi in Bombay, 1944


Though the Gandhi-Jinnah negotiations failed to achieve the avowed goal of the Hindu-Muslim unity, they brought to Jinnah and the Muslim League two important political gains. Firstly, the leadership of the Congress had now offered to discuss the question of Pakistan seriously -- before that, the Congress and Mahatama had kept the door to that subject uncompromisingly shut. Secondly, the Congress could no longer justifiably claim that it stood for all the communities in India including the Muslims.

QUAID-E-AZAAM as a LAWYER

Having qualified as a barrister in England and having made his mark in India, Jinnah's name could be justly added to the 'list of great lawyers' academically linked to Lincoln's Inn. Jinnah practiced both law and politics for half a century; he made a fortune as an advocate and earned glory and gratitude of prosperity as leader of the Indian Muslims. When Jinnah left the shores of free England and voyaged to subject India in 1896, he had perhaps no idea that, one day, he would be obliged by the erstwhile Hindu leaders to make history and his biggest brief would be to win the case of the Indian Muslims for a separate homeland."
Aziz Beg, Jinnah and his Times.