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Leader
of a Free Nation:
After all the tiring efforts so far, the day was near as he was standing at the time where in recognition of his singular contribution, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan, while the Congress appointed Mountbatten as India's first Governor-General. Pakistan, it has been truly said, was born in virtual chaos. Indeed, few nations in the world have started on their career with less resources and in more treacherous circumstances. The new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital, an administrative core, or an organized defense force. Its social and administrative resources were poor; there was little equipment and still less statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas in a shambles with communications disrupted. This, along with the en masse migration of the Hindu and Sikh business and managerial classes, left the economy almost shattered.
The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances. On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December 1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances, therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The nation desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-i-Azam who had brought the State into being.
In the ultimate
analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was
responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the
terrible crisis on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He
mustered up the immense prestige and the unquestioning loyalty
he commanded among the people to energize them, to raise their
morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that
the freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though
tired and in poor health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part
of the burden in that first crucial year. He laid down the
policies of the new state, called attention to the immediate
problems confronting the nation and told the members of the
Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces
what to do and what the nation expected of them. He saw to it
that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite the
provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had
provided. He moved from Karachi to Lahore for a while and
supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a
time of fierce excitement, he remained sober, cool and steady.
He advised his excited audience in Lahore to concentrate on
helping the refugees, to avoid retaliation, exercise restraint
and protect the minorities. He assured the minorities of a fair
deal, assuaged their inured sentiments, and gave them hope and
comfort. He toured the various provinces, attended to their
particular problems and instilled in the people a sense of
belonging. He reversed the British policy in the North-West
Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the
tribal territory of Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel
themselves an integral part of Pakistan's body-politics. He
created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and
assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan.
He settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi,
secured the accession of States, especially of Kalat which
seemed problematical and carried on negotiations with Lord
Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
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.
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