Remembering Quaid on his death anniversary
After his return from Britain in 1934, it took Jinnah only thirteen years to create Pakistan. Short though the period was, it posed formidable challenges to the founding father. He had to put new life in an insubstantial Muslim League. Within three years he was required to put up candidates for the all India provincial elections. Most of the party leaders belonged to the landowning gentry with limited vision. The vast majority of the ulema were opposed to the idea of a separate country. Failure to win the elections in any Muslim majority province in 1937 had created widespread dismay. Jinnah had to work overtime to rally the community behind him while papering over their differences, contradictions and prejudices.
Jinnah had developed symptoms of tuberculosis in the 30s but political exigencies required keeping the illness a secret. Many years later, Mountbatten stated that if he had known Jinnah was so ill, he would have stalled, hoping Jinnah’s death would avert partition. Even after the country had been created and other leaders enjoyed the fruits of power, Jinnah had no rest while there was a greater need on his part to keep the illness, which was now at an advanced stage, a secret.
The founding father knew very well that while the Two-Nation Theory could split India, it could not keep a multi-faith Pakistan one-piece. Some of the erstwhile anti-Pakistan ulema were working now to turn it into a religious state. This however was not possible under Jinnah’s watch. When miscreants looted Hindu property in Karachi, Jinnah ordered strong action against the criminals. His August 11 address before the Constituent Assembly laid down the basic principles that were to serve as guidelines for the new country. Pakistan was to be a modern, pluralistic, federal democracy where religion was to have “nothing to do with the business of the state”. Jinnah died 13 months after the creation of Pakistan. Only when the founding father was out of the way could Liaquat Ali Khan get the Objectives Resolution passed.
