JINNAH Creator of Pakistan BY HECTOR BOLITHO Reproduced by: Sani H. Panhwar JINNAH Creator of Pakistan BY HECTOR BOLITHO Failure is a word unknown to me. MOHAMMED ALI JINNAH. Reproduced by SaniH .Panhw ar CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT .. .. .. .. .. 1 Part 1. BOYHOOD IN KARACHI .. .. .. .. .. 3 A STUDENT IN LONDON .. .. .. .. .. 7 THE YOUNG ADVOCATE .. .. .. .. .. 12 THE YOUNG POLITICIAN .. .. .. .. .. 19 Part 2. TALK OFALEXANDER .. .. .. .. .. .. 24 BACKGROUND FOR PAKISTAN .. .. .. .. 28 1906-1910 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 35 1910-1913 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 40 AN ESSAY IN FRIENDSHIP .. .. .. .. .. 45 A GENTLEMAN OF RECOGNIZED POSITION .. .. 49 THE LUCKNOW PACT .. .. .. .. .. .. 51 GANDHI, ANNIE BESANT, AND EDWIN SAMUEL MONTAGU 56 Part 3. JINNAH'S SECOND MARRIAGE: 1918 .. .. .. .. 60 THE YEARS OF DISILLUSIONMENT .. .. .. .. 65 1921-1928 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 71 THE 'PARTING OF THE WAYS' .. .. .. .. .. 77 EXILE: 1930-1934 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 80 Part 4. RETURN TO INDIA: 1935-1937 .. .. .. .. .. 89 1937-1939 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 95 1940: PAKISTAN .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 103 Part 5. A BIRTHDAY PRESENT .. .. .. .. .. .. 107 1940-1942 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 110 1942-1944: AN ASSASSIN, AND THE DOCTORS .. .. 115 1944: JINNAH, GANDHI, AND LIAQUAT ALI KHAN .. 121 Part 6. 1945-1946 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 126 1946-1947 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 135 Part 7. 1947: PARTITION .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 141 Part 8. FLIGHT INTO KARACHI .. .. .. .. .. 152 THEBRITONSWHO STAYED .. .. .. .. .. 157 IN THE GARDEN .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 167 ZIARAT, AND THE LAST TASK .. .. .. .. 171 THELASTDAYS .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 175 BIBLIOGRAPHY .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 182 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DURING the two years I have spent in writing this book, I have visited both Pakistan and India, and have spoken to some two hundred people who knew Mohammed Ali Jinnah. My record of his life and achievement will, I hope, prove my gratitude to them. A full list of their names would serve no purpose, but I wish to mention some who have helped me with particular problems in my work. Jinnah's early years, as a lawyer in Bombay, were described to me by Sir Cowasjee Jehangir, Mr. Motilal Setalvad, former Advocate-General of Bombay, Mr. G. N. Joshi, Mr. Kanji Dwarkadas, and Rajah Sir Maharaj Singh, former Governor of Bombay. Those who helped me with the years of Jinnah's political struggle include Begum Liaquat Ali Khan, who has been especially generous in giving me reminiscences and in reading my manuscript; also Diwan Chaman Lall, and Mr. M. H. Saiyid, author of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (A Political Study), who allowed me the use of his own researches, when I was in Karachi. Other Pakistani writers who provided me with valuable material include Mr. Mohammed Noman, Mr. Altaf Husain, editor of Dawn, Mr. S. M. Ikram, Mr. Fareed S. Jafri, former editor of The Civil and Military Gazette (Karachi), Mr. Rafiq M. Khan, and Mr. Nasim Ahmed. I am grateful to the doctors, especially Surgeon-Commander Jal R. Patel, and Lieut.- Colonel Ilahi Bakhsh, who attended Mr. Jinnah; also to Sister Phyllis Dunham, who nursed him when he was dying. Their accounts of his growing malady, and the circumstances of his death, have greatly strengthened my narrative. The younger men who served Jinnah in his later years include Mr. K. H. Khurshid, his secretary, Captain S. M. Ahsan and Lieutenant Mazhar Ahmed, his naval As. D.C., and Wing-Commander Ata Ra.bbani, his air A.D.C., who were helpful with stories about their master and in teaching me to appreciate the lively hopes of Pakistan. Some fifty Britons who served in the sub-continent, before and since the transfer of power in 1947, have talked to me, and some of them have loaned me letters and diaries. Of these, I am especially obliged to Vice-Admiral J. W. Jefford, General Sir Frank Messervy, Colonel E. St J. Birnie, Colonel Geoffrey Knowles, and Sir Francis Mudie. My chapter on 'Partition' presented many problems. The facts have been checked by General Lord Ismay, Sir Eric Mieville, and Mr. Alan Campbell-Johnson, who were with Admiral Earl Mountbatten during his term as Viceroy; and by Mr. Ian Stephens, former editor of The Statesman. They have made corrections and suggestions, but any shade of opinion that may have crept into the narrative is my own. Jinnah Creator of Pakistan by Hector Bolitho; Copyright © www.sanipanhwar.com 1 The entire manuscript has been read by Sir Hawthorne Lewis, former Reforms Commissioner to the Government of India, and afterwards Governor of Orissa, by Sir Francis Low, for many years editor of The Times of India, Mr. Edwin Haward, former editor of The Pioneer and Mr. Majeed Malik, Principal Information Officer to the Government of Pakistan. Their vigilance has, I hope, brought my errors down to a minimum. I wish also to thank Mr. Derek Peel, who has helped me with research from the beginning to the end of my task. H. B. SALISBURY, WILTS, 1954 Jinnah Creator of Pakistan by Hector Bolitho; Copyright © www.sanipanhwar.com 2 PART ONE BOYHOOD IN KARACHI THE map of the west coast of India shows Kathiawar Peninsula, between the gulfs of Cutch and Cambay, thrust into the Arabian Sea, like a great challenging fist. This was the native land of the parents of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who fought for, and created, the Muslim state of Pakistan. Long before Jinnah was born, his parents migrated to the fishing port of Karachi, on the edge of the Sindh desert. It was then a small town of some so,000 people. The dust from the desert came down on them in hot clouds: it invaded their food, their clothes and their lungs. On one side was the parched earth, pleading for water: to the west was the sea, from which they made their living. Today, Karachi is the throbbing capital of the biggest Muslim country in the world: refugees, officials, and business men have swelled the population to a million and a quarter. Thousands of masons toil, from dawn to dark, turning more and more acres of the desert into blocks of offices, and dwellings, so that, from the air, the edge of the city seems to increase, overnight, like grey lava flowing into the sand. Ancient bunder boats still come into the harbor from coastal ports, their huge sails bowing amiably over the smooth blue water; but there are also the big ships of international commerce, from Liverpool, Tokyo and the Baltic. And there are destroyers, tossing the foam from their bows as they steam in from torpedo practice: busy, proud ships, of the youngest navy in the world. In the heart of the bustling new city is old Karachi; the town of mellow houses that Jinnah knew, as a boy. Some of the streets are so narrow, and the houses so low, that the camels ambling past can look in the first-floor windows. In one of these narrow streets, Newnham Road, is the house—since restored and ornamented with balconies—where Mohammed Ali Jinnah was born. The date is uncertain: in the register of his school, in Karachi, the day is recorded as October 20, 1875; but Jinnah always said that he had been born on Christmas Day—a Sunday—in 1876. If the 1876 date is correct, he was seven days old when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Kaisar-i-Hind, on the Plain of Delhi. He was born in the year that Imperial India was created, and he lived to negotiate, with Queen Victoria's great-grandson, for its partition and deliverance from British rule. In one of the tenement houses in old Karachi there lives Fatima Bai, a handsome old woman, aged eighty-six; one of the few persons alive who can remember Mohammed Jinnah Creator of Pakistan by Hector Bolitho; Copyright © www.sanipanhwar.com 3 Ali Jinnah when he was a boy. She was a bride of sixteen, married to one of Jinnah's cousins, when she arrived in the family home in Karachi. The year was 1884: Jinnah was then seven years old. Fatima Bai lives with her son, Mohammed Ali Ganji, in rooms at the top of a flight of bare stone stairs. I went there one evening and she received me in her own room, in which there were her bed, an immense rocking-chair, and a wardrobe where, among the bundles of clothes, the few existing documents—the family archives —were kept. Mohammed Ali Ganji spread the papers on the bed, beside his mother, and then gave me the bones of the early story. Although Jinnah's immediate ancestors were Muslims—followers of the Khoja sect of the Aga Khan—they came, like so many Muslim families in India, of old Hindu stock. Mohammed Ali Ganji said that the family migrated to the Kathiawar Peninsula from the Mahan area, north of the Sindh desert, long ago. From Kathiawar, they moved to Karachi, where they settled, and prospered in a modest way. When Jinnah was six years old, he was sent to school in Karachi. When he was ten, he went on a ship to Bombay, where he attended the Gokul Das Tej Primary School, for one year. He was eleven when he was returned to Karachi, to the Sindh Madrasah High School; and he was fifteen when he went to the Christian Missionary Society High School, also in Karachi. Mohammed Ali Ganji said, "In the same year that he was at the Mission School, he was married by his parents, as was the custom of the country, to Amai Bai, a Khoja girl from Kathiawar. In 1892 he went to England to study law and, while he was there, his young wife died. Soon afterwards, his mother died, and his father became very poor. Fatima Bai raised her hand and interrupted her son: she said, "He was a good boy; a clever boy. We lived, eight of us, in two rooms on the first floor of the house in Newnham Road. At night, when the children were sleeping, he would stand a sheet of cardboard against the oil lamp, to shield the eyes of the children from the light.