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. Repro duced by S a n i H . P a n h w a r CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT .. .. .. .. .. 1 Part 1. BOYHOOD INKARACHI .. .. .. .. .. 3 A STUDENTINLONDON .. .. .. .. .. 7 THEYOUNG ADVOCATE .. .. .. .. .. 12 THEYOUNG POLITICIAN .. .. .. .. .. 19 Part 2. TALK OFALEXANDER .. .. .. .. .. .. 24 BACKGROUND FOR PAKISTAN .. .. .. .. 28 1906-1910 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 35 1910-1913 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 40 ANESSAY INFRIENDSHIP .. .. .. .. .. 45 A GENTLEMAN OFRECOGNIZEDPOSITION .. .. 49 THELUCKNOW PACT .. .. .. .. .. .. 51 GANDHI, ANNIEBESANT,ANDEDWINSAMUEL MONTAGU 56 Part 3. JINNAH'S SECONDMARRIAGE: 1918 .. .. .. .. 60 THEYEARS OFDISILLUSIONMENT .. .. .. .. 65 1921-1928 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 71 THE'PARTING OFTHE WAYS' .. .. .. .. .. 77 EXILE: 1930-1934 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 80 Part 4. RETURN TOINDIA:1935-1937 .. .. .. .. .. 89 1937-1939 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 95 1940: PAKISTAN .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 103 Part 5. A BIRTHDAY PRESENT .. .. .. .. .. .. 107 1940-1942 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 110 1942-1944:ANASSASSIN, ANDTHEDOCTORS .. .. 115 1944: JINNAH,GANDHI, ANDLIAQUAT ALI KHAN .. 121 Part 6. 1945-1946 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 126 1946-1947 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 135 Part 7. 1947: PARTITION .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 141 Part 8. FLIGHTINTO KARACHI .. .. .. .. .. 152 THEBRITONSWHO STAYED .. .. .. .. .. 157 IN THEGARDEN .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 167 ZIARAT, ANDTHELASTTASK .. .. .. .. 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 fulllist of their names wouldserve no purpose, but I wish to mention some who have helped mewith particularproblems inmywork. 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. KanjiDwarkadas, and Rajah Sir MaharajSingh,former Governor ofBombay. 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. NasimAhmed. 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 greatlystrengthened 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 GeoffreyKnowles, and SirFrancis 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 asViceroy; and by Mr.Ian Stephens, former editor of The Statesman. They have made corrections and suggestions, but any shade of opinion that may have creptinto the narrativeis myown. JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; 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 beginningto the endof my task. H.B. SALISBURY, WILTS, 1954 JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; 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, fromwhich theymadetheirliving. 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,likegreylava flowinginto 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, proudships,of theyoungest navy inthe world. In the heart of the bustling new city is old Karachi; the town of mellow houses that Jinnah knew, as aboy.Some of the streets areso 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 Britishrule. 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 JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; 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 thefamily homein Karachi.The yearwas 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 bundlesof clothes,the fewexistingdocuments—the family archives —were kept. Mohammed Ali Ganji spread the papers on the bed, beside his mother, and then gave me the bones of theearly 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 theysettled,andprosperedina 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 inKarachi. Mohammed Ali Ganji said, "In the same year that he was at the Mission School, he was marriedby 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 wifedied. Soon afterwards,hismother died,and hisfatherbecame verypoor... 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. Then he would read, and read. One night I went to him and said, 'You will make yourself ill from so much study,' and he answered, Bai, you know I cannot achieve anything in life unless I work hard." As Fatima Bai finished her story, an old man appeared at the door; a smiling old Muslim with tousled, snow-white hair. His name was Nanji Jafar. He came in, sat in the rocking-chair and said that, as far as he knew, he was in his 'eighties'. Though he had been at school with Jinnah, all he could recall was, "I played marbles with him in the street" JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; Copyright©www.sanipanhwar.com 4 When I asked, "Can you remember anything that he said to you?" he looked from beneath his thickwhitebrowsandrepeated,"I played marbleswith himin the street." I asked him to close his eyes and to see, once more, the coloured glass marbles in the dust. Nanji Jafar closed his eyes and dug deeper into his memory: then he told his only anecdote of Jinnah's boyhood. One morning, when Nanji Jafar was playing in the street, Jinnah, then aged about fourteen, came up to him and said, "Don't play marbles in the dust; it spoilsyour clothes anddirtiesyour hands. Wemust stand up and play cricket." The boys in Newnham Road were obedient: they gave up playing marbles and allowed Jinnah to lead them from the dusty street to a bright field where he brought his bat and stumps for them to use. When he sailed for England at the age of sixteen, he gave Nanji Jafar his bat and said, "You will go on teaching the boys to play cricket while I am away." All Jinnah's story is in the boyhood dictum—'Stand up from the dust so that your clothes are unspoiledandyour hands cleanfor the tasks that fall to them.' The chief peril in writing about Mohammed Ali Jinnah lies in the spurious anecdotes that are alreadyconfusing thefacts of hisstory. Sorting these facts from the legends is not easy. In her appreciation1 of Jinnah, written in 1917, Mrs. Naidu described him as the eldest son of a rich merchant . . . reared in careless affluence. This picture is false: as Fatima Bai said, the family lived in two rooms of a house, set amongthe bedlam of rickshaws and camel-carts. Jinnah's father was a hide merchant—a lean man named Jinnah Poonja: his wife, who bore him seven children, is never more than a vague shadow in the story. Her eldest child was Mohammed Ali, the boy who grew up and made a forlorn, scattered multitude into a nation. Then came Rahmat, Maryam, Ahmed Ali, Shireen, Fatima, and Bande Ali, all of whom remained obscure, except Fatima, who qualified as a dentist, and who,inlateryears,becameherbrother's close anddevoted companion. Pakistanis sometimes enjoy the delights of gossip more than the science of history, and they are already weaving legends about Jinnah's name. There is a tale, repeated in the Pakistani magazines, of an astrologer who stopped Jinnah one day in the street, when 1 Mohamed Ali Jinnah, An Ambassador of Unity, His Speeches and Writings, 1912-1917, with a biographical appreciationbySarojiniNaidu.(Ganesh&Co.,Madras.) Mrs. Naidu became one of Mohammed Ali Jinnah's few devoted friends. She was a remarkable and talented woman.ShehadbeenastudentatGirtonCollege,Cambridge,during1896-97,butshefoundtheEnglishclimate 'too trying' andreturnedto India.After Partition,she became the first womanGovernor ofanIndianProvince— UttarPradesh—whereshediedinMarch,1949. JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; Copyright©www.sanipanhwar.com 5 he was still a schoolboy. The astrologer practiced a little abracadabra and told him that there weresigns that hewouldgrowup to bea 'king'. Another story is told of Jinnah being so poor that he sat under the light of a lamp-post to study his books; and that he spent all his leisure from school in the police courts, listening to the wrangling of the advocates. There is no proof of this: in later life, he referred to only one boyhood visit to a law court, with his father. When he saw his first advocate, ingown andbands, hesaid,"Iwantto be abarrister."2 Little is known of these early years. Jinnah was neither a letter-writer nor a diarist; nor did he care to reminisce about the past. But itis certain that he was neither Mrs. Naidu's eldest son of a rich merchant . . . reared in careless affluence, nor a poor boy reading beneath a street lamp: the truthliesinbetween. Over the gateway of the Sindh Madrasah School in Karachi are the words, ENTER TO LEARN-GO FORTH TO SERVE, carved in the stone. The time came when Mohammed Ali Jinnah had to 'go forth' into the world—armed only with his matriculation from the Bombay University, gained at the Mission School, and his determination to stand up from the dust. In his earliest photograph he appears as a lean boy, with high cheekbones, and heavy lips that suggest a sensuousness his character belied; eyes with more power than warmth, and beautiful, slim hands, which he used with an actor's skill, evenwhen theywerebony and old. There are no letters, and only one remembered phrase, to make the boy of almost sixteen more real. The one, curious phrase persists in almost every piece of writing that recalls Jinnah's early years: he is described as 'that tall, thin boy, in a funny long yellow coat.' At the time when Jinnah finished his schooling, there was an Englishman, Frederick Leigh Croft, working as an exchange broker in Bombay and Karachi. He was heir to a baronetcy—a thirty-two-year-old bachelor, described by a kinswoman who remembers him as 'something of a dandy, with a freshly picked carnation in his buttonhole each morning; a recluse and a wit, uncomfortable in the presence of children, whom he did not like.' But he liked Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and was impressed by his talents. Frederick Leigh Croft ultimately persuaded Jinnah Poonja to send his son to London, to learn the practice of thelaw. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was not yet sixteen when he sailed across the Arabian Sea, towards the western world which was to influence his mind, his ambition, and his tastes; which was to imbue him with an Englishness of manner and behavior that enduredto hisdeath. 2 ImmortalYears,SirEvelynWrench(Hutchinson,1945),pp.132-3. JinnahCreatorofPakistanbyHectorBolitho; Copyright©www.sanipanhwar.com 6