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Was Jinnah Secular, Nationalist or Islamist? An Assessment
Was Jinnah Secular, Nationalist or Islamist? An Assessment
I January-June 2016
Zafar Mohyuddin
Dr.Amjad Abbas Khan
Dr.Kaleem Ullah Bareach
ABSTRACT
Ever since the creation of Pakistan, its founder Muhammad Ali
Jinnah has been debated regarding proclivities of his ideology of a
nation state. His personality has been interpreted very differently by
different scholars, politicians and literati. Likewise, the issue, that
whether a state can have ideology on the pattern of ‘ideology of
Pakistan’ or not, has been deliberated upon. Intellectuals with liberal
leanings argue that Jinnah was a liberal and progressive
constitutionalist in his demeanor and he wanted a liberal democratic and
progressive country in which all citizens could live life in accordance
with their faith without highhandedness from an individual,
organizations or state it-self. On the other hand, the Islamists argue that
Jinnah was a staunch Muslim and he established Pakistan to be a
laboratory of Islam in the world so that international community could
witness principles of Islam in practice. They stress that Pakistan was
created as an Islamic country, meant for Muslims only and livable with
implementation of Sharia alone. The former group holds that Jinnah was
a nationalist and he did not want partition of India on communal lines.
This is corroborated by Jinnah’s acceptance of Cabinet Mission Plan in
which Jinnah acceded to an undivided India and that Jinnah only wanted
maximum constitutional securities for the Muslims of India. It was
circumstances and Congress doggedness that caused creation of
Pakistan eventually. The latter group, however, claims that Jinnah
wanted a country to be a ‘citadel of Islam’ and he wanted religion to be
strictly implemented and practiced in it. This is an interesting debate but
unfortunately it has produced serious consequences for the country too.
The present militant struggle for Sharia is derived and exploited on the
basis of the aforementioned debate about the demeanor of Jinnah and
the nature of Pakistan he wanted to establish.
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INTRODUCTION
Ever since Jinnah’s death in 1948, shortly after the birth of the
new state, there has been a tug of war over his legacy. Perhaps the
most contentious issue in Pakistan since its very inception in 1947 is
the nature of the state. Islamists in Pakistan assert that he wanted an
Islamic state. Islamic modernists say that he wanted a modern Islamic
democratic state; some people from the left opine that he was a
communalist who was not a secular because he voiced for Muslim
separatism. But contrarily there are strong arguments that Jinnah was
secular and wanted a secular, progressive Pakistan in which the state
had no mandate to interfere in the personal lives of its citizens.
Jinnah in his early years of politics Jinnah was prominent
nationalist and was very active member of Congress and Home Rule
League. Time and again he battled with communal and anti-secular
tendencies among the Indians and spoke only about one enemy, the
foreign oppressor. Jinnah was elected in 1910, by the Muslims of the
Bombay presidency as a member of Viceroy’s Legislative Council,
defeating Maulvi Rafiuddin who was the president of Bombay
Muslim League (Jaswat Singh, 2011:69). Jinnah joined Muslim
League in 1913 and according to Sarojini Naidu, he was assured by
Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Syed Wazir Hassan, that he will advocate
the Muslim interests but not at the cost of united national cause of
India to which his life was dedicated (Waheed-uz-Zaman, 2001:5).
He was titled as a “best ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity” and
brought both, Indian National Congress and Muslim League on one
platform on the eve of Lucknow Pact in 1916 (Waheed-uz-Zaman,
2001:5). Jinnah’s popularity as a democrat went to heights when
Willingdon’s (Governor of Bombay) tenure ended in November,
1918. Due to Willington’s biases against the representation of
Indians: “Jinnah could hardly wait for that governor to leave”
(Stanley Wolpert, 1984:60). Some Parsi friends of governor had
planned a public function to honour him but Jinnah launched a mass
opposition movement. It was Jinnah’s “first and most vigorous public
demonstration against a British official” (Stanley Wolpert, 1984:60).
More than three hundred youthful followers of Jinnah staged toughest
stand in front of Bombay Town Hall. The commissioner of Police
ordered hall to be cleared and Jinnah as well as Ruttie and their
friends were forced out of hall. He, however, emerged from the town
hall “a uniquely popular Bombay hero” (Stanley Wolpert, 1984:60).
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2
After Jinnah left Congress and led Muslim League for saving exclusively the
rights of Muslims of India and especially after the establishment of Pakistan that
hall is anonymously referred to only by its initials P. J. Hall. Presently few
Indians know that it was built to pay tribute to a great Indian leader, Mohammad
Ali Jinnah.
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Muslims were treated fairly and that their distinctive cultural and
religious identities were not impaired. Whether Muslim interests
could be best safeguarded within a united India or in separate Muslim
homeland was a matter of tactics. Had he been adamant in creating a
separate country for Muslims, he would not have accepted Cabinet
Mission plan that outlined a United India with federal political
system.
After the second round table conference Jinnah settled in
London. While he was in self- exile in England, his political thinking
and strategy fundamentally transformed. There are various opinions
about the return of Jinnah from England. It is argued by psycho-
analysts that Jinnah was a man of vanity and ego, and he felt each
rejection as an utter humiliation (Stanley Wolpert, 1984:235). In
economist someone wrote that Nehru’s arrogant remarks about Jinnah
as a ‘failed politician’ prompted him to return to India (Waheed-uz-
Zaman, 2001:20). Another important reason was that there was a
large vacuum of Muslim leadership in India after the death of leaders
like Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Sir Muhammad Shafi. They
had will and capacity to lead Muslims but after them Muslim
leadership generally comprised of discredited individuals who did not
have trust of the lead. Jinnah felt that it was right time to fill this gap
(Waheed-uz-Zaman, 2001:20). According to Sikandar Hayat, “the
traditional Muslim leadership, as a whole, failed to produce any far-
sighted leader who could understand the difficulties confronting the
Muslims, rise above sectional concerns, and show them a real way
out” (Sikandar Hayat, 2008:166).
When Jinnah came back to India he changed his strategy. Here
if we look into theory, a politician to qualify as a secular broadly
needs to fulfill certain criteria: not use religion as a tool to appeal the
masses, cater to the interest of the people not because they belonged
to a certain religious community, and resolve communal, religious
issues in a democratic manner. By this criterion, Jinnah was a stanch
secular till 1937. He had opposed the Khilafat movement and was
blamed as an anti-Muslim. The right of separate electorates given to
the Muslim community under the 1909 reforms was characterized by
him as a virus introduced into the body politic of India with evil
design. Since 1937, Jinnah became the leader and sole spokesperson
for the Muslims in India. Jinnah violated the first criterion of a secular
politician and used religion as a tool to appeal the masses to counter
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for this we would have been free people long ago. No power can hold
another nation and especially a nation of 400 million soles in
subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had
happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any
length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from
this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to
go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of
Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that, has
nothing to do with the business of the State” (Quaid-i-Azam’s
Speech, 1950:4).
A careful study of the above words of Jinnah suggest that he
believed in pluralism and he wished equal rights for all citizens of
Pakistan irrespective of their religious or regional affiliations.
Moreover, he used the word ‘nation’ retrospectively for all citizens of
India.
In the same speech, Jinnah tried to make his message clear in
different words and stated that: “…..every one of you, no matter to
what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you
in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second
and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and
obligations…. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our
ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to
be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the
religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual,
but in the political sense as citizen of the State” (Quaid-i-Azam’s
Speech, 1950:4).
Jinnah was a perfect secularist as far as his private life was
concerned, he used to drink wine openly before 1937 and later he
continued this privately. He was not a practicing Muslim and there is
an opinion that he probably read only one book about Islam and that
was Muhammadan Law. He supported the special marriage
amendment bill, which sought to provide mixed religions marriages a
legal protection. He also married to a Parsi woman. He could hardly
speak Urdu and often use English in his public speeches. Jinnah was a
secular in his outlook, but at the same time was very much concerned
about the rights of the Muslims. Jinnah accepted separate electorate as
a ‘necessary evil’, a protection of Muslim interests as long as the
Muslim community was backward. As Jinnah summoned up the
Lucknow session of the Muslim League he said “sentimental
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CONCLUSION
To conclude, Jinnah was a secularist who viewed Islam as an
instrument of identity formation and political mobilization for the
Muslims of South Asia. He was a liberal and progressive Muslim who
could not ignore the Muslim rights and interests in British India. An
insightful constitutionalist as he was, Jinnah could imagine a perilous
future of Indian Muslims in a free India with domination of Congress
and Hindus. He made this point repeatedly to congress as well as the
British government that Muslims were in a very special situation in
India and they, accordingly, need some effective constitutional
safeguards. These safeguards could only be ensured in the shape of
autonomous provincial units so that in Muslim majority provinces
they could secure their political and economic interests in a better
manner. The Congress, especially during and in the wake of
developments of WWII, was in a reactionary mood because
throughout the war period, the government had put all Congress
leadership in jails while it conciliated with the Muslims and Jinnah.
Jinnah showed rare quality of a statesman when he accepted the
Cabinet Mission Plan. It was the best available mechanism for India
in a crisis situation but Congress, having once accepted, backed out.
Resultantly, India had to be partitioned and two independent countries
emerged with the withdrawal of British Empire. It is ironical, that
after partition, India moved gradually towards giving provincial
autonomy while Pakistan increasingly drifted towards more and more
centralization. Both countries adopted opposite way from their pre-
partition vision. Had Congress accepted the same vision of
decentralization before, India could have been saved from partition
and its consequences? Jinnah gave a secular road map for the future
constitution in his 11th August speech. Whenever he talked of Islam,
he also talked about the modern notion of the state, constitutionalism,
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