Father
of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's achievement
as the founder of Pakistan, dominates everything else
he did in his long and crowded public life spanning
some 42 years. Yet, by any standard, his was an eventful
life, his personality multidimensional and his achievements
in other fields were many, if not equally great. Indeed,
several were the roles he had played with distinction:
at one time or another, he was one of the greatest legal
luminaries India had produced during the first half
of the century, an `ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity,
a great constitutionalist, a distinguished parliamentarian,
a top-notch politician, an indefatigable freedom-fighter,
a dynamic Muslim leader, a political strategist and,
above all one of the great nation-builders of modern
times.
What, however, makes him so remarkable is the fact
that while similar other leaders assumed the leadership
of traditionally well-defined nations and espoused their
cause, or led them to freedom, he created a nation out
of an inchoate and down-trodeen minority and established
a cultural and national home for it. And all that within
a decase. For over three decades before the successful
culmination in 1947, of the Muslim struggle for freedom
in the South-Asian subcontinent, Jinnah had provided
political leadership to the Indian Muslims: initially
as one of the leaders, but later, since 1947, as the
only prominent leader- the Quaid-i-Azam. For over thirty
years, he had guided their affairs; he had given expression,
coherence and direction to their ligitimate aspirations
and cherished dreams; he had formulated these into concerete
demands; and, above all, he had striven all the while
to get them conceded by both the ruling British and
the numerous Hindus the dominant segment of India's
population. And for over thirty years he had fought,
relentlessly and inexorably, for the inherent rights
of the Muslims for an honourable existence in the subcontinent.
Indeed, his life story constitutes, as it were, the
story of the rebirth of the Muslims of the subcontinent
and their spectacular rise to nationhood, phoenixlike.
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