December 25: Mr. Jinnah’s Legislative Career

Posted on December 25, 2006
Filed Under >Yasser Latif Hamdani, History, Law & Justice, People
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Guest Post by Yasser Latif Hamdani

As we celebrate M.A. Jinnah’s birth anniversay today, December 25, it behoves us to think deep and hard on his true legacy (also see earlier Jinnah-related ATP Posts: The Other Side of Mr. Jinnah; Watch Jinnah-The Movie; 1947 Video-1; 1947 Video-2; Aazadi Mubarak; Independence Day Greetings for India; Remembering 9.11.1948).

Those who criticize the current government for passing the Women’s Protection Bill would do well to remind themselves of the long and extremely effective legislative career of Pakistan’s founding father, Mr. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, as a member of the central legislative assembly of India.

Indeed the greatest tragedy of the subcontinent is that both India and Pakistan have chosen to selectively remember this great man, especially by choosing to ignore his politics prior to the Pakistan Movement. However if both India and Pakistan were to revisit Jinnah’s pre-1937 Indian nationalist career, we would find much to celebrate together, even if we continue to differ on his later role as the champion of Muslim separatism.

Jinnah’s legislative career spanned over close to four decades, out of which 37 years were spent serving the cause of India’s progress. Most ironic was his very first election in 1910, where Congressman Jinnah, who was to one day lead Muslim League to hilt against the Congress, defeated the Muslim Leaguer Rafiuddin Ahmad from Bombay to successfully enter into the legislative council. Who could imagine then that this young Congressman barrister would one day end up becoming Muslim League’s most famous leader.

Barely a month into the assembly, he took on Lord Minto by denouncing the “cruel and harsh treatment that is meted out to the Indians in Natal” in support of Mohandas Gandhi, who too was to become his principal foe in the future. When Lord Minto reprimanded him for using “harsh language”, he replied, “Well my Lord, I should feel inclined to use much harsher language.”

In 1912, Jinnah alienated many of his Muslim supporters by giving his wholehearted support to the Special Marriage Amendment Bill, which sought to provide mixed religion marriages legal protection. He argued that the bill would provide equality but he was opposed by many members on the grounds that the bill contravened the Koran. Undaunted Jinnah asked the law member who had opposed the bill if he “would deny that there is a certain class of educated and enlightened people who rightly think that a gravest injustice is done to them as long as liberty of conscience is held from them”.

Rubbishing the idea that Muslim sensibilities would be hurt, he asked: “Is this the first time in the history of legislation in this country that this Council has been called upon to override Musalman Law or modify it to suit the time? The Council has over ridden and modified the Musalman law in many respects.” It was the same year that he stood up to argue that universal elementary education ought to be “compulsory”. He declared unfettered by any opposition religious or otherwise:

“In no country has elementary education become universal without compulsion. Find the money; if necessary tax the people. But I shall be told that people are already taxed. I shall be told that we shall face great unpopularity… My answer is that we should do all this to improve the masses of this country to whom you owe a much greater duty than anyone else. My answer is that you should remove the reproach that is leveled against the British rule, that is, the neglect of elementary education. My answer is that it is the duty of every civilised government to educate masses, and if you have to face unpopularity, if you have to face certain amount of danger, face it boldly in the name of duty.”

Later defining self government, he spoke of a government for the people and by the people unfettered and unconditionally. Here too Jinnah was at his best, a secular liberal politician who fought for what he believed in. While he opposed forces of religious reaction and espoused the cause of freedom, he did not turn his back to the legitimate demands of his community and this manifested itself in form of the Wakf Bill, which was his great legislative triumph for the Muslims. But if the Muslims thought Jinnah had changed his ways, they were sorely mistaken when he supported the Child Marriages Restraint Bill which outlawed marriages of girls below the age of 16. When questioned, Jinnah declared that religion had nothing to do with it, but that this was a question of common sense.

At other times, he pushed forward an agenda that sought to drive the British into a corner. In February 1924, he introduced a legislation that called for the Government of India to buy its stores through “Rupee tenders” instead of Pound sterling which had proved costly for India and had blatantly favored the British. In introducing this measure, he recounted 75 different British imperial purchases that had inhibited India’s economic development. His resolution passed and has been held by many historians as the single most important event in India’s pre-partition history that had stimulated indigenous Economic growth and development. Opposing a British move to introduce passports as a necessary pre-condition to enter India, Jinnah declared that “all regulations that impose passports are the biggest nuisance and the sooner they are done away with the better.”

Speaking against the deportation of Bombay Chronicle Editor, B. G. Horniman he declared:

“I do maintain, and I have drunk deep at the fountain of constitutional law, that the liberty of a man is dearest thing in the law of any constitution and it should not be taken away in this fashion.”

On Indian soldiers fighting British wars, Jinnah and Gandhi clashed publicly. Gandhi wanted to use Home Rule League to recruit soldiers for the British Empire, something which Jinnah found abhorrent and opposed. Jinnah believed that as long as Indians were not allowed to become officers or India remained in subjection, they could not be asked to fight for the empire. Jinnah said:

“We cannot ask young men to fight for principles, the application of which is denied to their own country. A subject race cannot fight for others with the heart and energy that a free race can fight with for the freedom of itself and others. If India has to make great sacrifices in the defence of the Empire, it must be as a partner in the Empire and not as its dependency. Let her feel that she is fighting for her own freedom as well as the freedom of a commonwealth of free nations under the British crown and then she will strain to stand by England to the last.”

Jinnah’s legislative career prior to his taking up the Muslim separatist case was marked by secular Indian nationalism and his desire to see India as a great and free nation of the world, inspired by constitutionalism and democracy. Jinnah stood for universal education, women’s rights, equality of Indians irrespective of religion, caste, creed or gender and against obscurantism of all forms. It is this part of his career that can not only help to bridge the gap of distrust between Pakistan and India, but can also inspire liberals in the nation that he founded to work for a modern, democratic and pluralistic Pakistan in line with Jinnah’s ideas of constitutionalism and democracy.

Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer in Lahore and a researcher of the history of the Pakistan Movement.

25 responses to “December 25: Mr. Jinnah’s Legislative Career”

  1. Kudos to Yasser Latif Hamdani . A great piece of informative writing. Valuable information I am searching for are readily available now.
    This post is from Kollam, Kerala, India. Please list here good books written on Saheb, especially biographies. Is the biography named Ambassador of Hindu MuslimUnity written by Sarojini Naidu, the great poet of undivided India in 1916 is avialable anywhere ?
    What kind of relationship between Jinnah Saheb and Sarojine Naidu ? plz quote authorities.
    Once again thank you for your valuable article.

  2. YLH says:

    This being Gandhi’s assassination day… I think it is important to revisit what Jinnah said on Gandhi’s passing…

    No. 61 Jinnah Papers Volume VII

    M.A.Jinnah to Devdas Gandhi
    Telegram, F111-GG/4

    Please accept my most sincere condolences on the tragic death of your revered father. Your loss is the loss of humanity. Pakistan joins you in mourning this loss.

    M A Jinnah

    Also this:

    No.59 Gazette of Pakistan Extraordinary Jinnah Papers Volume VII

    F.111 GG/5

    In exercise of powers conferred by section 25 of the negotiable instruments Act (Act XXVI of 1881) it has been decides to observe 31st January 1948, as a closed holiday through out the Pakistan dominion on account of Mr. Gandhi’s sad death.

    Muhammad Mukhtar for deputy secretary

  3. Dear Ghalib,

    Well said. H M Seervai, India’s foremost constitutional lawyer, wrote “Partition of India :Legend and Reality” and has conclusively destroyed the myth of history. There is little that can be done to absolve Mountbatten and his Congress allies like Jawaharlal Nehru of the mess they made at the time of partition leading to the deaths of 500 000 people.

    As Imusafir said above- Jinnah was forced to make Pakistan. It is this fact- the fact that it was Jinnah- who even someone like Amar Jaleel, an ideological Pakistan-hater to the bone- admires as a leader of calibre- who made Pakistan and not someone else.. that should force people gobbling up nationalist mythologies on all sides to cry halt and think about History.

    However this article is about Jinnah’s early career as an Indian nationalist.

  4. Ghalib says:

    his words”failure is a word unknown to me ” tells the tale of a mans beliefs!
    Stanley Wolperts books on Jinnah is a good book and in the openning its says osme thing great about the man we righly call Quaid-e-Azam,he wrote he was one for muslims what Gandhi and Nehru were together were for Hindus!
    indian law man Mr Seervai has written a book about partion as has entirely unearthed the true realities behind Jinnah even Ayesha Jalal a writer from Columbia universty has opened reserach work for Jinnah whos life is still a mystery for many!

  5. TURAB says:

    I didn’t know this but Mushi is the first president to visit Quaid’s Mazaar on 25th Dec ever!!! That was surprising for me to learn as I read it here

    Hats off to MUSHHI!

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