Remembering “Plain Mr. Jinnah”

Posted on December 25, 2009
Filed Under >Adil Najam, History, People, Photo of the Day
40 Comments
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Adil Najam

There picture are not of very high quality, but I am very fond of them because they depict a very different side of Mohammad Ali Jinnah from the one that our official discourse allows us to see. Today, on Mr. Jinnah’s 133rd birthday, I suspect that the Quaid-i-Azam – who always preferred to be “Plain Mr. Jinnah” would have fondly welcomed these photographs rather than the rather stern ones that have been flashing on our television screens all day.

These pictures depict a side of “Plain Mr. Jinnah” that we have often ignored, and sometimes purposely tried to hide.

It is a more human side. A less camouflaged side. A side that depicts a ‘normal’ person–flaws and all–rather than a ‘perfect leader.’

It is a side that, in fact, makes Mr. Jinnah more complete than our official depictions would have him be. Without this side, he cannot be complete or be completely understood.

The picture on the top-left was taken in Bombay with his daughter Dina and his dogs; top-right is taken on a vacation in Kashmir (I believe), with Dina and Begum Liaquat Ali Khan; the third and fourth pictures may well be from the same vacation in Kashmir.

40 responses to “Remembering “Plain Mr. Jinnah””

  1. Yasir says:

    WONDERFUL JINNAH….WE WILL INSHALLAH MAKE PAKISTAN JINNAH’s PAKISTAN….

  2. shafiq says:

    great are great

  3. […] Mohamed Ali Jinnah, it seems, was not a “real freedom fighter” and he did “nothing for Islam.” (On Jinnah, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). So says the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). And by what logic does Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his party come to this conclusion? According to the party spokesman: ““Jinnah was not imprisoned during the independence struggle. That is why he did nothing worth remembering.â€

  4. TURAB says:

    Dr. Akbar thank you so much for uploading the movie Jinnah on google video but I was wondering if you could send us a master print here in calgary in order to show it here for all the positives attached with it… I think hasan uncle was persueing it really hard but I don’t know wht happenned?

  5. Hina Zafar says:

    No one’s actually said anything as what is in these pictures that making Jinnah look more human. Is it just the presence of other human form????

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