Jinnah: My Leader, My Hero | A Housewife's Weblog

Jinnah

My first memory of Quaid-e-Azam goes back to the days when my teacher told me “Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam ne banaya”. Growing up changed this first encounter into an admiration beyond expression in words. He had a personality and character suitable to be an ideal for the whole nation. For first fifty years we didn’t need any other hero as a nation. Starting from our currency notes, road names to monuments everything had his images. But unfortunately we loved him blindly; no one bothered to read about him or tried to be like him. He was a man of integrity, principle and unmatched strength of character.

“Pakistan” was carved on the map of the world and there were efforts and sacrifices of millions behind this. One name which overshadows the rest is Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Here is a part from “Hurrying Midnight” which proves me right.

“Jinnah was the one unyielding obstacle in Mountbatten’s desperate efforts to keep India united.There was o ne vital piece of information, however, that was denied to Mountbatten; the x-ray of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s lungs. This secret document revealed that the future leader of Pakistan was dying of tuberculosis. We met the doctors who had told Jinnah he had less than six months to live. Mountbatten acknowledged to us that had he known the Muslim leader was dying, he would have been strongly tempted to delay independence to await his death. Then, perhaps, an independent Pakistan would never have come into being.”

Beverly Nichols who wrote book ‘Verdict on India & met Quaid-e-Azam’, described, “the difference between Jinnah and the typical Hindu politician, as the difference between a surgeon and a witch doctor . . . a surgeon you could trust, even though his verdict was harsh”.Some random words…

One day Gandhi said to Jinnah, “You have mesmerized the Muslims.” Jinnah answered, “You have hypnotized the Hindus,” Another day, when they appeared together before an attack of reporters and press photographers, Gandhi said to Jinnah, “You like this, don’t you?” Jinnah answered, “Not as much as you do.”

Jinnah moved so vitally, and his eyes kept their fire, those who were near him saw his will, not his physical strength. Whenever Fatima Jinnah said to her brother, “You must see a doctor,” he would answer, “No. I’ve got too much to do. I can’t waste my time.”

Jinnah’s view about women participation in growth of Pakistan. “I have always maintained that no nation can ever be worthy of its existence that cannot take its women along with the men. No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.” (March 25, 1940)

There was once a disagreement between the Quaid and Military Secretary: He had asked for authority to build a high wall that would shut off the part of Government House in which the Quaid lived, due to security. Jinnah had answered, “It is very nice of you to take precautions, but I am not the sort of Governor-General you have been used to. I am one of the people. No harm will come to me.” Can any of our present leaders match this?

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