The Quaid was a cold blooded logician who was known, to quote Joachim Alva (editor of Forum, Bombay, and author of Leaders of India), for his "love of logic like that of Englishmen who as Emerson described 'kiss the dust before a fact. . . . In politics they put blunt questions which must be answered."
Indeed, Jinnah was cool and calculated, he took his own time to decide upon an issue. Thus, even his worst critics had never accused him of being impulsive and off-the-cuff either in his approach of in his decisions. Instead, he was always accused of not showing his hand till the last, despite promptings, despite provocation. And in taking any decision which, in view of his position as well as his ambitions, he had to sooner or later, he not only took stock of the objective realities of a given situation but also took cognisance of the views of his associates as well as his critics. Because, except for the early years in his political career, he occupied a position either at the centre stage or near it in Indian politics or Muslim politics, he could not take decisions either lightly or impulsively.
Indeed, from the beginning, he looked for a compromise solution between warring factions in this case, the Hindus and the Muslims, or the Congress and the League - and for consensual politics, Consensual politics call for taking the different viewpoints on the political spectrum with a view to adjusting the claims and counter claims of the warring parties and adjusting them in such a way as to meet the basic demands and aspirations of the largest number of the constituents possible. Thus we see him in the role of a "compromiser" between Hindus and Muslims for over a quarter of a century, from 1910to 1937. Simultaneously he was trying to build up the consensus among Muslims in respect of their constitutional demands.
From 1937 onwards, however, in view of the repeated failures he encountered and the rather haughty attitude and demands of the Congress, especially as a sequel to the Congress's unexpected but spectacular success in the 1937 elections, he abandoned his role of trying to work up a consensus between Hindus and Muslims. Instead, from now on he solely concentrated on building up a consensus among the Muslims. This is not to say that he never took up a stance which went against an Indian or exclusively Muslim consensus. But he was always realistic enough and bold enough to recognize the merit, if any, of the opposite viewpoint, and adjust his thinking to the prevailing mood of his countrymen or his community, as the case may be, unless it involved an abandonment of a principle which he cherished and considered inviolable.
To corroborate this conclusion, a few instances from his long political career would suffice. For instance, he was initially opposed to the Muslim demand for separate electorates, and, in a letter to the editor, even questioned the credentials of the Bombay representatives on the Simla Deputation (1906) which demanded separate electorates. However, once he realized the genuineness and merits of the demand, he came round to it; he even moved a resolution in a public meeting of the Bombay Muslims on August 2, 1909, urging upon the Government to consult the Muslim leaders in the creation of constituencies for Muslim separate electorates. Moreover, by 1916,he would counsel the "Hindu brethren" that "rightly or wrongly the Musalman community is absolutely determined for the present to insist upon separate electorates. To most of us, the question is no more open to further discussion or argument, as it had been a mandate of the community. . . the demand for separate electorates is not a matter of policy but a matter of necessity to the Mahomedans. . . I would, therefore, appeal to my Hindu brethren that, in the present state. . . they should try to win the confidence and trust of the Mahomedans who are, after all, in the minority in the country. If they are determined to have separate electorates, no resistance should be shown to their demand."
Subsequently, in 1924, he felt that "the Muslim opinion is so strong on this question that we might take it as a settled fact for the time being. On that basis the Muslims should have adequate and effective representation." But while he had sought a compromise on the issue of separate electorates, he refused to budge his ground on the "direct action" method, propounded and propagated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920, because it involved the abandonment of the most basic principle of his entire political career - viz., constitutionalism and evolutionary progress. This earned him the hostility of non-co-operators, both Hindu and Muslim, but the strength of his conviction and his supreme self confidence enabled him to withstand the avalanche of popular indignation and approbation; they also enabled him to say to the Mahatma to his face, "Your way is the wrong way; mine is the right way - the constitutional way is the right way".
However in deference to the prevailing mood and moreover in order to preclude being misrepresented as a supporter of the government, he refused to stand in the elections in 1920 and to be included among those political leaders opposed to the non-co-operation movement in the list being prepared by the Government. It is rather interesting that Jinnah not only consulted his colleagues and associates at every stage and on important occasions, but also allowed them fullest freedom to express their views. On most occasions he would not even spell out his preferences but would ask his colleagues to decide among themselves what was in the best interest of the country and the community. For instance, when the Calcutta (1920) League was confronted with the problem of what to decide in respect of the Khilafat and Punjab wrongs and whether to adopt the Gandhian panacea of non-co-operation and triple boycott (of schools/colleges, courts and councils), he, instead of spelling out his own preferences, told the Calcutta League ". . . in the course of our deliberations and discussion - whatever the differences of opinion may be -, we must give credit to each other that each in his own way is doing his best for his motherland and for his home and for his country. In that spirit, I would urge upon you to proceed with your deliberations and I have no doubt that the collective wisdom, the united wisdom, of the best intellect of the Musalmans will not fail to find a solution of the question which we consider, from a purely Musalman point of view, a matter of life and death, namely, the Khilafat question. I have no doubt that with over 70 millions of Musalmans, led by the best intellect and brains of the community, success is assured." Again, during February-March 1927 when he was urged by Motilal Nehru and Srinavasa Iyengar, Congress President, to consider their suggestions regarding a Hindu-Muslim settlement, he called thirty prominent Muslim leaders at Delhi where a formula, since known as the Delhi Muslim Proposals, was adopted. But he subsequently found that a large segment of Hindu opinion was not in favour of accepting his four-point formula, and that, moreover, the Muslim opinion was divided on it. He, therefore, called and presided over a two-day Muslim League Council meeting at Simla on September 9-10, where the proposals were discussed "frankly", the discussions being treated "private" and "confidential". It was found that Muslim opinion was divided on the joint electorates issue.
Although the Calcutta (1927) League supported his proposals to the hilt, he has realistic enough to take cognisance of the opinion of their opponents, saying "we have got a majority in this House, but shall we be able to carry the majority in the country. Nothing will please me more, but at the same time it will be fair to say that I am not so sure that I am satisfied that the majority of Musalmans throughout the country are in favour of it. That remains to decided; and it will be our business to try our best to make the people understand and to convince them, to carry them with us, because on merits, I am convinced that this proposal is the finest thing that can happen to Musalmans and to India." All this indicates that he was cautious and would not commit the nation unless and until he had built up a consensus on an issue. He adopted the same approach in respect of the Nehru Report (1928). Despite the fact that Motilal Nehru had sent him to London the proofs of the Nehru Committee Report, and had used all the resources at his command to get him committed to the Report, Jinnah refused to commit himself either way. This is especially significant in view of the fact that all the Muslim leaders had taken up a definite stand on it, either for or against it. Later, when Motilal urged him to attend the All Parties Conference called at Delhi on 5 November 1928 to consider the Report, he said that he could not attend it since the Nehru proposals would be discussed threadbare at the Muslim League Council meeting on November 11-12, 1928 and that "it would not do for me to anticipate their decision".
In order to get a mandate from the Muslim League, he convened a meeting of its Council in early November but the meeting failed to yield any sort of consensus on the Nehru Report, although the pro-Nehru Report Raja of Mehmudabad was elected President of the next All India Muslim League session by a majority of barely two votes. He therefore postponed the decision to the full League session, scheduled at Calcutta in late December. He also made it clear that he could not attend the All Parties National Convention at Calcutta called by the Congress to discuss and approve the Nehru Report until the Muslim League Council had discussed it and gave him a mandate for attending the Convention. At the AIML session, after a marathon and acrimonious debate, a twenty-three member delegation under his leadership was nominated to present the Muslim League proposals at the National Convention; it also agreed upon six basic Muslim demands which he presented at the Convention on December 28, 1928. All these demands were, however, negatived one by one, despite his conciliatory posture, despite his persuasive appeal.
For the next three months, he was engaged in holding protracted consultations with various Muslim groups in order to hammer out a consensus on the Nehru Report, on which the Muslims were divided into three groups, and after extensive discussions, he formulated his Fourteen Points (1929), incorporating the various Muslim viewpoints on the political spectrum.
As in the past, he was always amenable to giving all the viewpoints an equal chance of being beard and accepted, and to accommodating them on the basis of their merit. It was this accommodating approach which enabled him to take decisions and devise formulae which made a lasting impact on both Indian and Muslim politics. Such was the case with his Fourteen Points, which was owned up as the basic Muslim demand by the Jamiatul Ulema-i-Hind and other Muslim bodies and by the Muslim delegates to the Round Table Conference (1930-32). More important, it became the Magna Carta of Muslim India for the next eleven years, till the adoption of the Lahore Resolution in March 1940. In respect of the League's decision to change its creed first to complete independence in 1937, and then to Pakistan in 1940 as well, Jinnah held extensive consultations with Muslim leaders.
The question of changing the League's creed to complete independence was discussed at length in the Muslim League Copuncil meeting of June 1937; and the Punjab Provincial Muslim League had also adopted a resolution in that regard late in April 1937. In tandem, several Muslim leaders including Iqbal, Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, Chowdhry Khaliquzzaman and Nawab Ismail Khan had also pressed him to change the creed. Interestingly, the creed was changed not in a closed-door meeting, but after extensive deliberations in the Subject Committee meeting extending over several hour at the Lucknow (1937) League session.
Similar was the approach he had adopted in respect of the Pakistan goal. By the late 1930s, the partition scheme had been enunciated; it had also found quite a few influential advocates. Since Chaudhry Rahmat Ali's "Now or Never" (1933), several intellectuals were advocating its adoption. Not only wa it debated and discussed in the press, but Iqbal had also continuously pressed Jinnah during 1937 to come out in favour of self determination for Muslim provinces, as the supreme goal of the Muslim League as also the ultimate destiny of Muslim India. But, in an address to the Aligarh students in late 1940, he said "When I addressed you last year, the Lahore Resolution, popularly known a Pakistan, had not been passed but I noticed that you were anxious for the declaration of the ideal embodied in the Lahore Resolution. In other parts of India [as well], I had noticed the same feeling. What I have done is [only] to declare boldly what was stirring the heart of Muslim India."
Indirect corroboration of this assertion was provided by Philips Talbot, formerly U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, at the Quaid-i-Azam Academy in February 1987. Talbot, who was a visiting young scholar at Aligarh University in 1939 revealed that Jinnah, Liaquat, and other League leaders used to visit Aligarh often during 1939 where they would hold long discussions on the partition proposals, and that it was during the discussions that they hammered the Pakistan scheme out of the myriad proposals that were being discussed in the press and on the platform. Yet, all said and done, the Pakistan ideal would never been adopted as Muslim India's supreme goal, had Jinnah not owned it up himself in the first place. That underscores his knack for giving the lead at the right moment, and give it decisively. After all, a leader is meant to lead not only the general populace, but also his party colleagues. More so Jinnah who had finally reached the summit of supreme leadership role in 1937.
"Pakistan" was thus an ideal which had been arrived at through a process of discussion and deliberation, i.e., through a democratic process. The hesitation, the caution and the tardiness, if at all, that characterized Jinnah's adoption of the goal till 1940 is an index not only to the inherently democratic approach of Jinnah, but also to the process of building up a consensus, step by step, on the proposed ideal. Constraints of space preclude the delineation of the process through which he arrived at momentous decisions during the 1940-47 period. However, it may be mentioned that even the decision of June 6, 1947 to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan was arrived at not only through consultations, through debate and discussion at the full Muslim League Council meeting, but also through letters-of-advice he had received from various League leaders and intellectuals, including Sardar Aurangzeb Khan, and Jamil-ud-Din Ahmad, then Convenor of the League's Committee of Writers. These instances indicate Jinnah's passion for consensual politics. They also indicate as to how he arrived at his decisions and as to why his decisions, once taken, became so momentous and had such a lasting impact. Above all, they indicate that he thought a hundred times before he took his "vital decisions", but once they were taken, he stood by them, come what may.
(The writer is HEC Distinguished National Professor. He has recently co-edited Unesco's History of Humanity, vol. VI, and The Jinnah Anthology (2010) and edited In Quest of Jinnah (2007), the only oral history on Pakistan's founding father. E-mail: [email protected])