The Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who assumed the reins of office as the first Governor General of Pakistan, on August 14, 1947, exercised the utmost economy in authorising government spending on his high office as Governor General and his own person. He kept a strict watch on the official expenditure on the Governor General's House in Karachi and his person. Having refused to accept the high salary to which he was entitled as the Governor General, the Quaid-i-Azam shunned the huge expenditure in vogue in India and other Commonwealth countries on the gubernatorial establishment and personally examined every month the items of expenditure on the staff, services and utilities of the Governor General's House in Karachi. He instructed the staff to show care and economy in the consumption of electricity and piped water in the household. The Governor General was fully aware of the financial constraints the fledgling State of Pakistan was at that time suffering from. In Karachi, there was shortage of electricity and piped water. According to the Quaid's sister, Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, at times the Governor General, instead of burdening the State Exchequer, bore some part of the monthly administrative expenditure on the Governor General's House from his personal funds which he brought into Pakistan through his bankers in Mumbai. He took only a token sum of Rupee ONE per month as his official salary from the Government of Pakistan. As one of the leading barristers in India, Jinnah's income from his professional fees and profits from corporate investments was considerable, indeed more than his budgeted salary as Pakistan's Governor General. He still used his old Packard Limousine, which was brought from Mumbai to Karachi. It was very well maintained and the Quaid-i-Azam bore the expenses of maintaining it. He retained the services of his old chauffeur who had served him most devotedly in Mumbai and opted to serve him in Karachi. Jinnah had purchased the Packard Limousine some 15 years ago through the good offices of a commercial firm in Calcutta headed by his most devoted party colleague, Mirza Abul Hasan Ispahani. The Pakistan Foreign Office and the Protocol wing of the government impressed upon the Governor General the urgent need for him to have a new suitable Limousine for use in Karachi and a new aircraft for his use on State duty. The Quaid-i-Azam called for a report from the government on what kind of Limousines and aircraft were in use for heads of State in other Commonwealth countries.

The Quaid-i-Azam felt utterly surprised when he learnt from Prime Minister Liaquat Ali the details of the lavish spending by the British Indian Government on the office of the Viceroy and his person and family in New Delhi "This expenditure is too huge for our new State, we cannot afford it. Cut my budget to the barest minimum. I can live decently in Karachi with my own funds. We need more funds urgently for Kashmir and refugee rehabilitation, he said. "I don't need a new Limousine, my Packard is still a beauty and runs well. I can use commercial aircraft and Air Force planes for travel in the country," thus spoke Governor General Jinnah to his Prime Minister. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sir Zafarullah Khan took it upon himself to explain to the Quaid-i-Azam the rationale and need for getting a suitable Limousine and aircraft for his use on State duty. The Governor General finally agreed but instructed that Ambassador M.A.H. Ispahani in Washington D.C. should look into the matter i.e. buying a suitable new Limousine and a small aircraft in the USA for the use of the Governor General in Pakistan. The Quaid-i-Azam was pleased when Ambassador Ispahani suggested the purchase of a new Super Cadillac and wrote that the manufacturer of General Motors would give a very substantial discount in the listed price for the new model. The Quaid-i-Azam got a detailed report on the Limousine, the net price payable, and the time when it would be delivered in Karachi. He also got a report on which other countries were using Cadillacs for their heads of State, heads of Government and Ambassadors. The Quaid-i-Azam, suggested that as Pakistan has a left-hand traffic system, the Cadillac should have a left hand drive system. He also wanted assurances from the manufacturers that spare parts needed for the vehicle would be made available in Pakistan quickly. General Motors offered to install many new gadgets, facilities and conveniences inside the Cadillac at small expense such as long distance telephone. The offer was accepted largely because the amount was small. Knowing the wishes and mood of the Governor General, Ambassador Ispahani managed to bring about reduction in the cost of shipment, boxing the car and insurance for its journey from the USA to Karachi in Pakistan. Ambassador Ispahani made himself conversant with every item of the transaction and the schedule for the delivery of the Limousine in Karachi. Ispahani to Governor General Jinnah intimated every bit of the transaction. The Quaid was a hard taskmaster and Mr Ispahani knew his penchant for the minutes' detail and absolute transparency.

The exchange of correspondence about the purchase of the Cadillac Limousine between Ispahani and Governor General Jinnah is amply covered in a hefty 1948 book: M.A. Jinnah Ispahani Correspondence 1936-1948 edited by Z.H. Zaidi and launched in Karachi by Ispahani in a crowded press conference at his residence in the presence of his gracious wife, Begum Ghamar Ispahani.

Seemingly, the Governor General was a bit annoyed when the delivery of the Limousine ordered from the USA through our Embassy there was delayed. In his letter dated December 11, 1947, to Ispahani, Governor General Jinnah wrote... "What about my car? It was to be delivered in the middle of November and here we are now in the middle of December and I have not yet heard as to what has happened to it. Please let me know how the matter stands because I want the car very badly." In his letter of December 20, 1947, from the Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C Ambassador Ispahani informed the Governor General of Pakistan that the Cadillac had reached New York from Detroit, its place of manufacture by General Motors and it will be placed on board a ship bound for Karachi before the end of next week. I am sure you will like the automobile. In this letter, Ispahani also enclosed a photograph of the new 20-passenger Model 34 Beechcraft aeroplane, which had successfully completed its initial flight test on October 1, 1947, and can be bought at a reasonable price for use of the Governor General in Pakistan. In his letter dated January 8, 1948, Ambassador Ispahani informed the Governor General of Pakistan that the Cadillac booked for him was shipped on S.S. Explorer which left the USA on December 29 and it was due to reach Karachi port in the first week of February.

In a letter sent to Ambassador Ispahani from Government House in Lahore, Jinnah did not approve of buying an aircraft of quarter million dollars from the Beechcraft Corporation, saying that the Governor General of Pakistan cannot afford to travel in an aircraft, which will cost more than fifteen lakhs in rupees. The Governor General seemed to have opted for a slightly less expensive aircraft of Vickers Armstrong whose Viking planes were in use in India and Pakistan for civil purpose and he said in his reply to Ispahani that the Viking prices were not unreasonable, and taking everything into consideration I am trying to negotiate with them. Another difficulty with the Beechcraft plane was servicing while it's for the Vikings posed no problem.

It was also suggested to the Quaid-i-Azam that along with the Cadillac ordered for him, he should have a second Limousine. Ambassador Ispahani proposed from Washington that the Governor General should have a 1948 Super Packard or a new Lincoln. A substantial diplomatic discount was offered for either car. The Quaid-i-Azam studied the literature pertaining to the two cars but when he learnt from the Pakistan Ambassador in Washington D.C that the Cadillac car ordered for him had been boxed and shipped from the USA to Karachi, he immediately informed Ambassador Ispahani that he would not like to have a second car. He looked forward to get the Cadillac in Karachi because the number of top ranking foreign dignitaries visiting Pakistan were multiplying briskly and at times they had to ride with the Governor General in his official car from the Karachi Airport to Governor General's House in the heart of the city. The meticulous care with which the Pakistan Governor General attended to official work, is evidenced by Ambassador Ispahani's letter of October 20, 1948, from the Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C to him in Karachi in which the Ambassador wrote that he had received the letter of the Military Secretary to Jinnah, Colonel Birnie dated October 21, 1948, advising him of the remittance to him of 6,000 US dollars to meet the cost and other charges incurred on account of the Cadillac car.

In a letter dated November 3, 1947, from Washington D.C Ambassador Ispahani informed the Governor General that the aircraft for his use from the Beechcraft Corporation would cost around a quarter million dollars. A super aircraft offered by the Consolidated Vultee Corporation of the USA whose details Ispahani sent to the Governor General in Karachi would have cost half a million dollars, a price which was not acceptable to the Quaid-i-Azam. After carefully examining all the offers and the prices involved, the Governor General showed a preference for the Viking plane offered by Vickers Armstrong, which was a little less expensive than all the other offers. The Governor General called for reports on each offer from the Pakistan Air Force experts to ensure that the aircraft Pakistan was buying for its Governor General was technologically the best for the very reasonable price he would agree to pay for it. It should be remembered that the time when the Quaid-i-Azam was personally examining this matter in Karachi he was not in the best of health and his physicians were pressing him to shift to Quetta or Ziarat.

Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah's claim to statesmanship lay in his two attributes: (i) his rational approach towards politics, and (ii) his keeping himself in close touch with the objective ground realities, however awkward, however complex, however shifting or confusing. Little surprising, he often made the right choice at the right moment.

Prescience, idealism, intellectual vigour, faith and resolution these qualities Jinnah had in an abundant measure. Qualities that having crystallized with the years had transformed him what he finally turned out to be in the last decade of his eventful life.

His sense of realism would never fail him, with this decisions stemming from a genuine pragmatic approach. An approach, which would always take the world as it was in its changing historic realities, only to have it improved to the extent that the existing possibilities permitted, with a view to upholding the ideals of freedom and the common good. Yet underlying all of Jinnah's politics were a specific set of moral values, reflecting the intellectual traditions and sociological norms among the historical realities of Indian Islam.

Jinnah, like Konred Adenauer of West Germany, was averse to following "a purely positively utilitarian policy of expediency". This is because he was not prepared to sacrifice moral principles and spiritual necessities for temporary political gains. Nor would he allow his realism to deflect him into a policy of opportunism. For his realism had a sound ethical base, his being a policy of conviction and of conscience all the time.

Nevertheless, his overwhelming sense of pragmatism shied him away, from the futile task of abstract theorizing and enabled him to concentrate all his energies on the practical mastery of the tangible, day-to-day, political problems and tasks.

Chance, and particularly the chance of genius, says Voltaire, "is an incalculable, factor in the story of the past". "Chance because it decides which people will survive", because it determines, what names will survive the ravages of time and tide. And that he should be able to rise to any occasion is perhaps the most significant mark of greatness in a statesman. Jinnah could do something more: he could crystallise a lifetime's faith into a single bold action. And such actions over a 30-year provide the key to his political career and success.

Barely twelve years after his debut into politics for instance, Jinnah brought the divided Hindu and Muslims on one platform, a "miracle" that had never happened again.

He also got this Hindu-Muslim unity consecrated in the famous (Congress-League) Lucknow Pact of 1916. For all that it meant, it was not the handwork of a mere politician. It was an act of faith: faith in Hindu-Muslim unity as the condition of Indian freedom. And it called for utmost tact, persuasive powers, and statesmanship of the highest order to breathe a spirit of compromise, of give-and-take, into the two warring parties, so mortally suspicious of each other.

Some ten years later, he devised an extremely viable formula for a Hindu-Muslim settlement. This was in the Delhi Muslim Proposals (1927). Despite Muslim reservations about joint electorates, he offered to waive the Muslim right to separate electorates, if certain basic Muslim demands were met. These demands were: Proportional representation for Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal, the separation of Sindh from Bombay Presidency the extension of reforms to the NWFP and Balochistan and one-third Muslim representation at the center. Within the united Indian framework, the Delhi Proposal ensured the setting up of five stable Muslim Provinces to match the six Hindu ones. Hence Maulana Abul Kalaam Azad hailing them as opening. "The door for the first time to the recognition of the real rights of Muslims in India". While negating the long-standing Hindu reservations on separate electorates, the Proposals guaranteed Muslims "a proper share in the future of India".

Initially, the Congress welcomed and accepted the Proposals, Later, however, it gave in to the Hindu Mahasabhaite pressure, and opposed the Muslim demands except for the one relating to the NWFP, and for a conditional acceptance of Sindh's separation.

This mean that Jinnah's spirit of accommodation was sadly supporting on the other side. He requested that "the Muslims should be made to feel that they are secured and safeguarded against any act of oppression of the majority" fell on deaf cars. So did his plea "to rise to that statesmanship which Sir Tej Bahadur describes". But for the rejection of his impassioned pleas, the subsequent history of India would have been different. Mere politicians, out to score tactical gains let slip through their fingers the chance of a lifetime. At this juncture, the only other political leader who could match Jinnah's breadth of vision and statesmanship was Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru.

In 1937 came another chance for a Hindu-Muslim rapprochement. From 1935 onwards, Jinnah had established an entente with the Congress at the center. In February 1935, he tried to negotiate an alternative to the Communal Award (1932) with Babu Rajendra Prasad, the Congress President. A viable formula was finally worked out, but the pressure built up by the Congress Nationalist Party under Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, especially in Bengal and the Punjab, scuttled their efforts.

In the pre-1937 election period, despite Pandit Nehru's provocative denial of Muslim entity and identity in India's body politics on September 18, 1936, Jinnah had managed to keep him cool, offering the Congress an olive branch repeatedly. "Ours is not a hostile movement", he assured on August 20, 1936. He urged his Peshawar audience on October 19, "to unite to hammer out an advance nationalist bloc" from amongst themselves "to send to the Provincial Assembly". He exhorted Hindus and Muslims alike, at a public meeting at Nagpur's Chitnawis Park on January 1, 1937, to produce by a process of hammering fine steel and weed out those obstructing their march to freedom".

He declared on January 20, 1937 that "the urgent question facing every nationalist in India is how to create unity out of diversity and not of fight each other'.

With this end in view, he promoted the establishment of "something like a concordat" with the Congress during the 1937 elections, especially in the U.P. and Bombay. After the elections, he instructed the League Leaders to shun joining the interim ministries in these provinces. He instructed A.M.K. Dehalvi, Muslim League Assembly Party leader in Bombay, to reject out of hand Governor Brabourn's offer to head the interim ministry. Husseinally Rahimtulla and the Raja of Salempur were expelled for joining the Cooper and Chatter ministries in Bombay and the U.P. respectively.

Yet, when the Congress finally took office in July 1937, it by passed the Muslim League and Jinnah. It opted for Unitarianism a la the Nehru Report as against Muslim federalism, offered "absorption" instead of "partnership", and called for the dissolution of Muslim League parties in the legislatures for being considered for a share in power. The Congress justified the formation of exclusive one-party governments on the basis of the collective responsibility principle, but when it came to provinces such as the NWFP and Assam where it did not command an absolute majority, it flouted this principle and went in coalition ministries.

The failure of the Congress to exploit its spectacular electoral gains in 1937 for extending the areas of cooperation with the League is inexplicable unless explained in terms of it becoming "heady" with its unexpected victory and of a terrible lack of political prescience and foresight. For a plural society and for a multi-national country like India, Switzerland rather than England was the model coalition, rather than one-party government, the rule.

History shows that neglected opportunities do not, as a rule, return. However, Congress was presented the opportunity of reaching a peaceful settlement of the communal question in 1928, during 1930 (at the time of the Round Table Conference), during 1935-37 (Jinnah-Prasad Formula and the formation of provincial governments), and, finally, in 1946. But each time it failed, rather miserably. Of all these, the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) presented the Congress leaders at this crossroad of history the chance of a lifetime, the chance perhaps of centuries. But none of them could rise to the occasion, because none of them had that "incredible clarity of vision", that "statecraft", and that "practical Bismarckian sense of the best possible" which, was Jinnah's alone, to quote the Aga Khan.

Bismarck, it is said, "was always emphatic that he could not make events". And if Jinnah had been asked about this situation at this juncture, he would have most probably said in the Bismarckian vein" "Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful". Again, like Bismarck, Jinnah, though perhaps taken by surprise by the Congress" reservations on the Cabinet Mission Plan, would turn the blunders of his enemies to his own advantage, to emerge victorious in the end.

But this anticipates. For the moment, it would suffice to note that Jinnah's crucial decision to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan demonstrated, perhaps more than anything else, this genius in statesmanship - a measure of statesmanship perhaps unmatched by the political giants involved in writing the last chapter of the British Raj in India. Hence the Aga Khans' verdict:

"In the one decision to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan, combining as it did sagacity, shrewdness, and unequalled political flair, he justified.... My claim that he was the most remarkable of all the great statesmen that I have known. In puts him on a level with Bismarck."

Remember, the Aga Khan was himself a statesman of a rare caliber, having occupied the president ship of the League of Nations.

Political genius, it is often said, lies in compromise. But this is only true within limits. An empirical approach is a distinguishing characteristic of a statesman, but that statesman alone is great who does not lose his purposive political creed in the exercise of power vested in him. The Muslim nation had, of course, authorized Jinnah to negotiate was operative only within the framework of the nation's cherished aspirations and supreme objective. The genius for compromise could never be carried beyond a recognizable point. The genius for compromise could never be carried beyond a recognizable point, the limit to compromise being set by the words of high purpose, such as Justice, Honour and Equity. In accepting the Mission Plan, Jinnah had compromised to the extent of suffering central control over the Muslim areas in respect of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications. But in attempting to erode the grouping provision on the one hand and envisaging and strenuously striving for a strong Centre on the other, the Congress had brazenly trespassed the limits to compromise. The Mission Plan, as formulated by its authors, ensured for Muslim Justice, Honour and Equity in the future Indian dispensation - though not in full, but in a substantial measure. The Plan, as the Congress had interpreted and proposed for implementation, had sought to cut across these high, non-compromisable principles. Jinnah had, therefore, to revoke his earlier acceptance of the Plan.

"The Future", says A.J.P. Taylor, a British historian, "is a land of which there are no maps; and historians err when they describe even the most purposeful statesman as though he were marching down a broad highroad with his objective already in sight. More flexible historians admit that a statesman has an alternative course before him; yet even they depict him as one choosing his route at crossroad. Certainly the development of history has its own logical laws. But these laws resemble rather those by which floodwater flows into hitherto unseen channels and forces itself finally to an unpredictable sea."

And if the Mission Plan had forced Indian politics through hitherto unseen channels on to an unpredictable sea, Jinnah, like Bismarck in such situations "proved himself master of the storm, a daring pilot in extremities. Like Bismarck again, even in the extremely difficult situation spawned by the British adverse verdict on the Pakistan demand, he never, even for a moment, let the initiative slip through his dexterous fingers.

Part of the wisdom of statecraft, to barrow a phrase from Richard Goodwin, is "to leave as many options open as possible and decide as little as possible... Since almost all-important judgments are speculative, you must avoid risking too much on the conviction that you are right. "The other half of the wisdom of statecraft is to "accept the chronic lubricity and obscurity of events without yielding, in Lincoln's words, firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right. Such acceptance rules out the contingency of keeping too many options open for too long, lest such keeping should paralyse the lobe of decision and end up in losing the game altogether. Thus, within the parameters of this framework, Jinnah's crucial decisions, first to accept the Mission Plan and later, when confronted with impossible congress conditions, to reject it, represent the two-halves of the wisdom of statecraft.

Jinnah's statecraft as well fulfils a test proffered by Bismarck himself: "Man cannot create the current of events. He can only float with it and steer." And the genius of Jinnah lay in his adroitly and successfully steering the adverse current of events during 1946 to bring the battered Muslim ship, safe and sound ashore within a year.

To sum up, then, Jinnah had a keep appreciation of the truth that politics is the art of the possible, that ends must conjoin and be conducive to means, that the best must be made of what is beyond one's power to change. Not only did he adroitly exploit to the full opportunities provided by his opponents. More importantly, like Mazzini, he also believed in creating opportunities through his own efforts. He had an iron will, and an unwilling faith in himself and his mission. To make these attributes the more impregnable and consequential, he was also resolute, fearless, courageous, calculating, and even somewhat reckless at time.

Yet he was farsighted, and, not withstanding the fierce invectives he had hurled oft and anon in the face of the "hated" congress, he always preferred the path of moderation and conciliation. Cautious for most part, he never took a step he could not retrace. The enabled him to stretch the hand of conciliation and compromise whenever such an opportunity presented itself. And it is a measure of the elasticity of his temper that the could change his political theosophy dewing his mid. Sixties, after over thirty years in public life, that he could accept the Mission Plan after pronouncing the "Pakistan-or- Perish" dictum, that he could call for "burying the hatchet" once the goal was achieved, that he could even preach friendship and collaboration with those to whom he was but lately so vehemently opposed. And, as in the case of Bismarck, his greatest, and perhaps most admirable, quality was to be content with limited success.

All told, it were these qualities that enabled him to surpass "possibly everyone else in India, in practical political intelligence" that earned him probably one of the highest tributes from a statesman whose stature and calibre were themselves universally recognized. In his Memoirs, the Aga Khan remarks:

Of all the statesmen that I have known in my life - Clamenceau, Lloyd George, Churchill, Curzon, Mussolini, Mahatma Gandhi - Jinnah is the most remarkable.

None of these men in my view outshone him in strength of character and in that almost uncanny combination of prescience and resolution, which is statecraft.

--(The writer was founder-Director, Quaid-e-Azam Academy (1976-89), and authored "Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (1981)", the only work to qualify for the president's Award for Best Books on Quaid-e-Azam)

Holding a sheet of a cardboard against the oil lamp to shield the light of the other members of the family from the light of the lamp, an underweight slim boy with powerful shining eyes, which can be termed as "twin lamps of the truth" is sitting against the study table in the small village of Paneli in India. He feels a different object in his mind, something bigger, something more ambitious and a world of his own vision. He wants to occupy the place, which was unique. His mind is one of the most active. He feels even when he was a boy that he has got nothing in common with common man. His every action marked him out from other boys.

When he would see the other children playing colour marbles in the dusty streets he would ask them, "Don't play marbles in the dust, it will spoil your hands and clothes, stand up, letís play cricket. All his mates looked upon him as leader and superior. When he was schooled he clearly asked his father that he had no interest in studying and he would like to join his fatherís business office, but after a few days in the office he came to know that without education it is very difficult to run an office and he persuaded his father to re-admit him in the school again. Then like a religious routine he restarted his education and in the tender age of sixteen he left for England. He spent more and more time in the British museum reading and studying the lives of great men. He passed his Bar-at-Law with distinction and he was the youngest Indian student ever to be called to the Bar. Now he had been grown up to a tall boy with heavy lips and powerful eyes. In England, while "Willing Woman Wine and Weather" were streaming to bound the youthful Indian chaps Mohammad Ali measured up to the higher standards of character.

When his father, who was a rich merchant came to a collapse of a business he asked Mohammad Ali to come back to take charge of his business, who answered that he will demand no expanses for his education but will not leave his education incomplete in England.

In came to Bombay and enrolled himself as a barrister in high court. Everyday he went round the courts in search of cash but in the evening he would return to his room without earning any money. He felt miserable. He was too worried about his family, which was going through a worst crisis and waiting for his monetary help. But neither he was disappointed nor he gave up his struggle. He had full confidence of his determination and firmness. He always chose difficult path of honour. This puny person knew his inner strength and word ìimpossibleî was alien for him. Soon this graceful, charming and well dressed barrister was noticed by the high society. Within no time he occupied a very strong position at the Bombay Bar. He was considered an authority on question about law. He earned a rapid reputation. When as a lawyer he would appear in the courts, to the utter surprise of all, he remembered his full case by heart but his every word was to be weighed before it was uttered. His legal wisdom, courage and devotion made him prosperous very soon.

There are many interesting stories with reference to his practice period. A well-known businessman who had a series of charges against him went to Mohammad Ali and asked him how much it would cost him to take up his case. Jinnah bluntly answered, ìFive hundred rupees a day.î The businessman said, ìbut I have only five thousand rupees with me, will you accept it to cover the whole of your fees.î Jinnah accepted the amount in lumpsum. Jinnah won the case within three days and kept with him only rupees fifteen hundred as it was decided beforehand and gave him back the remaining amount. He considered his work in the legislature as a moral obligation and not as a stepping stone to personal glory. He was a trusted lawyer for Muslim and Hindu clients alike. Throughout his career as barrister he remained incredibly honest.

Now he owned a palatial bungalow in Mount Pleasant on road on the cooler heights above Bombay, farmed between big rich trees that sheltered Jinnah from the noise of the city. After he was established he got married to the daughter of a business magnet Sir Dinshaw Petite, but she died at the age of thirty-nine. The death of his beloved wife made him isolated and quiet but he did not give up the struggle of a separate state for his Muslim brethren. The ruthless policy of the British rule under the name of law and order forced him to come out of his self imposed loneliness and he jumped into the politics to safeguard the rights of the Mohammedans. He fought for them single handedly and at the cost of his health. He would work for fourteen hours. He was usually taken as a fashionable Europeanised person who hardly knew about the religion but those who were close to him describe him as a practical religious man. On one occasion he himself said that Muhammad (PBUH) was a messenger of God and I am the messenger of Muhammad (PBUH) and want to give a separate state to the Muslims to practice Muhammadism liberally. He said. "judge not the people by their prayers and fasting but judge them by their behaviour and deeds". He worked miracles with his ailing figure. He was very strict in discipline and orderliness. Once an over zealous student broke up the queue to have a near look of Jinnah but he at once said to the student. "Queue up yourself." His severe reprimand persuaded the student. He was very friendly with people but within the limits of regards and reality. Quaid's relation with his staff was very friendly. He was, no doubt, an exacting master but the men who worked with him were devoted to him, some of them were tantalised with his quiet nature but they never disobeyed him. One of his staff members depicts that one day when the Quaid was on ailing bed I went to his room to tell something about an official chore, he short-temperedly waved me out. I left the room immediately, but after a few minutes the phone ranged and that was Jinnah on the line who was very kind and asked his apology. He said, "I am old and ail and some times I am impatient, I hope you will forgive me for bad behaviour." He was a cold and reserve person but most favourable. Hindus used all their wealth and brains against Jinnah and all British officialdom was against him, even most of his close colleagues were unsupportive of him. His disease was making him shockingly weak but no sooner he felt a bit better he would run to his working desk. He was seriously ill but he knew that his bad health will put a home to his supreme cause, he constantly concealed his disease with the result his diseases gradually crumbled all his inner system. He worked round-the-clock but no one saw him dozing or yawning on the working desk, he always seemed attentive and alert even on the ailing bed. He led a saintly life and never liked hypocrisy, if he didn't want to do one thing he never did it for any reason such as ostentation or to win over the people. His doctor always related his behaviour with medical history of his body otherwise in his heart he was extraordinarily soft and free of petty prejudices. One of his doctors says once when the enmity between Hindus and Muslims was on the high I went to his house, and while seeing his Hindu butler said rather in a light vein, "Sir are you not afraid of your Hindu Butler, he may do any harm to you.î He smiled and said "Oh no I like him and trust him". His judgment about the men and matters was unquestionable. He proved himself an iron man, and underwent a long difficult path filled with thorns with ailing feet but never tottering, never shaking and with no signs of exhaustion.

It is August 7th,1947, a viceroy's Silver Dakota is standing on the Delhi airport, a slim, saintly, exhausted but firm figure, attired in a stainless white sherwani, walks towards the aircraft with his little court. Flight lieutenant Rabbani carries a cane basket full of documents, a servant carries a bundle of newspapers, as he moves towards the aircraft, his face is pale but glowing with emotions. He pauses for a moment, looks back towards the city in which he waged a crusade and won Pakistan. He waves his pale bony hand towards people, spell bound in his respect and regard. He said in a very low voice, ìI suppose this is the last time I will be looking at Delhi.î As the aircraft taxies out he whispers, ìand that's the end of that, I never expected Pakistan in my life.î

As I write this article I am reminded as to what the Quaid-i-Azam envisioned this country as the father of the nation. While assuming the office of Governor General he said, "That Pakistan which I envision will have democratic system based on consciousness and righteousness of its rulers. It is my belief that our salvation lies in adopting the true democratic setup, our decisions in the affairs of the state shall be guided by the discussions and consultations. The activities of the rulers must be monitored to his men, it will bring good effect to the conditions of the people.î He said, "Pakistan will have no discriminatory status for any individual or group, no one will enjoy any special privileges, all citizens shall be equal rights, I will never like any exploitation of poor, bureaucrats shall take themselves as the servants of the people. In the history of Pakistan I observe that almost all the rulers of Pakistan brought a horrible shatter to the dreams of the Quaid-i-Azam instead.

The current controversy over whether the Quaid-i-Azam envisaged (and the founding father's intended) Pakistan to develop into an "Islamic" or a "Secular" state going on for some years now must have surprised our founding fathers.

Any summary of historical developments during the last one thousand years of Pakistan's life is not intended here but tracing its path we can say in the Quaid-i-Azam's colourful phrase, "Pakistan was born the day the first Muslim set his foot on the sub-continent soil". The first Muslims who came were traders. Their religious faith was their main asset. As time passed other forces also joined in moulding and developing the Muslim mind.

For eight hundred years Muslims remained the dominant power in the sub-continent and this state of Muslim domination remained if not in substance at least in name unchanged till 1857. The collapse of the 1857 resistance proved to be a watershed for them.

The post 1857 situation lasted for a few decades and began to change with their gradually taking to English education but much more so with the introduction of the system of local self-government and the principle of one man one vote by the British. Now the Muslim came face to face with an entirely new situation. Uptill then their entire political experience was limited to only two conditions. They were either rulers or they shared a common bondage to British rule with the other communities. The prospect of coming under the domination of one of those communities now began to loom large before them. It was inevitable and unavoidable as, again in the Quaid-i-Azam's picturesque phrase "Brother Gandhi has three votes, Brother Jinnah only one" (it may be added Gandhi also said "How can one Muslim be equal to three Hindus?") and this position was not likely to change even in the distant future "as far as thought can reach". For meeting the developing new situation many suggestions, proposals and schemes were mooted, examined, discussed and discarded one after the other as being unsatisfactory. It was only in 1940 that Muslimsí opinion overwhelmingly almost unanimously rallied round the Quaid-i-Azam and converged on one point that Pakistan was the answer to their problem and it was up to them to achieve it. It was a goal to be struggled for and achieved by the Muslims for themselves. Therefore, when achieved, Pakistan had to be a state of Muslims, though not necessarily an exclusively Muslim or "Islamic" state which in any case nobody has so far been able to define.

The Quaid-i-Azam was fully cognizant of the complexities of this situation. Although they were not really opposed they only seemed to be so, he reconciled these factors in statements on different occasions. One of these was the oft-quoted 11th August speech in the Constituent Assembly. One sentence in it "religion has nothing to do with the affairs of the state" is picked out and stressed in particular, but its "completion", so to say, by the same Quaid-i-Azam only three days later on 14th of August before the same Constituent Assembly as a correction of not retort to, Mount Batten's remarks is never mentioned. He said, "The tolerance and goodwill the great emperor Akbar showed to non-Muslims is not of recent origin. It dates back to thirteen centuries ago when our prophet (P.B.U.H) not only by words bout by deeds teethed the Jews and Christians, after he had conquered them, with the utmost tolerance, regards and respect for their faith and beliefs. The whole history of Muslims, wherever they ruled is replete with those humane and great principles which should be followed." It needs not to be added that the Quaid-i-Azam was not limiting the application of those principles to freedom of just going to mosques or churches or temples or gurdwaras.

While the enunciation of the complete view of the Quaid-i-Azam on Islam and treatment of minorities in the 11th August speech is very important. Another reference made by him in the same speech must not be overlooked and also be noted.

He said; "If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you no matter what relations he had with you in the past is first, second and last a citizen of the state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make" (stress added).

In two successive sentences, in the first once and in the second twice, he pointedly referred to "the past". Which was this past? Of course not the past of centuries. He had the decade of 1937-47 in particular in mind. That was a period of utmost strained and extremely embittered relations between the two communities, Hindus and Muslims and the bitterness, it must again be stressed was not caused by difference of faith or any restraint imposed over ways of worship. It was so because of the clash simply of political interests. By this time the words "Hindus" and "Muslims" had acquired more political than religious connotations and did not just mean followers of two separate religions. He also earnestly desired that the bitterness of the past should not be carried over into the present and the future marring relations between the two new dominations. They were both sovereign states now and their responsibilities far transcended those of two contending political parties of a colony even though they were the successor authorities to that colonial power.

This being the position, the Quaid-i-Azam's concept of the state of Pakistan has to comprise two basic thoughts. First, "let it be clear that Pakistan is going to be a Muslim state based on Islamic ideas of democracy, equality and fraternity; these are the basic points of our religion, culture and civilisation." "All we ask of you now is to build Pakistan as a bulwark of Islam. Islam has taught us that whatever else you may be and whatever you are you are a Muslim. One can go on quoting one speech after another. This was his firm belief and whenever he said this, he, as he said, was voicing not only his own sentiment but the sentiments of million of Muslims."

At the same time, however, he also realised one danger inherent in making Pakistan a Muslim state that was of efforts to turn Pakistan from Muslim into a theocratic state, an ecclesiastical state ruled by priests with a divine mission. Otherwise although the word "secular" was not current in his days and even if it had been he did not see any contradiction between a Muslim state and a "secular" state. The aim in both cases would have been a state based on principles of democracy, equality of all of its citizens, social justice, and non-discrimination on any ground of caste or creed, and equal opportunities for all without distinction. Welfare state was the aim in both cases, whether it was "Muslim" or secular.

The Quaid-i-Azam's third basic thought was, as he said: "It is not our purpose to make the rich richer and to accelerate the process of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few people. We should aim at levelling the general standard of living among the masses." He categorically rejected the western economic theories and practice saying "it will not help us in achieving our goal of creating happy and contented people. We must work our own destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on the true Islamic concept of equality of men and social justice". This was not an idealistic concept but his preoccupation with political developments gave him no opportunity to dilate on this concept.