Quaid e Azam’s Unaffected Dignity

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Sometimes it was alleged that the Quaid e Azam was proud, arrogant and stiff-necked. But the critics missed the point as to what was the basis of his supposed pride and arrogance. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah was a proud man in the sense that he, being the spokesman and mouthpiece if Muslim India, did not allow its prestige and status to be lowered in any circumstances. He was proud against the proud and the haughty. Power had gone to the heads of the Congress leaders. At one stage Mr. Nehru had gone to the length of boasting that there were only two parties in the country the Congress and the British Government –and others must simply line up, and further that a Congress volunteer was better than a thousand Jinnahs! A couple of years later the world saw the same Mr Nehru as well as Mr Gandhi and other Congress high-ups knocking at the door of the Quaid-e-Azam! That was the secret of his pride. It bought sense into the minds of the opponents of Muslim solidarity and the Muslim freedom. He was proud only where the honour and interests of Muslim India were in question. But, to the humble and unassuming servants of the Muslim nation or, for the matter of that, to any humble individual the Quaid-e-Azam was the soul of courtesy and kindness, a beacon of light, a ready source of inspiration and encouragement to any individual seeking to render selfless service to his people. You felt uplifted and inspired in his presence which again is a sign of true greatness.

In modern times there have been several examples of men of outstanding calibre rescuing their people from degradation and enslavement. Their task, however, was comparatively easier, as their people were already free peoples. They had not lost their spirit and fighting qualities, and hot only to struggle for retaining their freedom. But in a subject country like India which had been under alien rule for about a hundred and fifty years it was nothing short of a miracle to have raised dead people back to life, in fact to have created a unified nation out of a torpid mass of scattered, demoralised and dispirited people who had lost all sense of self-respect and self-assertion. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah raised them to a status of prestige and dignity,  so that Muslim India came to be recognised as a constituent factor in the framing of constitutional scheme, and it was established that no constitution which did not recieve their willing assent could be enacted or enforced.

It was natural that, from the time he began to organize the Muslims for the protection of their rights, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah was not a persona grata with the Congress and other Hindu circles. He was painted as a villain of the piece, as the stumbling block in the way of India’s freedom. There was no abusive epithet, no calumny, no vituperation, no scurrilous attack that was not hurled at him. But he stood firm as a rock against all odds. Neither flattery and laudation could deflect him from his course not threat and calumny unnerve him. No price could purchase him and no temptation lead him astray. He remained unaffected by all the bitterness the Congress had created all round and worked with his characteristic dignity and magnanimity right till the end, But he could never be taken in by the designs of the opponents of Muslim freedom. He had a knack of check-mating and foiling the moves and manoeuvres to entrap and injure the Muslims.