Pakistan marks birthday of great leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah

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ISLAMABAD. KAZINFORM - On December 25, Pakistan marks the birthday of the great leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who is revered in the country as the founding father of national statehood. In his article correspondent of «Kazinform» International News Agency Arsen Uteshev will give us an insight into the life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a politician, the first governor-general of Pakistan, and one of the initiators and most active participants in the division of the British Raj.

The future politician was born in 1876 in Karachi, where Muhammad's parents moved a year before his birth. In those years, due to the opening of the Suez Canal, the city experienced an economic boom.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah's father was a successful merchant. Muhammad had three sisters and three brothers and was the second child in the family. At birth, the boy was given the name Mohamedali Jinnabhai.

It should be noted that at that time the territory of present-day Pakistan was part of the British Raj.

Educated at the madrasah and school at the Christian Ministry in Karachi and then in Bombay, Jinnah studied law in England, and later worked as a judge in Bombay, after which he began to practice law.

With the appointment for a position of the personal secretary of the President of the Indian National Congress Dadabhai Naoroji in 1906, Jinnah's political career began. A few years later, he joined the Muslim League, later becoming its president, as well as the representative of the Bombay Muslims in the Imperial Legislative Council.

At the beginning of his political career, Muhammad Ali Jinnah believed in the possibility of a Hindu-Muslim unity, and during his second and third terms as the president of the Muslim League he worked hard to achieve his goal.

Jinnah opposed the civil disobedience campaign launched in 1920 by the Indian National Congress, which eventually forced him to leave Congress.

By the 1930s, a crisis escalated between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. Disappointed in the possibility of reaching an agreement between them, Jinnah retired from political activity and went to England, where he studied law for four years.

Returning to India in 1934, Muhammad Ali Jinnah decided to defend the rights of the Muslim community, presiding over the Muslim League.

Throughout his political career, he believed in the possibility of Hindu-Muslim unity, but in the end he came to the conclusion that the division of the country is the only way out of this situation.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, together with the spiritual leader and thinker Mohammad Iqbal, formulated the theory of two nations, according to which the unification of Hindus and Muslims within one state is impossible, since the main thing for Indian Muslims is religious identity, while language and ethnicity do not play a special role.

In March 1940, at a meeting of the All-India Muslim League in Lahore, the historic Lahore resolution was adopted, which contained calls for the partition of India and the creation of the state of Pakistan - «the Country of the Pure» - this is how the name of the state is translated from Urdu.

As Jinnah himself noted at the meeting, «The differences between Hindus and Muslims are so great that their unification under one central government would be full of serious risks.»

The formation of a new state in 1947 happened thanks to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, whose uncompromising position during the discussion of the draft of the future constitution of the country allowed the emergence of today's Pakistan - the first state in the world to have the term «Islamic Republic» in its name.

With the formation of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah received the post of its governor-general, and the Constituent Assembly officially awarded him the title of Quaid-I Azam - «Great Leader». Jinnah died in Karachi on September 11, 1948.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, under the most difficult conditions of that time, managed to remain faithful to his ideals and, thanks to his unyielding will and political sagacity, was able to ensure their embodiment.

Today's Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the legacy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The state with a diversified economy and one of the largest armies in the world, with a nuclear arsenal, and also the sixth largest in the world in terms of population, and the second in the number of Muslims.

Pakistan became one of the first states to recognize Kazakhstan at the dawn of Independence, and the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev made one of his first state visits abroad at the end of February 1992 to Pakistan, where a solid foundation of friendly relations between our countries was laid.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Since then, Pakistan and Kazakhstan have maintained warm relations based on a common approach to world issues, as well as on mutual understanding and goodwill. Today, interstate relations are developing quite fruitfully, in addition to mutual support for initiatives in the international arena, there is a great potential in the development of trade and economic ties.

Besides, the peoples of Pakistan and Kazakhstan have ancient historical ties. Today, Pakistani ports are the shortest and most viable route for Central Asia, leading to the Arabian Sea and the world. Both countries share a common opinion on international forums such as the UN, OIC, ECO and SCO.

In July 2019, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Center was opened at the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the Al-Farabi KazNU with the support of the IRP Embassy​.

By Kazinform correspondent Arsen Uteshev


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