Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History

More than seven decades after Pakistan’s creation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah continues to captivate both his critics and admirers. While the former excoriate him for exploiting religion to achieve his goal, the latter hail him as the Qaid-e-Azam (Great Leader) who single-handedly secured a homeland for the Muslims of British India.

Historian Ayesha Jalal (1985) had argued that Jinnah never wanted division of the country, but the Indian National Congress (INC), then spearheading the freedom struggle, spurned all his overtures to work out a power-sharing arrangement, leaving him with no choice but to accept a ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. This narrative has held sway ever since, with some authors even suggesting that Jinnah was a secular leader who never intended to create a theological state.