Question: The 14 points were Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s greatest achievements in the years 1929 to 1947. Do you agree? Explain your answer? [14]
Answer: The Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was one of the greatest leaders of the modern age. He not only led his people to independence but founded a separate homeland, where they could mould their lives in accordance with the traditions of Islam and cultivate their culture and civilization.
Jinnah presented his 14 points in relation to the Nehru report of 1928 which was completely against Muslims of the sub-continent. In 1940 he for militate the famous Lahore Resolution for a separate homeland Pakistan. In 1944 Jinnah had talks with Gandhi but no fruitful results came out.
In 1928 the Muslim politics took altogether a different turn when Muhammad Ali Jinnah refused to accept the Nehru Report in an all parties’ Conference. Jinnah rejected the Nehru Report as he considered non-acceptance of his proposal by the Conference an insult to the entire Muslim community of the country. A positive aspect of Nehru Report was that it resulted in the unity of divided Muslim groups. In a meeting of the council of All India Muslim League on March 28, 1929, members of both the Shafi League and Jinnah League participated. Quaid-i-Azam termed the Nehru Report as a Hindu document, but considered simply rejecting the report as insufficient. He decided to give an alternative Muslim agenda. It was in this meeting that Quaid-i-Azam presented his famous Fourteen Points. So in his 14 points Jinnah stated that the safe guard and protection for the rights and interests of the Muslims must be given, the demand of federal form of Government, provincial autonomy, protection of minorities, separate electorates, religious freedom to all and one-third seats for all Muslims and it further demanded that Sind must be separated from Bombay and full provincial status must be given to N.W.F.P and Baluchistan. These 14 points set out the demands of the Muslims for any future negotiation with either Congress or the British. These 14 points became inspiration for the Muslims of the sub-continent because it convinced that the Hindus and the Muslims were two separate nations.
The attitude of the Hindus made it clear that the Hindus and the Muslims were two separate nations. On March 23rd, 1940 at the annual session of Muslim League at Lahore, the famous resolution, commonly known as the Pakistan Resolution was passed. It was presented by Maulvi Fazlul Haq. Quaid-e-Azam said in the ever eloquent words
We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral code, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions; in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law, we are a nation.
In September 1944 Gandhi held talks with Jinnah to discuss about the future of India, but no fruitful results came out of it because Gandhi did not accept Muslims as a separate nation. Though the Gandhi-Jinnah negotiations failed to achieve the avowed goal of the Hindu-Muslim unity, they brought to Jinnah and the Muslim League two important political gains. Firstly, the leadership of the Congress had now offered to discuss the question of Pakistan seriously before that, the Congress and Mahatma had kept the door to that subject uncompromisingly shut. Secondly, the Congress could no longer justifiably claim that it stood for all the communities in India including the Muslims. Louis Feisher wrote
The wall between Jinnah and Gandhi was the Two Nation Theory. By the close of 1946, the communal riots had flared up to murderous heights, engulfing almost the entire subcontinent. The two people it seemed were engaged in a fight to the finish. The time for a peaceful transfer of power was fast running out. Realizing the gravity of the situation, His Majesty’s Government sent down to India a new Viceroy – Lord Mountbatten. His protracted negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in 3 June (1947) Plan by which the British decided to partition the subcontinent, and hand over power to two successor States on 15 August, 1947. The plan was duly accepted by the three Indian parties to the dispute the Congress, the League and the Alkali Dal (representing the Sikhs). In July, 1947 the British parliament passed the Indian Independence act which was enforced promptly. The Muslims of the Sub Continent finally succeeded in carrying out an independent Islamic State for Muslims and Quaid e Azam achieved for what he was destined for.
Jinnah’s 14 points and Lahore Resolution 1940 were great achievements and these two events eventually lead to the establishment of Pakistan which was ‘the greatest’ achievement of Jinnah.
