Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

The Muslim League and the Congress held their meetings at Lucknow in the end of December 1916. They accepted unanimously agreed reforms scheme presented by their respective committees. The Congress-League scheme popularly known as the Lucknow Pact pointed out the steps that needed to be taken to gain self government for India. Jinnah supported the coming together of the two parties to coerce the government to grant India self-rule. The most significant achievement of this pact for the Muslims was that for the first time the Congress had recognized the Muslim League as a representative body of the Muslims of the sub-continent and they were granted separate electorates in the provincial as well as in Imperial Legislative Council. The central government was generally to avoid undue intervention in the working of the provincial governments. The Muslims who feared losing Islamic and cultural identity were assured that: No bill, nor any clause thereof, nor a resolution introduced by a non-

The Muslims at that point were divided into two groups. Firstly, there were the Idealists who believed that the Hindus and the Muslims could still work together to achieve their goals. These Idealists joined the Congress. The other group was that of the Realists who were convinced that the Congress was a biased platform which protected only the interests of the Hindus, whichn will ultimately lead to the Hindus ruling the Muslims. Jinnah attended the annual session of the Congress at Calcutta in 1906 along with other similar minded Muslims, Hindus, Parsis and the Christians.This meeting was presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji and M.A Jinnah acted as his secretary. Dadabhai claimed that by partitioning Bengal, the British had made a grave mistake, which must be remedied for the sake of the people of the subcontinent. Talking about the issue of the mounting distance between the Hindu and the Muslim communities, he said, “Once self-government is attained, then there will be prosperity enou