Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

By G.C. Contreras At the beginning of this Congress I would like to greet its authorities and all the delegates gathered here. As with colleagues who come from every corner of Pakistan, the delegates who have come from all corners of the world are here to pay homage to the Quaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Father of the Nation, on the first hundredth anniversary of his birth. I want to make this homage extensive, as undoubtedly he would have deserved it, to the people of Pakistan, who endowed with an unbreakable will have achieved the greatness of their nation, thirty years after her beginning. We know by experience that young nations like my own, Mexico, or like Pakistan, when they relinquish a colonial past, go through difficult and hazarduous moments for the first years of their independent life, moments full of weaknesses and dangers which test the reserves and potential energy of their human material. Not only the culminating moment when the new nation, product of a long ide

It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: " The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can".  In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote richard Symons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survivial".   He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan". A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition an

By Mir Abdul Aziz Mr Jinnah with Kashmiri alumni of Aligarh University in Srinagar, 1944 Quaid-i-Azam and Kashmir is a very vast subject. Much has been written on it but much remains to be written. Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was not the leader of Pakistan only. In fact he was the leader of the Muslim Ummah of the South Asian subcontinent, which was called India in pre-partition days. Then again, there was two Indias, namely British India and “Indian India” which was the name given to the native states, ruled by nawabs and rajas. These natives states were internally independent, but their defence and foreign affairs were with the British Indian Government. None of these states, including Hyderabad and Kashmir, could conclude any treaties with any foreign country, except through the British Indian Government. They could not issue passport, though there is evidence of the Jammu Kashmir Maharajah’s government having issued passports in certain circumstances but these also were subject to

A strange phenomenon indeed that even after a lapse of 62 years of Pakistan having come into existence, a controversy is still raging as to which type of system was intended to be implemented here Secular, Theocratic or any other. A group of so- called intellectuals opine that the architect of Pakistan, Quaid-i- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, wanted it to emerge as a Secular State. They base their arguments exclusively on Quaid’s address to the Constituent Assembly on August 11,1947 .On the other hand, there is the religious orthodoxy, that had initially opposed the very creation of Pakistan under the pretext that since they had been promised by the Indian National Congress, that the Muslims would be free to discharge their religious obligations freely in India after independence, there was no need to create a separate state for the Indian Muslims. However, no sooner did Pakistan come into existence, these so- called “ Ulema” flocked to the new born state and had the temerity to claim th

by Dr. Munir Ahmed Baloch The huge land mass of Balochistan rising steadily from the coastal plains of the sea of Arabia to the eerie heights of Quetta, and then descending in an undulating manner up to the fringe of the North-West Frontier Province, covers a little over 125,000 sq. miles constituting almost 43% of the total area of Pakistan. Another 45,000 sq. miles of Balochistan territory lie in the neighbouring state of Iran and smaller region in southern Afghanistan.1   With the advent of British colonial rule over India, Balochistan came under colonial influence in 1876 and was portioned among Iranians and the British. The Eastern part of Balochistan was further divided into British Balochistan, Balochistan States, while a part of Seistan was given to Afghanistan. The areas of Derajat and Jacobabad (Khan Garh) was demarcated and given to British India.   British imperialists used Balochistan as a military base to check the extension policy of Tsarist Russia against India.2 Balo

A K Fazlul Haq popularly known as the lion of Bengal, Haq proposed the Pakistan Resolution on 23 March 1940

The above historic picture was taken when Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan) visited Allama Mashriqi (founder of Khaksar Tehrik) at a Khaksar Camp in Karol Bagh (Delhi) on October 16, 1939.

Speech at a Mammoth Rally at the University Stadium, Lahore on 30th October. 1947 We have achieved our cherished goal of freedom and have established Pakistan as an independent, sovereign State, fifth largest in the world. That freedom can never be attained by a nation without suffering and sacrifice has been amply borne out by the recent tragic happenings in this subcontinent. We are in the midst of unparalleled difficulties and untold sufferings; we have been through dark days of apprehension and anguish; but I can say with confidence that with courage and self-reliance and by the Grace of God we shall emerge triumphant. Some people might think that the acceptance of the June 3 Plan was a mistake on the part of the Muslim League. I would like to tell them that the consequences of any other alternative would have been too disastrous to imagine. On our side we proceeded to implement this plan with a clean conscience and honest intentions. Time and history will prove that. On the o