The founder of the Republic of Pakistan, the most prominent figure of the Indian subcontinent in the first half of the 20th century, witnessed the Kashmiri issue of its birth at the beginning of partition in 1947 and the accompanying political crisis between the two countries that led to the outbreak of their first wars in the same year.
Birth and genesis
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on December 25, 1876, in Karachi to a famous family working in commerce.
Study and training
He received his first education at the School of Islam and then at the Christian Mission School. In 1893, he enrolled at Lincoln Inn College to study law, becoming the youngest Indian to graduate from the college.
Upon graduation, he worked as a lawyer, and three years later he became one of Karachi's most famous lawyers.
The political track
His first steps in politics officially began in 1905, when he joined the Indian National Congress Party, and in the same year he travelled to London to promote the Indian question, demanding independence from British colonialism, during the parliamentary elections in Britain at the time.
A year after his return, he served as secretary to the President of the Indian National Congress Party, Dadabhai Nowarogi, and delivered his first political speech in Calcutta in 1906 calling for India's independence.
In 1910, Mohamed Ali Jinnah was elected as a member of the new Legislative Council, and his voice was the most prominent within the Council, demanding independence and calling for unity among different communities, and he remained an active member of the Council for four decades.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah decided to break off his relationship with the Indian National Congress party in 1920 to head the Islamic League. In 1929, he issued an important statement containing 14 clauses calling for the allocation of one third of the seats in the Central Legislative Council to Muslims, and the development of constitutional legislation that would protect their religion, language and culture.
A group of leaders of India's Muslim minority expressed their displeasure with some of Muhammad Ali's political orientations, preferring to emigrate to Britain, where he continued for four years and then decided to return again in 1934.
At the 1937 Meeting of the Islamic League, he demanded the full independence of Muslims within an Indo-Islamic federation, then stepped up his demands at a league meeting in Lahore in 1940 and called for the division of the Indian subcontinent into two entities, India and Pakistan, with all Muslims of India.
Within this framework, the 1944 wing sent a letter to Mahatma Gandhi explaining his vision for this issue, stating, "We insist and uphold that Muslims and Hindus should be great nations, in accordance with any definition or standard of the nation."
He added: "We are a nation of 100 million Muslims, and moreover we are a nation with distinct things in culture, civilization, language, literature, art, architecture, names, special terms, a sense of values, justice, history, queens and ambition, in short, our distinct view of life and of life, in accordance with all the principles of international law, we are a nation."
This call was accepted by The Muslims of India in 1946 and approved by Britain, and on August 14, 1947, the Wing of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan proclaimed the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and became the first president of this nascent republic.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah's name has been associated with Kashmir since the beginning of international talk on this issue, in the first year of his rule (1947) the first war broke out between India and Pakistan in an attempt by both countries to extend his control over Kashmir.
The war began when the Hindu ruler of Kashmir announced to join India to suppress the muslim majority revolt wishing to join Pakistan, and many Afghan Kandahar tribes intervened at the behest of Muhammad Ali Jinnah to support Kashmiri Muslims and stand with them in their demands.
Some critics and political opponents of Muhammad Ali jinnah take what they see as a rush to secede from India and divide this vast area of the Indian subcontinent along religious and cultural lines, which, in their view, led to the outbreak of border disputes between these two countries and their entry into an endless arms race.
This has had serious consequences for the economies of the two countries, when they could have benefited from the enormous economic potential of their land if they could agree on a formula for coexistence.
Others believe that the partition of the Indian subcontinent by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which had relieved the Muslim minority that had lived in India before its exodus to Pakistan from Hindu intolerance against them.
The government's support
Muhammad Ali Jinnah died on September 11, 1948 at the age of 72, and was succeeded by Prime Minister Liaqat khan, who began his reign of implementing the UN resolution of January 1, 1949, on a ceasefire in Kashmir.
