Quaid-e-Azam Residency - Ziarat

The most famous landmark of Ziarat is, of course, the Residency. It was here that the Father of the nation spent his last days. The summer residence at Ziarat, where Jinnah struggled with his mortal illness is still preserved this day as it was when he was alive. The building, constructed in 1892, was originally meant to serve as a sanatorium but was later converted into the summer residence of the Agent to the Governor General (AGG). It has now been declared a national monument.

 Click images to view larger

>> Click here for Virtual tour of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah Residence in Ziarat

Timeline of Quaid-e-Azam

Quaid-e-Azam

through the years

December 25, 1876	Born at Karachi
1882	Education started at home
1887	Admitted to Sind Madrasatul Islam, Karachi
1892	Married Emibai at the age of 16    Left Karachi for Europe
1893	Joined Lincoln's Inn    Emibai died at home
1895	Became Bar-at-Law    Mother died at Karachi
1896	Returned to Karachi from London    Migrated to Bombay
1897	Enrolled as Advocate in Bombay High Court
1900	Appointed Presidency Magistrate, Bombay
1906	Appointed Personal Secretary to Dadabhoy Naoroji
1909	Father died    Elected to the Supreme Imperial Council uncontested
1910	Elected to the Legislative Assembly, Bombay
1911	Piloted Waqf Alal Aulad Bill -- the only private member's Bill to be passed    (in 1913)
1912	Attended All-India Muslim League Council Meeting
1913	Left for England with Gokhale    Founded London Indian Association   Joined All-India Muslim League
1915	Initiated the move for setting up of a League-Congress joint committee    for Hindu-Muslim unity
1916	Presided over the sixteenth Bombay Provincial Conference    Presided over the All-India Muslim League Lucknow session; Lucknow    Pact signed
1917	Became President, Home Rule League, Bombay    Organised "Memorandum of the Nineteen
1918	Married Rattenbai at Calcutta    Foiled the move to set up "Willingdon Memorial" in Bombay. Jinnah's    People's Memorial Hall constructed as a tribute to his services.
1919	Daughter (Dina) born    Resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council as a protest against Rowlatt Act
1920	Resigned from Home Rule League    Resigned from the Congress on differences with Gandhi
1922	Participated in All Parties Conference in Bombay as one of the three    Secretaries
1923	Elected to the Imperial Legislative Council from Bombay
1924	Presided over the All-India Muslim League session in Lahore
1927	Boycotted the Simon Commission. Presided over a meeting of all the    important Muslim leaders at Delhi
1928	Attended National Convention at Calcutta
1928	Rattenbai died
1929	Jinnah's amendments to Nehru Report rejected    All-India Muslim League rejects Nehru Report at its Delhi session   Jinnah's Fourteen Points
1930	Attended Round Table Conference in London
1931	Stayed on in England; gave up political activities temporarily
1934	Returned to India. Got actively engaged in politics    Again elected to the Central Legislative Assembly   Elected Permanent President of All-India Muslim League   Elected leader of the Independent Party in the Assembly
1935	Government of India Act, 1935 passed    Jinnah-Rajendra Prasad Formula
1936	Constituted All-India Muslim League Central Parliamentary Board to fight elections under 1935 Act
1937	Provincial elections under 1935 Act    Congress forms ministries in six provinces; Congress raj begins   Jinnah presides over League session at Lucknow. All-India Muslim League turned into a mass organisation and compete independence adopted as goal
1938	Presides over Special League Session at Calcutta    Presides over League Session at Patna
1939	Demand Royal Commission to inquire into Muslim grievances under Congress rule.    Day of Deliverance observed (on exit of Congress Ministries)
1940	Historic Lahore (Pakistan) Resolution passed
1943	Rejected Rajagopalachariya formula    Presided over All-India Muslim League's Karachi session and said: "We have got millions  behind us; we have got our flag and our platform; and what is more we have now the definite goal of Pakistan." Toured the subcontinent like a storm
1944	Jinnah-Gandhi talks
1945	Participated in Simla Conference. Elected to Central Legislative Assembly
1946	January 11, All-India Muslim League sweeps the polls in Muslim constituencies; Victory Day    April 4, Meeting with Cabinet Mission   April 9, Called a convention of all Muslim members of the Central and Provincial    Assemblies at Delhi   May 16, Cabinet Mission Plan announced   June League accepts Cabinet Mission Plan. League also accepts Short-Term    (Interim Government) Plan July Conditional acceptance of Cabinet Mission Plan by Congress. Congress rejects Short- Term Plan. Viceroy's volte face on the formation of Interim Government. All-India Muslim League withdraws earlier acceptance, rejects Cabinet Mission Plan and announces boycott of Constituent Assembly. Called upon Members to renounce all British titles and honours in protest against British attitude towards Muslims and decides to launch Direct Action to wrest Pakistan   August 16, Direct Action Day   October 25, All-India Muslim League agrees to participate in the Interim Government   December 2, Reaches London on invitation from Secretary of State   December 6, British Government's clarification upholds League's viewpoint on Cabinet Mission Plan
1947	February 20, Prime Minister Attlee announces that the British would relinquish power in India by June 1948    June 3, Plan envisaging partition of India and establishment of Pakistan announced.  Jinnah's historic broadcast accepting the Plan   July, Indian Independence Act passed by British Parliament   August 7, Left Delhi for Karachi by air   August 11, Elected President of Pakistan Constituent Assembly. Presidential address in the Constituent Assembly. Title of "Quaid-e-Azam" conferred on him   August 14, Pakistan comes into being; the Quaid-e-Azam sworn in as the first Gvernor-General   October, Set up headquarters at Lahore to supervise settlement of refugees in Punjab   December 25,   First official birthday
1948	July 1, Inaugurated State Bank of Pakistan; gave a call for evolving a new economic system    July 14, Left again for rest at Ziarat   August 14, First Independence Day; last message to the nation   September 11, Returned to Karachi from Ziarat; Breathed his last.

BBC - Historic Figures: Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Jinnah was an Indian politician who successfully campaigned for an independent Pakistan and became its first leader. He is known there as 'Quaid-e-Azam' or 'Great Leader'.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah was born on 25 December 1876 in Karachi, now in Pakistan, but then part of British-controlled India. His father was a prosperous Muslim merchant.

Jinnah studied at Bombay University and at Lincoln's Inn in London. He then ran a successful legal practice in Bombay. He was already a member of the Indian National Congress, which was working for autonomy from British rule, when he joined the Muslim League in 1913. The league had formed a few years earlier to represent the interests of Indian Muslims in a predominantly Hindu country, and by 1916 he was elected its president.

In 1920, the Indian National Congress launched a movement of non-cooperation to boycott all aspects of British rule. Jinnah opposed this policy and resigned from the congress. There were by now profound differences between the congress and the Muslim League.

After provincial elections in 1937, the congress refused to form coalition administrations with the Muslim League in mixed areas. Relations between Hindus and Muslims began to deteriorate. In 1940, at a Muslim League session in Lahore, the first official demand was made for the partition of India and the creation of a Muslim state of Pakistan. Jinnah had always believed that Hindu-Muslim unity was possible, but reluctantly came to the view that partition was necessary to safeguard the rights of Indian Muslims.

His insistence on this issue through negotiations with the British government resulted in the partition of India and the formation of the state of Pakistan on 14 August 1947. This occurred against a backdrop of widespread violence between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, and a vast movement of populations between the new states of Pakistan and India in which hundreds of thousands died.

Jinnah became the first governor general of Pakistan, but died of tuberculosis on 11 September 1948.


Source: BBC

Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

By Sharif al Mujahid

For some years now, Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah's vision of Pakistan has been a source of controversy and conflict. Much of this has however tried to cut Jinnah to fit a predetermined image. A close look at Jinnah's long and chequered public life, encompassing some forty-four years (1904-48), helps determine the core values he was committed to throughout his political career.

This paper examines how Jinnah’s politics evolved through main phases, which, though distinct, yet merged into the next, without sudden shifts. It analyses how his liberalism underwent an apparent paradigmatic shift from 1937 onwards, and led to him advocating the charismatic goal of Pakistan, and to elucidate it primarily in Islamic terms. Finally, the Islamic strain in his post independence pronouncements and his 11 August 1947 address is discussed, and an attempt made to reconcile it with his other pronouncements.

Jinnah as Liberal

In the first phase of his public life (1904-20) three main influences shaped Jinnah's personality and politics:

• Nineteenth century British liberalism, first absorbed during his four-years' (1892-96) stay in England as a student of law,

• The cosmopolitan atmosphere and mercantile background of metropolitan Bombay where he had established himself as an extremely successful barrister since the turn of the century, and

• His close professional and personal contact with the Parsis, who, though only a tiny community provided an example of how initiative, enterprise and hard work could overcome numerical inferiority, racial prejudice and communal barriers.

These formative influences seem to have prompted Jinnah to join the Indian National Congress. Fashioned after liberal principles and cast in their mould, the Congress was at that time pledged to take India on the road to self-government through constitutional means. Soon enough, he rose high in its echelons, high enough to be its 'spokesman' for its representation to the Secretary of State on the reform of the India Council in May 1914. Jinnah believed in moderation, gradualism, ordered progress, evolutionary politics, democratic norms, and above all, in constitutionalism. When the Congress sought to abandon these liberal principles in 1920 and opted for revolution and extra constitutional methods, he walked out of the Congress for good.

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: A Man for All Seasons

By Asim Khan

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (left) with Lord Mountbatten (right)

To achieve your own dreams it takes a lifetime but to achieve the dream of millions, it’s a feat only a few can perform in the history of mankind. And Jinnah was one of them. And to achieve that one has to rise above the fear and display courage. The ability and skills which he manifested in the process of creation of Pakistan and the fight he carried in all quarters, with reason and logic to bring the dream of a lifetime for millions of souls was unsurpassable. We will always remain in debt to this man and those millions of sacrifices.

There has been a lot written about him; there is a lot that has been said of him. From Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre to Stanley Walport- all agreed on one thing: this man, this Jinnah, this leader and founder of Pakistan had resolve of a man unbreakable even by the might of the mightiest, the British Empire, the connivance and huge presence of Hindu pressure and by all who thought that to create Pakistan was something beyond comprehension and reason. But he stood his ground against all who promised, tempted, and applied pressure from all directions and yet they could not move him, not even an inch. He was to give all, right to their end of days the question how he single handedly carried this responsibility and what were those elements that made him unique in all sense; as a leader, as a tactician, as one of the finest implementer of law, as a symbol of governance and system which we all forgot, the very citizens and leaders of Pakistan after his death.

In all his numerous speeches given in whatever little time he had, it paved way for all to see and to learn and to practice how Pakistan should develop its economic policies, foreign policies, protect rights of its minorities, based on justice and fairness, a society modeled on the principles of Islam, where all will be able to contribute to its success and progression. And we all forgot within months of his departure.

It is still time for Pakistan and Pakistanis to wake up from its slumber and to invoke the spirit of its founder to bring back this country to its feet. All the challenges we see around us, all the opposition we face amongst ourselves and from outside can be dealt with if we could only understand the persona of Jinnah and his life and understand the mechanics in creation of a country that became second largest Muslim country in 20th century. A presence, a home for all where fairness and justice will exist. But alas, this was not to happen as we forgot our very own sacrifices, our very own people and our very own founder Jinnah.

Instead of following him and his vision; we followed our instincts based on greed and promotion of values against all what he created and practiced; against all what the vision of Iqbal and his philosophy stood for; against all what Chaudhry Rahmat Ali envisioned. We forgot Jinnah and all those very people that stood by him against opposition the world had never seen. These people exist in all of us. Never a day that goes past, when we do not come across the saying and quotations from any of these, but we have turned all this into a big ceremony. We have turned Jinnah into just a mere symbol. A place where he rests now needs no salutes, no visitor’s book, no swarming crowd to take pictures. It is his words; it is his life that needs to be lived in all of us. We have betrayed him in last 61 years. It is still time to appreciate and to revive that spirit in Pakistan and in all of us, and to forget these differences that we have created. We must become more understanding and tolerant of each other and work together. It is this challenge that is the need of the time and our responsibility.

Remember a young boy, seventeen years of age, arriving at Southampton. Remember a person who learnt the ways of life in those dreary months of winter. Remember that person who once walked near river Thames, immersed in his own thoughts questioning himself what change means and how it will be brought. Even Jinnah had no idea at that time but he learnt to reason well in a language that was once remote and alien, he learnt that understanding Law will take him far but he never imagined that one day he will fight for something and in a way no one had done it before. One day he will fight for the hopes of millions, for cause greater than anything he had imagined, or any of us in years to come. Imagine how it feels to be part of that change and history and the destiny, to make a separate homeland for all of us, to carry those aspirations in years to come through thick and thin. Little did he know that he will one day stand with Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Mountbatten and the whole British Empire- all the opposing forces. But he fought well with all his mind and his words and actions to turn this dream into reality- a reality which no one could ever understand and accept to this day. It is upon us now as individuals and as a society and as leaders of this nation to understand the cause and all what it took.

It is this man Mohammed Ali Jinnah who became in the process our Quaid-e-Azam, our leader and founder of Pakistan. It is this man we owe our responsibility to as free citizens of Pakistan. It is this man Jinnah, his words and his vision we owe our alliances to. It is this man we owe our debt resulting from his endeavor to turn this dream of a separate homeland for millions of Muslims. It is this man, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Quaid-e-Azam, a man for all seasons we owe our lives to and to Pakistan.