Quaid-e-Azam’s Fight Against Death

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah had known in 1946 that he didn’t have more than a year to live. This was not any kind of premonition. It was the considered opinion of his physician in Paris who had come to this conclusion on the basis of Quaid’s five X-ray reports,-- reports that were kept like a closely guarded secret, to safeguard its leakage to the British intelligence. According to the physician’s opinion the deadly disease from which the Quaid suffered would not allow him more than one year.

These revelations are made in a recently published book “The Story of Partition” written by two eminent French authors who traveled some 2.5 lakh meters to collect the material for the book. The research took them four years during which period they interviewed as many as 2,500 persons belonging to the pre-partition era.

The Quaid’s physician in Paris is reported to have told the authors that he had to keep a round the clock vigil to ensure that the x-ray films did not fall into the hands of the Britishers, who might use the Quaid’s disease to change the whole complexion of the political situation in the sub-continent.

The year 1946, it may be recalled, was the most eventful year engagement with the fast changing course of events, together with the brightening of the prospects of victory, exerted enormous physical and mental strains on the Quaid. It was he alone to whom the people looked for guidance and inspiration.