Ancient history

Saroni Naidu used to write love letters to Jinnah!

The rise of Jinnah in Indian politics was one of the main factors that led the country towards Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born in AD 1876 in the house of a big Muslim merchant in Karachi. It is prevalent in India that Jinnah's ancestors were Gujarati-Hindu, while Pakistanis believe that his ancestors came from Iran. Jinnah never called himself Ispahani, as the Muslims of the time used to say to attest to their Iranian ancestry.

Others in Pakistan believe that his lineage is in the Rajput caste, which means that his ancestors were Hindus. It is said that that Rajput caste was called Sahiwal in Punjab. An ancestor of Jinnah married a girl from the prosperous Khoja community of Gujarat. The descendants of that couple were considered Khoja Muslims. Being the child of Hindu husband and Muslim wife, this family lived completely apart from the thinking of communalism. Muhammad Ali Jinnah grew up in an English environment. In AD 1896, Muhammad Ali Jinnah passed the barrister examination from London and started advocacy in Bombay in the same year.

Dadabhai Naoroji brought Jinnah into politics. In AD 1904, Jinnah attended the twentieth Bombay session of Congress with Firoz Shah Mehta. In the Calcutta session of the Congress in AD 1906, Dadabhai Naoroji allowed him to speak from the Congress platform in the capacity of his secretary.

This was his first speech in Congress. In this speech, he opposed the demand for separate facilities for Muslims and said- 'Muslims should be treated the same way as Hindus are being treated.' Thus, at the beginning of his political career, Jinnah was a nationalist and was not in favor of partition of India. In AD 1906, when the Muslim League was established in Dhaka and the League demanded separate representation for Muslims, Jinnah opposed it and said that such an effort would divide the country.

In AD 1913, Jinnah took the membership of the Muslim League, but he also remained a member of the Congress. At that time members of various political parties like Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha could also have membership of Congress. In AD 1916, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was elected the President of the Muslim League. He was a strong supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity. He did not miss a single opportunity to give a vigorous speech on this subject.

Giving a testimony in the Parliamentary Committee in AD 1919, Jinnah said- 'I am speaking as an Indian nationalist. After this incident, the nationalists of India called Jinnah 'ambassador of unity' began to say. The British did not delay much in recognizing Jinnah.

In AD 1919, George Lloyd, the Governor of Bombay, wrote to the Viceroy Montagu- 'Jinnah is white in tongue but black in heart…. There can be no compromise with them because they are the only ones who say one thing but are immediately seen doing another.'

In 1920, in the Nagpur session of the Congress, Jinnah called Gandhiji 'Mahatma' Refused to say and he was taken from the stage 'Mr Ghandhi' Addressed by saying On this the Congress leaders insulted Jinnah. Jinnah, who grew up in the color of Englishism, could not pronounce Hindi words properly. That's why he used to call Gandhiji Mr Ghindi. After this incident, the distance between Jinnah and Nehru began to grow while Gandhiji began to embrace Jinnah more tightly. Jinnah left the Congress on 30 September 1921, yet remained a nationalist.

Moseley has written- 'Till AD 1920, he used to campaign to get his point across by legal means. Till AD 1928, he used to talk of Hindu-Muslim unity, but the greed for power forced him to first leave the Congress and then demand the partition of the country.' In AD 1933, when Chaudhry Rahmat Ali gave the concept of a separate country named Pakistan, Jinnah strongly rejected it. Moseley wrote that for some time the name of Muhammad Ali Jinnah was taken with the Indian poetess Sarojini Naidu. She was madly in love with Jinnah and sent him poems of love. It is believed that in order to get rid of Sarojini Naidu, Muhammad Ali Jinnah left India and went to London and there he established his advocacy. Jinnah continued to do barrister in London till AD 1934.