90th Birth Anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam (December 25,1966)

15 Paisa: The Quaid-i-Azam’s portrait appears in black in the centre, printed by recess. The background and ornamental design is in orange, printed by Litho Offset. The words “Pakistan” in Urdu and Bengali appear in Blue at the bottom centre. The value ‘Paisa 15’ appears both at the right and left bottom corners in Blue. The date of anniversary of Quaid-i- Azam appears in Blue below the portrait. The words “Postage” and “Pakistan” in English appear in Blue at the right and left of the portrait respectively. 50 Paisa: The Quaid-i-Azam’s portrait is in black, printed by recess. The patterns at the top left and bottom right corner of the stamp is in purple, printed by Litho Offset. The date of anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam appears at the top right hand corner in blue. The value ‘Paisa 50’ and the word ‘Postage’ appears at the bottom left corner in blue. The words ‘Pakistan’ in Urdu, Bengali and English appear in reverse at the bottom right.
The commemorative postage stamps will be available for sale on and from the 25th December, 1966 for a period of three months at all important Post Offices, Philatelic Bureaux and Counters and also at some of the Pakistan Diplomatic Missions abroad There-after if supplies are still available, they will be sold only at the Philatelic Bureaux and Counters.
TO commemorate the Birth Anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam Mahomed All Jinnah, the Pakistan Post Office is issuing two postage stamps of l5-Paisa and 50-Paisa denominations on December 25,1966. In the heart of old Karachi there stands an old building called Wazir Mansion, which has become a national shrine. Here, ninety years ago, was born a child who was to change the course of history in Asia and to fulfil the destiny of a hundred million Muslims by helping them to win a homeland for themselves.
In this old fashioned three storied building lived Jinnah Poonja, a hide merchant, whose family had migrated from Kathiawar peninsula in India and made their home in the prosperous and growing town of Karachi. December 25, 1876, was a day of rejoicing in Wazir Mansion for on that day was born the first child of Jinnah Poonja, named Mahomed Ali.
The child grew up to be a fair tall boy, and studied at various schools but longest at the Sind Madrasah High School, where he made his mark as a disciplined and serious student. Impressed by his talents and noticing his bent of mind, an English friend of the family persuaded Mahomed All’s father to send him to England to study law after he had matriculated.
The four years stay in England was to transform the young man. He passed his examinations in two years but had to remain in England for two more years before he was called to the bar at the age of twenty. Mahomed Ali Jinnah returned to India in 1896. By this time his mother was dead and his father had fallen on hard days. Full of ambition and lofty ideals, Jinnah could not adjust himself to the depressing surroundings. He moved to Bombay in 1897, where the High Court offered more scope for the flowering of his legal talent.
When he was thirty and had made his fortune, Jinnah turned to active politics in 1906. The political tempo of India increased sharply with the victory of the Japanese over the Russians in 1905. The partition of Bengal in the same year led to violent protests by the Hindus, repression by the British, and safety measures by the Muslims, who decided to organize themselves under the banner of the Muslim League. Jinnah, however, was still inspired with liberal nationalism and joined the Congress.
In 1909, Mahomed Au Jinnah was elected by the Musalman of Bombay Presidency as their representative to the Supreme Legis-lative Council. In 1913 he was specially nominated to the Council by the Viceroy for an extra term to enable him to introduce the famous Waqf Validating Bill—the first Bill to pass into legislation on the motion of a private member.
Though Jinnah had been striving, with some other eminent leaders of goodwill, to promote unity between the Hindus and the Muslims, he *as drawn closer to the Muslim League after the annulment of the partition of Bengal in 1911, for this event convinced the Muslims that they could not be protected by the British against the Hindus. However, when Jinnah was persuaded to attend the annual sessions of the Muslim League in 1911, 1912 and 1913, he strove to raise their ideals, and in 1913 was mainly instrumental in getting a resolution passed which declared attainment of self-government to be the ideal of the Muslim organisation. In that year too, he was persuaded by Maulana Mohammad Au and Syed Wazir Hasan to enroll as a member of the League, but only after he had received solemn assurances that this would in no way imply even a shadow of disloyalty to the larger national cause to which his life was dedicated.
In 1915, Jinnah was instrumental in persuading the League to hold its annual session at the same place as the Congress was meeting in Bombay. This was repeated in 1916, when the League held its session at Lucknow under the presidentship of Jinnah himself. Earlier he had given public utterance to his sup-port for the demand of the Muslims for separate electorates, in an eminently reasonable speech while presiding over the 16th Bombay Provincial Conference. At the 1916 session of the Congress, Jinnah helped in persuading the Con-gress to agree that “in certain provinces” in which the Muslims were in a minority, they should be guaranteed a proportion of seats in the future Legislative Council in excess of the number they could other-wise hope to win. This “Lucknow Pact” between the Congress and the League was the culmination of Jinnah’s career as the “Ambassador of Unity” between the Hindus and the Muslims.
After the World War ended in 1918, political activity became intense. Widespread agitation followed the passage of the Rowlatt Act, which gave power to the Government to try cases of sedition without a jury. Jinnah resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council in 1919 as a protest against the passage of this bill. Next month the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh took place in Amritsar. In August, 1920, the Treaty of Sevres was signed by which the Allies decided to dis-member the Ottoman Empire and to reduce the powers of the Caliph of Turkey. The Muslims of Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent were indig-nant, and the Congress joined with the Muslim League in launching a violent agitation against this step and against the new political re-forms proposed under the Montague-Chelmsford proposals. Jinnah tried to dissuade the Muslims from the extremist course when he spoke at the Calcutta Session of the League in 1920. In December, he addressed the Congress Session at Nagpur in a similar effort to bring sanity into their counsels but he was silenced by the extremists. Jinnah resigned from the Congress, and the Home Rule League, and retired from practical politics during the next few troubled years but he did not resign his membership of the Muslim League. In 1926 he was again elected to the Central Legislative Assembly. In 1928 he took part in the All Parties Conference in Calcutta at which the Nehru Report on the Simon Commission proposals was to be considered. He pleaded for amendments in the constitutional pro-posals, to safeguard the interests of the Muslims and to maintain Hindu-Muslim unity, but his suggestions fell on deaf ears. He was utterly disgusted with the intolerance of the Hindu politicians. In 1930 and 1931 he attended the Round Table Conference called by the British Government to arrive at some agreed solution of India’s constitutional problems. When these also proved futile, as a result of Hindu intransigence, Jinnah decided to settle in England, away from the fury of Indian politics.
In 1934 he returned from England to lead the Muslims again. He was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly by the Muslims of Bombay as an Independent member, even without his prior consent. Next year the Government of India Act of 1935 was passed. The Muslim League began preparations to fight the coming elections, and Jinnah was chosen President of the Central Election Board at the Muslim League Session of 1936 at Bombay. Jinnah made a clarion call to the Muslims, “organize yourself and play your part. The Hindus and the Muslims must be organized separately, and once they are organized, they will understand each other better.
In March 1940, the Muslim League held its session at Lahore in which the historic Pakistan Resolution was passed. Henceforth the political ideal of the Muslims of India was the attainment of a separate homeland where they could live according to their distinct way of life.
In the years that followed Jinnah negotiated with the Cripps Mission on behalf of the Muslims. The result was a failure but it was the first step by the British to agree to the demand for a separate state for the Muslims. The Congress was alarmed and after the failure of the Cripps Mission, they launched the violent ‘Quit India’ campaign against the British in 1942. All this was alien to Jinnah’s nature, and he kept the Muslims clear of all these disturbances. Next he had to match his wits with Gandhi during the talks in 1944. When the European War ended in May 1945, the Congress leaders were freed from prison and the British Government again started negotiations for constitutional changes in India. First came the Wavell Plan, then the more important Cabinet Mission Plan. Before the latter, an im-portant event was the new elections held in India in January 1946.
The victory of the Muslim League at the polls was overwhelming both in the provinces and in the Central Assembly. It was a measure of the Quaid’s glorious success in his mission of organizing the Indian Muslims. Well could he declare “No power on earth can prevent Pakistan now.”
In March 1946, the Cabinet Mission came to India with new pro-posals, offering to arrange the provinces into three groups, to satisfy Muslim demands partially, for though they were offered internal auto-nomy, they were to be part of one state with defence, foreign affairs and communications as central subjects. The Quaid went along with the proposals some way but the Congress intransigence wrecked the negotiations, for the Hindus did not appreciate the sacrifice the Muslims were making by scaling down their demands. Still, the Muslims Were steadily and surely coming nearer the achievement of their ideal under Jinnah’s unerring leadership. When the Government decided to hold elections for a new Constituent Assembly, the League’s stand of being the sole representative of the Muslims was vindicated, for it won 76 out of 79 Muslim seats. In October 1946, the League joined informing the Interim Government under Lord Wavell. But there was no real co-operation. The Quaid ordered that no Muslim was to take part in the Constituent Assembly due to sit from December 9, 1946. Feelings in the whole of the sub-continent were worked up and the Calcutta riots were like the fuse that started the great explosion. After one last effort to reconcile the Muslims and the Hindus, Mr. Att-lee, the British Premier, announced in February 1947, that they would grant independence to India, not later than June 1948. vis-count Mountbatten was sent out as Viceroy to negotiate the manner of handing over power. He acted with amazing swiftness, and on June 2, 1947, announced that India would be partitioned. Thus two new Pakistan and India States were created on August 14, 1947. Quaid-i-Azam’s leadership and the struggle of the Muslim nation at last bore fruit—earlier than anyone expected.
The Quaid was seventy one when Pakistan came into being. He was spared by God only for one year to set the ship of the new state safely on its keel. The motto of “Unity, Faith and Discipline” which he gave to the new born nation infused a new spirit into the people of Pakistan. He died on September 11, 1948, mourned by a grateful nation, but as one of the Great Immortals of history.