It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can. In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistans birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote Richard Symons, contributed more than any other man to Pakistans survival. He died on 11 September, 1948. A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the recipient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint. The Aga Khan considered him the greatest man he ever met, Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India, called him the most important man in Asia, and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in 1948, thought of him as an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world. While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world, the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a great loss to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. Mr Jinnah he said on his death in 1948, was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatest of all as a man of action. By Mr. Jinnahs passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide. Such was Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 23:48:19 +0000
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