Despite his impeccable public life (since 1904), despite his soaring idealism, lofty principles and clean politics, despite his notable accomplishments and distinctive contributions towards advancing the Indian cause, and despite his long years of singular service to the community and the country, the Quaid-i-Azam was known as "plain Mr Jinnah" till late 1937.
However, his progression from Zaimu'l Millat and Quaid-i-Millat, early in 1938; to Quaid-i-Azam within two years was rather phenomenal. Just as the title, "Mahatma", conferred on Gandhiji (1869-1948) by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), became instantly popular, so did the prefix, "Quaid-i-Azam". This was indexed by references to Jinnah in the Muslim press, by the slogans raised at political moots and public meetings, and, above all, by Gandhi's January 16, 1940 letter, wherein Jinnah was addressed as Dear "Quaid-e-Azam".
How did this spectacular transformation come about? Because in those three critical years (1937-40), he had donned the role of "event-making man" in the Sydney Hook sense; because, on the conceptual plane, he had fulfilled the role of a standard bearer the Muslim cause was in search of, and, on the empirical plane, of a tried and tested leader the beleaguered Muslim people were in quest of, because in fulfilling that role he proved himself to be the right man at the right place and the right time; and because, in donning that role, he had, held forth the bright prospect of creating "a fork in the historical road", which would redeem the downtrodden Muslims and put them on the road to the portals of power and the pinnacle of glory. Also, because he had squarely fulfilled the Hegelian leadership test, which lays down that "the great man of the age is one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and essence of his age; he actualises his age. In other words, he was the right man at the right place and at the right time - the Hookian criterion of an event-making man.
Now, how did he manage to fulfil this role so superbly? Equally important, how did he manage to convince the Muslims, ever so sceptical about their leaders' claims, credentials, and clout that he would do it where others had failed so miserably? All said and done, by launching himself upon a twin quest. First, the quest for a pan-Indian Muslim community - that is, a united and solidified "Muslim India" within the larger subcontinental context as the "third side" in the political triangle of India's body politic, so that it could negotiate from a position of strength and as "an equal" with the other two sides, in the distribution of power in the future Indian dispensation. And, second, the quest for an equitable share of power in the future Indian cosines, a quest that seemed forlorn, given the dismal Muslim situation in mid 1937, when Muslim India was a "No man's land", to quote Jinnah.
And what was remarkable about this twin quest was that it was an integral part of Indian Islam's legacy, a quest dating back to Shah Waliullah (1703-62). An outstanding seer and a man of vision, Shah Waliullah had formulated the doctrine of "Indo-Muslim resistance to the concentration of power in non-Muslim hands", and got it entrenched in the Muslim psyche, through his, religio-political movement, to a point that it became a cornerstone of their legacy on the political plane.
A hundred years later, when the Muslims got themselves unfazed from their 1857 traumatic nightmare, they returned to this erstwhile twin quest. Modified in view of the new political context, it was now for a separate politico-cultural identity in India's body politic and for an adequate share in power. Indeed, by this turn quest were all the Muslim movements, demands and formulae, whether religious, educational, cultural or political, since the 1870s, inspired, in one way or another. And all said and done, they were instrumental in quickening their community consciousness to a point that in the late 1930s Jinnah could demand recognition by the Congress of the existence of a pan-Indian Muslim constituency before he would negotiate a communal settlement.
Indeed, this quest for a pan-Indian Muslim constituency had inspired Jinnah's riposte to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the Congress President, when he sought to impose a "two-forces" doctrine on India's body politic in 1936: "...in the final analysis", lie asserted, "there are only two forces in India today - British imperialism and the Congress representating Indian nationalism", adding, "all `third party', middle and undecided groups etc have no real importance ..." To which Jinnah's riposte was: "I refuse to accept this proposition. There is a third party in this country and that is Muslim India..."
To make good this claim, Jinnah presently breathed new life into the moribund Muslim League, and organised it methodically from the grass-roots level. He extended its support base to encompass the whole of the subcontinent; he made its policies and programme coherent and viable; he infused enthusiasm and confidence in the rank and file; he laid out the grass-root organisational networks, built up communication channels, and fashioned a chain of command through a hierarchically structured leadership. Consequently, within three brief years (1937-40), a revitalised Muslim League, under his astute leadership, had developed into a formidable political machine, with the requisite unity of command, communication networks, organisational strength, and muscle power to confront and counter the almost impregnable and long-entrenched Congress, both at the ballot box and on the streets.
Thus, by 1942, the League, which had secured only 112 out of 491 Muslim seats in the 1937 provincial elections under the 1935 Act, had mustered strength to the point that it commanded the allegiance of 304 out of 524 central and provincial assembly members. Equally important, between 1 January 1938 and 12 September 1942, the League won 46 (82%) out of 56 Muslim seats in by-elections, as against only three (about 5%) by the Congress, and between September 1942 and mid-1945, the League had secured nine out of fifteen Muslim seats, the rest going to independents and none to the Congress. This meant that the League had acquired a "social depth" among Muslims comparable to the Congress, mainly, among the Hindus. One immediate and more manifest result of all this was a quickening of community consciousness and the welding of Muslim solidarity, making the pan-Indian Muslim community concept and the "third party" status claim a fail accompli. Clearly, in the context of the Muslim leadership's prolonged and desperate quest for it since Shah Waliullah, this indeed represented a singular achievement. That's why the title, Quaid-i-_Azam, came to acquire a synonymatical status with his real name - ie, Jinnah - by 1940.
Of the twin quest, there still remained the quest for an adequate or equitable share in power. In mid-1937, that quest seemed forlorn, destined to end up in smoke, when Muslim India, wallowing in political wilderness, seemed irrevocably consigned to a permanent "minority" status. Despite that, a bold promise to restore power to Muslim India remained one of Jinnah's constant refrains, all through the late 1930s. Understandably, a mere political community, scattered unevenly throughout the subcontinent and, moreover, outnumbered, outpaced, and out-manoeuvred by a "brute majority" as it was, does not count for much in an unitary, centralised, Westminster-type parliamentary democracy. Hence Jinnah's insistence on a "third party" status for Muslim India.
A mere political community, placed as the Muslims were within India's body politic, could not claim an equitable share in power, as a matter of right, especially because the Westphalian (1648) model of sovereignty of "nations" and "sanctity" of borders, still dominant in the international system (eg, consider Eriteria being tagged on to Ethiopia in the postwar settlement of the former Italian colonies in Africa under the UN auspices), had not come to be eroded as it has since 1990 (eg, in the case of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia). In contrast, a "nation", if also dominant in a specified territory, can. Thus, Jinnah's nationhood claim for Muslims in 1940 gave the quest for power a shot in the arm; it made the quest meaningful; it endowed it with a chance of success.
As pointed out by W. Montgomery Watt in another context, Muslims, everywhere and all through the ages, had regarded themselves as a "charismatic community" - the concept which squarely answered their psychic need for endowing and sanctifying their sense of community with a sense of power. To Indian Muslims in the crisis-laden 1940s, Pakistan represented a charismatic goal - a goal congruent with the concept of the charismatic community. And since the dethronement of this concept, in mundane terms, had haunted Muslims ever since they had incrementally lost political power to the British, beginning with Plassey (1757), the "call for Pakistan" energised them beyond measure and enthused them instantly. For one thing, the "call", with its messianic hope of a restoration of power and glory to Muslims, tended to gather all the Muslims on one platform, as indexed by the 1945-46 general elections results. For another, it ensured power for them in their (numerically) dominant areas. Thus, the twin quest for a pan-Indian Muslim community and for restitution of power, a quest dating back to Shah Waliullah, had finally reached fruition at the hands of Jinnah. And, if only because of these singular achievements, he became an "event-making", rather than a mere "eventful", man in the Sydney Hook sense. An event_making mom, who had helped to create "a fork in the historical road" and left "the positive imprint of his personality upon history - an imprint that is still observable after he has disappeared from the scene". He, thus, became, as it were, the crystal in the crucible of Muslim leadership since about 1800 A.D. and that explains why he was hailed as the Quaid-i-Azam during his lifetime and the greatest Muslim after Aurangzeb after his death.
The HEC Distinguished National Professor, the writer has recently co-edited Unesco's History of Humanity, vol. VI, and The Jinnah Anthology (2010) and edited In Quest of Jinnah (2007), the only oral history on Pakistan's founding father.