I recall during the innocent days of my childhood Quaid-i-Azam’s mausoleum was an easily accessible destination to visit without being charged an entry fee.
Over time, however, visitors were charged collective entry fee and later individual tickets. The ticketing system works something like this. Once on the premises, the sentries do a headcount of the group; they then charge Rs20 per patriot. Parking charges are separate. Motorbikes are charged Rs20 while the fee for other vehicles vary.
The administration’s disclaimer against damage to any parked vehicles is displayed on a signboard in the parking area. Interestingly, while exiting the mausoleum, sentries recollect the tickets you had purchased from them earlier to enter the premises.
Curious about the practice, I told the sentry I would have to submit the ticket at my office. “Why,” he asked. Foremost, I explained, is that I would have to get the fee reimbursed. Second, I required proof of having successfully completed the assignment given by the editor. The sentry then proceeded to tear the edges of both the parking and the entry tokens before returning them to me.
Earlier, I chose to enter the mausoleum through a side entrance instead of the main one, a decision I later regretted. Making my way through the side entrance was quite confusing but I managed to find the main gate by around sundown. The guards at the mausoleum were lowering the national flag.
Feeling touristy, I began taking pictures as the flag was being lowered when I heard someone frantically blowing a whistle. Curious, I turned to see who was making the noise. It was a bearded elderly man trying to gather some people. Since I was done taking pictures I decided to see what the commotion was about. As I approached, an argument was underway. “Take off your shoes, submit them here and get a token,” the elderly bearded Pashtun ordered. ‘Token’ obviously translated into money.
People were displeased with being ordered to remove their shoes while the bearded man continued to keep his on. One of them said, “Why are you standing here with your shoes on, then?” Feeling challenged, the bearded man aggressively responded, “None of your business!”
It took the intervention of onlookers to calm the matter down. Just then, I heard someone whisper, “First they print his (Quaid’s) picture on our currency, and now they make money like this!”
It is interesting that the blue print for the mausoleum was prepared by an Indian architect. In fact, a total of four blue prints were pitched prior to its construction and none of them were by a Pakistani.
One was prepared by a Turkish architect, another by Nawaz Zain Yar Jang, an Indian architect, while the third was designed by a Briton, Raglan Squire. However, in 1959 respecting the wishes of Fatima Jinnah, the contract for the mausoleum’s architecture was awarded to a Mumbai-based architect, Yahya Merchant.
Renowned columnist Ghulam Mohiuddin wrote about the mausoleum in one of his pieces once the foundation was completed on Jan 28, 1960. Formal construction didn’t commence until a few days later on Feb 8, 1960.
On July 31, 1960, the then president of Pakistan, Field Marshall General Muhammad Ayub Khan laid the cornerstone of the mausoleum. It took a few years and finally on May 31, 1966, the basic structure of the mausoleum was complete. However, it wasn’t until June 12, 1970 that the marble work was finished.
Later that year, on Dec 23, a gift from a Muslim association in China, an 81-feet chandelier was installed in the ceiling of the structure. The total area reserved for the mausoleum is 116 acres, with 61 acres for the central part of the building, while 55 acres for the external premises. The mausoleum was completed at a cost of Rs18.4 million, which at the time was a significant amount of money.
Mohiuddin sahib tells us that the mausoleum has five entrances. The one accessible from the M. A. Jinnah Road is called Baab-e-Jinnah (meaning Jinnah’s door), while the one from Shahrah-e-Quaideen is called the Baab-e-Quaideen (meaning the leaders’ entrance). The entrance on the east is called Baab-e-Tanzeem (meaning the entrance to order) and the entrance at the south is called the Baab-e-Imam (meaning the Imam’s entrance). The fifth is accessible from the Old Numaaish area in the city and is called the Baab-e-Etihad (meaning the entrance to unity).
There are five graves in a room in the eastern part of the mausoleum. Majority of the visitors do not gain access to this room. It is not a prohibited area; rather the visitors are unaware. These are not the graves of ordinary people. In fact, these are graves of the people who were contemporaries and political companions of the founder of Pakistan.
The oldest among these graves is that of Liaquat Ali Khan. In the second grave, lie the remains of Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar. The third grave is of Fatima Jinnah. The fourth grave is of Muhammad Noorul Amin, while the fifth one is of Begum Rana Liaquat Ali. Apart from the grave of Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan, the tombstones of all four graves have Bengali inscriptions on them.
Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was among the very few such personalities of the subcontinent whose birthplace, date of birth, marriage and religion have been points of interest for every historian even during his lifetime.
Presently, the course books in Pakistan state that he was born in the Wazir Mansion in Karachi. However, according to course books from the past, he was born in Jhirk, a town in Sindh's Thatta district, a claim also made by locals of the area.
Mithibai Jinnah and Poonja Jinnah had seven children, among whom Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the eldest. Muhammad Ali Jinnah had three brothers – Ahmed Ali, Banday Ali and Rehmat Ali – and three sisters – Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. In the record books of the Sindh Madrassatul Islam, the Quaid’s name is written as Muhammad Ali Jinnah Bhai, while Karachi is mentioned as his birthplace.
There is no record of his primary education. However, elderly residents of Jhirk claim that Jinnah had acquired his primary education in their little town. It is worth mentioning here that the primary school in Jhirk is among the oldest in Sindh. Still functioning as a primary school, it is 15 years older than even Sindh Madrassatul Islam.
Elders of the area also claim that the school records mention Oct 20, 1875 as Jinnah's date of birth. This record was allegedly taken into custody by the Commissioner of Hyderabad division after 1960 and was never returned.
Those were the days of the one-unit when people’s identities, their languages, provincial boundaries and even the capital of the country was being changed. For the completion of the one-unit project, it was important that history be manipulated and reshaped. Ergo, everything was being built anew. When by the grace of God, the one-unit days came to a close, the country had been split into two.
Among the books that remained safe from manipulation of history in 1960, none mentioned Quaid-i-Azam’s real date of birth. However, it can be found mentioned that he was born “some 75 years ago in a village near Jhirk.”
In Aug 1960, in the course book of Sindhi for the seventh standard, published by the Sindhi Adabi Board, the second chapter was about Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It mentioned that Jinnah had taken a loan of Rs3,000 from Seth Noor Muhammad Lalan Walon to go abroad to become a barrister of law.
Let’s shift our focus to speeches delivered by the father of the nation. In his addresses, on one hand, he was secular and on the other hand, religious.
After Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, transferred the powers of Pakistan to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the first governor-general of the newly founded country, Jinnah made his first speech to the First Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. In this speech, he clearly stated that the state of Pakistan will be a secular one.
Quaid-i-Azam’s address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, published by the Liberal Forum Pakistan in Aug 2012, states on page 11 and 12: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
He further said, after exemplifying the separation of politics and religion in society and the business of the state in Great Britain, that: “... You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus, and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”
This speech created a sense of insecurity among the religious parties of the time that Jinnah was going to turn Pakistan into a secular, liberal and progressive country. Neither had these parties understood Jinnah sahib before the partition, nor after it. If they had only considered the two personal matters of significant value from Jinnah’s life, i.e. his second marriage and his daughter’s love marriage, they could have understood him better.
Aqeel Abbas, a renowned historian, writes on pages 39-40 in his book ‘The Marital Life of Quaid-i-Azam’: “After returning to Darjeeling, one evening Muhammad Ali Jinnah called on Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit.
During the casual conversation that they were having, Jinnah asked Sir Petit, “Where do you stand on inter-faith marriages?” Sir Petit, who was quite unaware of Jinnah’s intentions, expressed his view quite emphatically: “Such marriages are an enhancement in national unity and harmony. In fact, it is more than possible that these marriages prove to be the final solution to religious disturbances.”
Jinnah could not have expected a better answer. Without wasting any further time on stretching the debate, Jinnah came clean in front his old friend, “I intend to marry your daughter.” Sir Petit was shocked. He could not have imagined how his earlier expressed views could render him vulnerable so quickly. He was extremely unhappy at the turn the conversation had taken and at Jinnah’s impoliteness. He denied even considering the matter.
The same Jinnah, when faced with his own daughter’s intentions of tying the knot with a Parsi gentleman, denied his child’s love any support.
Merely six months after his first address to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947, the Governor-General of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, attended a welcome party in his honour by the Karachi Bar Association.
Addressing the occasion, Jinnah said he was unable to understand why a group of people, who are willing miscreants, were adamant on the propaganda that the constitution of Pakistan will not have any shariah-based foundations. He had further added that even after 1,300 years Islamic ideals could be applied to life in the same fashion and that some people were misguided as a result of such propaganda.
He said, “I wish to let those people know that not only Muslims, but even non-Muslims need not fear anything. Islam and its esteemed ideals have always preached the lessons of democracy. Islam teaches everyone equality and justice. Why should anyone be afraid of democracy, equality and liberty? Especially when these ideals are based on the highest possible standards of honesty, and their foundation is laid on the idea of justice for everyone.” This is an extract from the speeches and statements of Quaid-i-Azam as the Governor-General of Pakistan as published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Another controversy that revolves around the life of the father of the nation relates to the imamat (religious leadership specifically in the rituals of worship) he followed. Did he offer namaz on Eidul Fitr and Eidul Azha after independence? One group is of the view that the role of the imam in these prayers was played by Shah Abdul Aleem Siddiqui, father of renowned religious and political leader Shah Ahmed Noorani. However, pictures offer evidence that it was actually Allama Zahoorul Hassan Dars.
The story behind the prayer of Eidul Azha is that the time of the prayer had come but the governor-general was a bit late in arriving. His Excellency’s staff requested the religious scholar heading the Eid prayer to delay the service. The imam denied the request.
The prayer was still in its initial stages when the governor-general arrived. Lack of space in the front row resulted in him offering his prayer behind the ground.
Once the prayer was completed, his Excellency’s staff members complained that the imam had refused to wait for him. Conspiracy-lovers were disappointed by the Quaid’s response that Pakistan needed more such religious scholars.
On one occasion, I was having a discussion with renowned journalist late Mr Zamir Niazi sahib regarding Jinnah sahib’s various speeches. I remember he replied with a smile: “Thank God we have the August 11, 1947 speech which we proudly use as a foundation for a secular Pakistan. What if that speech was removed from history?"
I also spoke with famous historian Dr Mubarak Ali in this regard. He was of the view that a single speech cannot be enough for the implementation of an ideology. He said we should work for it, making the dream of changing Pakistan into a secular and progressive state.
A discussion with renowned scholar Dr Mehdi Hassan also took place in this regard. He was of the view that the speeches delivered by Jinnah sahib after Aug 11 for the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan had no significance, as this was the speech that held central importance.
Good for him that he made the speech in the 1940s. If he had said something like that today, he would have been dragged to court like the honourable former president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari. The lawyers would have tried to convince that since the office of the Governor-General is not partisan, apolitical, rather a representative of the Queen of Britain, therefore no further political statements could be issued by its holder and no political matters be taken in hand by the office-bearer.
-Translated by Aadarsh Ayaz Laghari
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