The Leadership style of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

The Leadership Style of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

Introduction

Mohammed Ali Jinnah is one of the very few leaders who managed to successfully change the course of history, occasioned the formation of a state and also altered the map of the world. The contributions he made during his lifetime are the ones which laid the foundation of the state of Pakistan. His life was surrounded by nefarious ordeals all through, yet he stood against all odds to become one of the most charismatic leaders the world has ever had. This paper intends to analyze the leadership style exhibited by this great leader and further invoke leadership theories to criticize a few aspects of his political career.

A Brief Biography of Mohammed Ali Jinnah

General Background

The original name of Jinnah was Mahomedali Jinnahbhai. He was born in 1876 at a place called Sindh in Pakistan. His father was a successful Gujarati merchant in that region and that means that Jinnah’s early life was relatively comfortable. He was a second child in a family of seven and the entire family was Shia Islams even though Jinnah later subscribed to the teachings of Twelver Islam (Wolpert 2005).

Having cleared his high school education he was offered an apprenticeship opportunity by his father’s business comrade, Sir Fredrick Leigh Croft, who took him to England to work in his firm. However, upon reaching England, he changed his mind and joined law school using the upkeep money that his father had passed onto him. It is during this period at the Lincoln’s inn that he changed his name to Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He was always a diligent student and this earned him apprenticeship opportunities from some of the most renowned lawyers back then. At twenty years only, he began his private practice in Bombay where he served as the first Muslim Lawyer in the city. His career in the legal profession shone brighter day by day. He was turning into an accomplished lawyer. In fact, when he was offered a job to be a magistrate at 1500 Rupees per month, he declined the offer claiming that he was eyeing earning the same amount in a day.

Political Career

Owing to the developments which occurred in 1857 where many Indians started revolting against the British rule, the British leaders sought to calm down the situation by enhancing measures of democracy in the cub continent and thus, the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. In light of these most pioneer leaders to sit in the congress were Indians who had schooled in Britain and they were content with these little democratic developments. On their part, Muslims were not satisfied with this approach of democracy because in any event, they were the minority and so, they had little say in a democratic set up.

Jinnah’s first political step was his attendance in the 20^th National Congress where he took a moderate position of embracing Muslim-Hindu Unity His pragmatic approach to these issues earned him the position of representative of the League, a faction which was heralded as the Muslim leadership and he was tasked with voicing the interests of the Muslims. His endeavors were in a great way hit by several impediments, such that Lord Minto, the then viceroy of India, refused to acknowledge the League and thus the latter had little influence while the partition of Bengal was repealed by the Congress. Even though he never advocated for separate electorates for Muslims, Jinnah was nonetheless elected to be the Bombay Muslim representative in since the slots in the congress had expanded to 60. His biggest contribution in the congress by this time was the championing for introduction of the Wakf Validation Act, which was envisioned to place Muslims at the same pedestal as Indians in matters of probate under the British Indian Law.

Jinnah did everything possible to have India gain freedom. During World War 1 he supported the British War camp thinking that by doing this, the British will in return grant independence to India.  When the first initiative failed, he, alongside other moderates founded the All India Home Rule League in 1916, a tool which was later employed to fight for Home rule and independence. In 1919, there was heightened friction between the British and Indians especially after civil liberties were restricted. There also followed a massacre which prompted calls by Gandhi, another respected leader to call for nonviolent noncooperation with the British. In the congress, Jinnah was shouted down while opposing this move, just before the resolution was passed. Owing to this, Jinnah resigned from the congress and only remained as the president of the Muslim League. At this time, Gandhi had gained more public confidence than Jinnah even among the Muslims.

He later formed another political party, the swaraj party to rival the congress. During this period, he turned down the offer of knighthood by Lord Reading claiming that he just wanted to remain that simple Jinnah. The first time he declared outright opposition to the British rule was when the British appointed an exclusively white commission without any Indian delegation in the cabinet. What strangely happened next was that he left for England where he stayed for around four years. While in England, he started having lung ailments.

During this sabbatical he was begged by many Muslims, who had elected him while he was away, to go back and provide leadership to the headless League. He returned eventually and reinforced the membership of the league by allowing for as many people as possible to join it. The developments in India completely changed his perception about independence. He had discovered his roots and so he opted to partition as opposed to self-government. His efforts led to the passing of the Lahore Resolution which embodied a position that Muslim Provinces in India had to be merged to form the state of Pakistan and also that Muslim minorities in other provinces were entitled to protection. This was called ‘Two Nation Theory.’ He was a tough negotiator and in 1948, while India gained independence, a new state was formed; Pakistan (Wolpert 2005).

As one of the ideals that Jinnah insisted on in his first day as governor general, was the notion that every person had to be free to worship as they wanted and that what was important was the national spirit of the Pakistani people. He walked through the villages in the provinces to save the situation after ethnic violence had marred the process of formation of a new state. He also advocated for equitable partition of wealth between India and Pakistan. Also, most of the staff were not willing to work in Pakistan thus leading to a shocking deficit of workers in the new state. This turned out to be the most difficult period in the history of Pakistan.

It has to be underscored that Jinnah was a selfless leader who despite having lung complications, he soldiered on with his ideals until he achieved his goal and his legacy has remained to be the Pakistani nation. He eventually died just a year after Pakistan got independent.

Analysis of Jinnah’s Leadership style

Power and Charisma

Just as many other charismatic leaders, he emerged from a vulnerable population; the Muslim community which was a minority in India. He used his expertise and zeal in defiance of all odds to protect his constituency and religion from all sorts of oppression by the central government. From his efforts, he protected his community by first embracing dialogue with other factions but when this measure was no longer feasible, he sought to fully liberate them.

Jinnah had several forces of negative inertia to fight with during his political career. His inception in politics was welcomed by an inactive Muslim League. This was gradually converted in positive inertia because, when the Muslims started having a political direction, they were divided in mind and never cherished the Muslim League to a greater extent. This imposed a great task on Jinnah but he successfully managed to unify their perception about a new state and this was evidenced in the last elections held in the greater India where all Muslim provinces voted in Unison and elected Muslim leaders robbing the National Council of four seats.

He was an outstanding leader who derived his drive from charismatic authority. The people believed in his exceptional legal skills and leadership skills too. Even though there was a time when even the Muslims were more inclined to following Gandhi, they restored the confidence in him when they begged him to come back to India from England since they felt that the Muslim League lacked leadership. It is also important to note that Jinnah never held a very powerful position such that he would exercise coercion over the people. It is just that they believed in his ideology.

When it comes to power, what really attracted people to Jinnah as their leader was his expertise as a lawyer and articulate speaker who could dearly represent their interests. He also enjoyed referent power (Jaffrelet 2004) since he was just liked by many people because of his straightforward attitude and the fact that he never minced his words. In light of this, he was elected to be the Muslim representative of Bombay while he was absent in England. Only later in his political career did he enjoy legitimate power (Waheed 1976) having been elected President of the Muslim League because now people followed his decisions because he was their elected leader. It can also be argued that in his last days, he also enjoyed information power (Conger 1989), having championed the founding of a newspaper which exclusively propagated the Muslim ideology.  

The strength of Mohammed Ali Jinnah was predicated on the mutual trust that existed between him and the people. Since they shared a common interest; safeguarding interests of Muslims, this further cemented the relationship and made it easy for him to convince the people. His power was personal and not necessarily conferred by any authority. His ability to invoke logic at all times was also a plus because it made people to like him more.

What makes Jinnah one of the world’s greatest leaders is his ability to offer sober leadership during many times of crisis. With the British leaving India and Pakistan Seceding from India, the new nation faced lots of challenges starting with lack of staff and also lack of resources and wealth (Wolpert 2005). Agricultural production was dwindling and the ill leader traversed all the regions trying to provide solutions to the problems that engulfed Pakistan.

The most outstanding feature in the life of Jinnah was his charismatic leadership. This is because he always had a vision of breaking away from the chains of bureaucracy and delivering Muslims from the oppressive regime that existed in India. He always looked at the future and this was manifested even as he was still fighting for the independence of India. Also, he hoped for a progressive nation which was free from discrimination and religious zealotry. He banked his endeavors on the hearts of the people. Such that he sought to popularize his course by going to the people and reducing the subscription fee to join the party. By valuing the people, this makes him also a charismatic leader (Kamra 2002).

Despite all the unrest and infighting between Muslims and Hindus, Jinnah’s ambition was to focus on the greatest national cause, which by then was fighting for independence. This ideology never undermined his assuming of the position of president of the Muslim League. While holding this position, he secured the signing of a Lucknow pact which aimed at placing quotas on leadership positions between Muslims and Hindus to ensure fairness in sharing elective positions within the provinces. Even though this pact was never enforced, it was a good gesture for the unity.

On top of the above, he also believed that the situation that bedeviled his people would be easily controlled. In fact, at first he believed that Muslims would have their rights secured even in a unified India. Another element of charismatic leadership with respect to Jinnah, is self-sacrifice (Walton 1958). He had a disastrous social life. Only politics and legal practice took his free time. He turned a blind eye on his illness and selflessly served the Muslim community. He only envisioned the wellbeing of his people.

Criticism of his political Career

In as much as Jinnah’s leadership style is more inclined to being charismatic, it can equally be argued that he was also a pragmatic leader because the events that happened at that time are the ones which greatly influenced his stance (Quraishis 1994). At first, he never advocated for disintegration of the territory of India. But something must have changed for him to change his mind. Many scholars argue that the introduction of Gandhi in Indian politics sidelined him from Indian politics and thus he had to take refuge in the Muslim faction. Additionally, He also drew from positive experiences (Burke & Quraishis 2003) like most pragmatic leaders do.

Also, it is not always that he believed in the controllability of the outcomes of his efforts. He was willing to take a compromise. It is just that he put negotiations first. For instance, many of his proposals about how Muslims were to be treated were turned down and he still soldiered on. His other tool which he invoked often was rational thinking and making proposals which were feasible. This also constitutes his pragmatic approach.

Conclusion

Having critically analyzed the political life of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, it emerges that there are more of charismatic qualities that manifest themselves than pragmatic characteristics (McDonough 1970). I can easily conclude that he was a leader who selflessly offered his life in service of the people. He had a vision in mind which he worked so hard to achieve it. These two, as discussed in this paper, are the overarching features (Dogon 2012) that have always been exhibited by charismatic leaders.

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