Muhammad Ali Jinnah - Legacy and Historical View

Legacy and Historical View

Jinnah's legacy is Pakistan. According to Mohiuddin, "He was and continues to be as highly honored in Pakistan as George Washington is in the United States ... Pakistan owes its very existence to his drive, tenacity, and judgment ... Jinnah's importance in the creation of Pakistan was monumental and immeasurable." Wolpert, giving a speech in honour of Jinnah in 1998, deemed him Pakistan's greatest leader.

According to Singh, "With Jinnah's death Pakistan lost its moorings. In India there will not easily arrive another Gandhi, nor in Pakistan another Jinnah." Malik writes, "As long as Jinnah was alive, he could persuade and even pressure regional leaders toward greater mutual accommodation, but after his death, the lack of consensus on the distribution of political power and economic resources often turned controversial." According to Mohiuddin, "Jinnah's death deprived Pakistan of a leader who could have enhanced stability and democratic governance ... The rocky road to democracy in Pakistan and the relatively smooth one in India can in some measure be ascribed to Pakistan's tragedy of losing an incorruptible and highly revered leader so soon after independence."

Jinnah is depicted on all Pakistani rupee notes of denominations five and higher, and is the namesake of many Pakistani public institutions. The former Quaid-i-Azam International Airport in Karachi, now called the Jinnah International Airport, is Pakistan's busiest. One of the largest streets in the Turkish capital Ankara, Cinnah Caddesi, is named after him, as is the Mohammad Ali Jenah Expressway in Teheran, Iran. The royalist government of Iran also released a stamp commemorating the centennial of Jinnah's birth in 1976. In Chicago, a portion of Devon Avenue was named "Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way". The Mazar-e-Quaid, Jinnah's mausoleum, is among Karachi's landmarks. The "Jinnah Tower" in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, was built to commemorate Jinnah.

There is a considerable amount of scholarship on Jinnah which stems from Pakistan; according to Akbar S. Ahmed, it is not widely read outside the country and usually avoids even the slightest criticism of Jinnah. According to Ahmed, nearly every book about Jinnah outside Pakistan mentions that he drank alcohol, but this is omitted from books inside Pakistan. Ahmed suggests that depicting the Quaid drinking alcohol would weaken Jinnah's Islamic identity, and by extension, Pakistan's. Some sources allege he gave up alcohol near the end of his life.

According to historian Ayesha Jalal, while there is a tendency towards hagiography in the Pakistani view of Jinnah, in India he is viewed negatively. Ahmed deems Jinnah "the most maligned person in recent Indian history ... In India, many see him as the demon who divided the land." Even many Indian Muslims see Jinnah negatively, blaming him for their woes as a minority in that state. Some historians such as Jalal and H. M. Seervai assert that Jinnah never wanted partition of India—it was the outcome of the Congress leaders being unwilling to share power with the Muslim League. They contend that Jinnah only used the Pakistan demand in an attempt to mobilise support to obtain significant political rights for Muslims. Jinnah has gained the admiration of Indian nationalist politicians such as Lal Krishna Advani, whose comments praising Jinnah caused an uproar in his Bharatiya Janata Party.

The view of Jinnah in the West has been shaped to some extent by his portrayal in Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 film, Gandhi. The film was dedicated to Nehru and Mountbatten, and was given considerable support by Nehru's daughter, the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. It portrays Jinnah (played by Alyque Padamsee) as a scowling, villainous figure, who seems to act out of jealousy of the title character. Padamsee later stated that his portrayal was not historically accurate.

In a journal article on Pakistan's first governor-general, historian R. J. Moore wrote that Jinnah is universally recognised as central to the creation of Pakistan. Wolpert summarises the profound effect that Jinnah had on the world:

Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.