Chemistry of leadership
K.N.PANIKKAR
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Assessment of Jinnah as a charismatic leader during his engagement with nationalist politics
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THE CHARISMATIC LEADER — Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan: Sikandar Hayat; Oxford University Press, Karachi, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 595.
That Pakistan was created by Mohammad Ali Jinnah is a well worn out cliché. Just as the popular belief in India attributes freedom from British rule to Mahatma Gandhi. Both, though partially true, do not fully comprehend the complex historical process which culminated in the redrawing of the map of South Asia, unfortunately accompanied by unprecedented human tragedy in the region. Yet, without these two leaders, temperamentally different and poles apart in political perspectives, the history of the subcontinent perhaps would not have taken the course it did. As a result their role in the politics of South Asia has been a subject of much scholarly enquiry and interpretation. If Gandhiana swells every year in India, Mohammad Ali Jinnah is a subject of continued interest in Pakistan, unabated even during military dictatorships. Jinnah secured a place in history by “modifying the map of the world” through the creation of a nation state, which according to Stanley Wolpert, was a “unique achievement in the annals of history.” What enabled him to do so is a question which has attracted many a historian’s interest and naturally any new work on Jinnah necessarily has to be innovative to demand attention. The present study, although initially written about 20 years ago as a doctoral dissertation, manages to hold interest because it focuses on a relatively unexplored territory—the charisma of Jinnah as it evolved during the course of his engagement with liberal nationalist politics to begin with and later as the champion of “Muslim” interests. Locating the charisma of the leader within the imperatives of politics the study tries to highlight how Jinnah’s charisma was a decisive factor in the creation of Pakistan.
Factors for his appeal
Jinnah’s charismatic appeal had both normative and structural components. Normative appeal rested on the “special interests of the Muslims and involved opposition to both the existing British Raj and the imminent threat of Hindu rule once the former left India.” The second factor and “arguably the more important …was his emphasis on Islam as an ideal.” Islam, in Jinnah’s conception, was “a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collectively and individually.” Following that, he held that the Muslims “are a nation with distinctive culture and civilisation.” The author claims that the social groups which were most attracted to the charismatic appeal were the students, the ulama, pirs and sajjadanashins and women. Whether this is an adequate social explanation for the manner in which Jinnah succeeded in mobilising the Muslim opinion after 1936 may be debatable. After all the ability of Jinnah and the Muslim League to represent the interest of the Muslims had dramatically changed between 1936 and 1946, indicating a broad-basing of his support. In the 1937 elections the Muslim League fared poorly, whereas by 1946 Jinnah could emerge as the “sole spokesman” to represent the Muslim interests.
Cultural identity
This transformation, apart from other factors, can be traced to the charisma of Jinnah which was shaped by a combination of the modern and the traditional. The author argues that his success was primarily due to the reconciliation of nationalism and Islam that he brought about, renouncing in the process the liberal and secular notions of nationalism that he had earlier espoused. Symptomatic of his perspective was the change he had effected in his dress when he arrived in Lucknow in 1937 to attend the annual session of the Muslim League. He had given up the Saville Row suit in favour of black sherwani and shalwar, and karakuli cap which later became the national dress of Pakistan. In doing so Jinnah was making a conscious show of his Muslim cultural identity which was essential to establish a charismatic relationship. Mahatma Gandhi did the same in a different way by renouncing the upper cloth in order to identify with the poor people of India.
Political management
What this study seeks to do is to narrate the success of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in moulding the Muslims of India, at least a section of them, into a nation. Establishing the case for acknowledging Jinnah as a charismatic leader, the author gives a brief but succinct account of his early career and political activities. After that considerable space is devoted to highlight both the social and intellectual conditions that were conducive for the emergence of Jinnah as a charismatic leader. The “distress situation” of the Muslims and the inability of the traditional leadership to provide necessary direction receive particular attention. The core of the book deals with the political management of Jinnah, both in relation to the Indian National Congress and the British, and how he came out successfully to fulfil his mission of creating Pakistan, even if it was a moth eaten one. There is much in the narrative which is understandably well known, but it provides considerable insights into the circumstances which enabled the emergence of Jinnah as a charismatic leader of the Muslims.
The author rightly contends that charismatic leadership is a relationship, not an isolated phenomenon; although the analytical possibilities inherent in this observation have not been fully exploited. If done so it would have illumined the social and intellectual trajectories through which charisma was communicated and internalised. How the personal charisma of Jinnah was “routinised” in the Muslim League and indeed among the masses would be a fascinating, though difficult, problem to investigate. In the absence of such an effort the argument about the charismatic leadership of Jinnah does not appear to be entirely convincing.
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