"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. Muhammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”
Stanley Wolpert
These are the opening lines of the preface of Stanley Wolpert’s book, “Jinnah of Pakistan” and serves to entice you to read an extremely thorough, comprehensive and detailed study about one of the most pragmatic and charismatic leaders of South Asia, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Stanley Wolpert is an American academic who is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on the political history of modern South Asia. During a trip to Bombay in 1948, he became interested in the complexities of Indian culture, history and politics. Since 1962, he has published many fictional and non-fictional books on his favorite subject.
“Jinnah of Pakistan” was published in 1984. This unique and insightful biography explores the fascinating public and private life of founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah from his birth in 1876 till his death in 1948.
In recording the events that unfold and shape Jinnah’s life, Wolpert also chronicles almost eight decades of Indian history to the point where India achieves independence from British rule amid growing Muslim-Hindu antagonism.
Physically a frail man, Jinnah alone gave courage, hope, strength and voice to millions of Muslims of South Asia who were dismissed as second class citizens in United India before partition in 1947.The book reveals Jinnah’s loneliness, his pain, his broken marriage, his estrangement from his only daughter, his long and fatal disease which he kept under wraps and yet the true worth of his gigantic accomplishment can only be more appreciated when viewed alongside his human weaknesses.
'Jinnah of Pakistan’ is an absolute must read for the students of political history of South-Asia and for every Pakistani who is interested in knowing the extent of debt owed to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah for freedom and a separate country after the end of British Raj in the sub-continent.
Have you read the book? What is your opinion?
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