Quaid's anniversary and Kashmir struggle.

AuthorButt, Imtiaz Rafi
PositionQuaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Byline: Imtiaz Rafi Butt

Stand united, work selflessly, perseveringly and in a disciplined manner and I assure you no power on Earth can prevent you from the attainment of a liberated Kashmir and the realization of your just and legitimate rights. Our sympathies are with you in your struggle and I wish your session all success. Quaid's Message to All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, New Dehli, 26 October, 1946

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah rose to the pedestal of a leader of Muslim Ummah. He was a resolute leader, Statesman and visionary possibly one of the most remarkable men of the 20th Century. Sir Agha Khan considered him as "the greatest man I ever met". A hardened pragmatic realist like Quaid was not just making an allegorical statement when he called Kashmir "the jugular vein of Pakistan".

The very foundations of the beginning of the freedom struggle began from defining of the objectives of the All India Muslim League in 1906 in the house of Sir Salim Ullah Khan, a Kashmiri dwelling in Dhaka Bengal. Quaid-e-Azam believed that there were four pillars of power in the sub-continent namely the British Rule, Congress, Muslim League and the Native States comprising almost one-fourth of the population of India.

The philosopher poet and visionary of Pakistan, a Kashmiri himself, Allama Iqbal presented the idea of Pakistan in 1930 and believed that the dream of an Independent Muslim homeland in the sub continent would be incomplete without an independent state of Kashmir. The All India States Muslim League looked after the affairs of the Native States guided and supported by the leadership of All India Muslim League. Allama Iqbal enticed Muslims to observe 14th August 1934 as Kashmir Day.

There are stores of records showing four visits of Quaid-e-Azam to Kashmir. The first one was in 1926 which was although a private visit but Quaid noted the dismal socioeconomic situation of Muslims in Kashmir and got a resolution passed in the All India Muslim League Working Committee demanding the Maharaja to address the economic, social and especially educational backwardness of Muslims in Kashmir.

The Quaid again visited Kashmir in 1936 when Shiekh Abdullah invited him. Tragically the Muslim Conference had come under the influence of Indian National Congress in Kashmir and Quaid rebuked the idea of Shiekh Abdullah that in a Muslim majority state like Kashmir, formation of the Muslim Conference against the National Conference was irrelevant and...

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