Jinnah addressing the 27th session of the All-India Muslim League on March 22, 1940, said,
‘.... If political consciousness is awakened among our women, remember, your children will not have much to worry about....’
Jinnah’s visionary leadership brought the Muslim women of the subcontinent out of the obscurity of political passivity and drove them into mainstream politics. This political awakening of Muslim women of the subcontinent was inextricably linked to the struggle for a separate homeland and concerted efforts for nation-building. Women represented as ‘mothers of the nation,’ were duty-bound to play a significant role in the nation-building efforts.
While speaking at the Aligarh Muslim University in 1944, the Quaid said:
“We should take our women along us as comrades in every sphere of life. We cannot expect a woman who is ignorant herself to bring up our children properly. Women have the power to bring up children on the right lines. Let us not throw away this asset.”
He repeatedly asserted the significance of the political mobilisation of women and emphasised the significance of their participation in nation-building efforts.
Jinnah taught the nation that political struggles are based on the unity of purpose and this unity should reflect through collective struggle transcending gender, class, ethnic and sectarian divisions.
On another occasion in 1944, he emphasised the need for inclusion of women while stating, “No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.”
Jinnah inspired national enthusiasm and collective spirit among Muslim women of the subcontinent to take their rightful place alongside men in the struggle for a separate homeland. Under his leadership, the All-India Muslim league formulated a sub-committee of the All-India Muslim League Women Branch in December 1938 at Patna. The sub-committees of All-India Muslim League Women were established at the provincial and district levels to mobilise women and instil in them a political awareness and spirit for nation-building. The aim was to provide Muslim women with an opportunity to participate in the struggle for Pakistan and ultimately achieve an equal share in its political, economic, and social development.
With the declaration of the constitution of the Women’s Wing of the Muslim League in 1938, Jinnah institutionalised the role of women in the political process as valuable and equal partners and gave tickets to Begum Salma Tassaduque and Mrs Jahanara Shahnawaz in the elections of 1946. The Quaid strategically utilised every available opportunity to empower female members of the All-India Muslim League. When the Quaid received an invitation from the International Herald Tribune to send Muslim representatives to the Tribune Forum, the Quaid nominated Begum Shahnawaz and Mirza Abul Hassan Isphahani. The Quaid noted: “I would ask Begum Shahnawaz to accompany him to the USA to counter the Hindu propaganda that the Muslims were reactionaries, and their women were neither politically awake nor exercised any rights and therefore if Pakistan were founded, it would be a theocratic state.”
Jinnah empowered women contestants to take an agentic role in the political struggle for Pakistan. His urge to arouse social and political activism among women not only addressed the ‘Ishrafia women,’ the modern western educated upper-class women but particularly the masses of burka-clad un-emancipated women who participated in the All-India Muslim League’s political movement in 1946.
In 1946, huge demonstrations of burka-clad women supporters of the AIML in anti-Khizar agitation (Leaguers agitated against the pro-Congress leader of the Unionist party of Punjab, Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, who was granted a ministry despite the fact that his party was far behind in the vote count in 1946 against the AIML) and in NWFP, that the then governor of the Frontier province, Sir Olaf Caroe remarked that “Pakistan is made.” Similarly, Jinnah ensured that the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1947 would have two women members, Begum Shaista Ikramullah and Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz.
Jinnah’s support for women’s empowerment was not restricted to the political domain alone; he had been a staunch supporter of their social and economic empowerment through and through. He did not merely extend his unconditional support for women verbally, but he drafted the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 which established 18 years as the legal age for marriage and staunchly faced opposition from the conservative Muslim sections.
“I cannot believe that there can be a divine sanction for such evil practices as are prevailing and that we should, for a single minute, give our sanctions to the continuance of these evil practices any longer. How can there be such a divine sanction? How can there be such a divine sanction to this cruel, horrible, disgraceful, inhuman practice that is prevailing in India?” Quaid lamented.
Similarly, Jinnah played an instrumental role in the formulation of the Sharia Act of 1937 which enshrined women’s inheritance rights according to the sharia, a huge milestone in women’s empowerment in the subcontinent. The Quaid remained unmoved against the resistance and opposition he had to face in his support for women’s right to the inheritance which especially came from landed elites of Punjab where the law of primogeniture was practised in inheritance.
Jinnah argued, “The principle underlying this Bill is to secure to the female heirs their due shares according to Muhammadan Law. According to the custom and usages that have prevailed, the position of the female heirs has been a very precarious one... I submit that the Islamic code of law is most just because the shares are defined there.... Even today the economic position of women is the foundation of her being recognised as equal to man and sharing the life of man to the fullest extent...”
Jinnah made a special effort to visit young female students to invigorate political awareness and instil in them a shared sense of purpose to achieve the goal of nation-making. At the Islamia College for Women in Lahore, he addressed the students, “I am glad to see that not only Muslim men but Muslim women and children also have understood the Pakistan scheme. No nation can make any progress without the cooperation of its women. If Muslim women support their men, as they did in the day of the Prophet of Islam Muhammad (PBUH), we should soon realise our goal.”
In his addresses and public statements, Jinnah explicitly gave an image of empowered Pakistani women that he envisaged. He said, “No nation is capable of remaining a strong nation unless and until its men and women do not struggle together for the achievement of its goals.”
Jinnah shared a similar vision with female students at Aligarh when he encouraged them to break free from repressive orthodox traditions that inhibited progress and female empowerment. Jinnah asked them “to shed superstition and undesirable social customs but at the same time to steer clear of the evils of the western civilisations.”
The freedom movement of Pakistan provided definitive opportunities for Muslim women of the subcontinent to shed the restrictions of orthodoxy that subsumed women within the hierarchies of socio-economic and political passivity. Jinnah categorically gave a vision of empowered women in his speeches and statements lest there be any ambiguity regarding the role of women in Pakistan, which was not merely rhetorical; rather he led by example. He translated his belief in female empowerment into actions by encouraging women through the Muslim League and ensuring the presence of his sister Fatima Jinnah by his side in almost all public activities.
Fatima Jinnah, an educated, empowered woman of her era, joined her brother in his struggle for a separate homeland; she accompanied him to political rallies and shared his political struggle. She was an active member of the working committee of the Bombay Provincial Muslim League and worked in that capacity until 1947.
Finally, Jinnah’s exemplary leadership and political acumen inspired a generation of women to break away from repressive norms of gender subordination.
Jinnah was fully aware of women’s potential for positive contributions in state building and had his own vision of an empowered Muslim woman. It was his forthright leadership and far-sightedness that he acknowledged how far the Muslim women of the subcontinent were behind in their struggle for emancipation and actualisation of their full potential. Jinnah through his words and actions gave a vision of a Pakistani woman as an empowered agentic individual who should make equal contributions to nation-building as their male counterparts. This is the legacy he left behind.