In 1896, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organisation. Jinnah became a menber on the 62 Imperial Legilative Council, as a nominated pro-Raj loyalist with no real power. But he was an instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restrained Act,the legitimization of the of the Muslim waqf (religious endowment) and was appointed to the Sandhurst Committee,which helped establish the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun. During WWI jinnah joined other Indian moderates in supporting the British war effort, hoping that Indians would be rewarded with political freedomss
Jinnah initially avoided joining the All india Muslim League founded in 1906 since it was only a Muslim oriented organisation though he decided to prodide leadeship to the Muslim Minority. However, he joined AIML in 1913 and became president at the 1916 session in Lucknow. Jinnah was the architect of Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the League.
Lucknow pact of 1916 :
It was an agreement between INC and AIML that they would move jointly to negotiate with British Government for considering their authority more liberally.This was the first move after the re-instatement of Bengal Partition when League was confused about its stand. This was done by Jinnah after arranging, by his hard labour, a joint session of both the organisation , INC and AIML, where for the first time leaders of both the organisation tok part to discuss the issue. Within a few months of Bombay meeting, 19 Muslim and Hindu elected members of the Imperial Legislative Council addressed a memorandom to the Viceroy on the subject of reforms in Oct., 1916. The agreement was confirmed by the annual sessions of each organisation in their session held on Dec. 29 and Dec 31,1916, separately. sarojini naidu gave Jinnah, the chief architect of the Lucknow Pact, the title of Hindu Muslim Unity.
Main clauses of the Lucknow Pact were as follows:
1. There should be self Govt. in India,
2. Muslims should be given one-third representation in the central government,
3. There should be separate electorate for each community until a community demanded joint electorate.
4. System of weightage should be adopted,
5. The number of members of the Central Legislative council should increased to 150,
6. At the rovincial level, four-fifth of the members of the Legislative Councils should elected and one-fifth should be nominated,
7. The strength of the Provincial Legislative should be 125 in the case of major provinces and 50 to 75 in case of minor provinces,
8. All members, except those nominated, were to be elected directly on the basis of Adult franchise,
9. No bill to be passed concerning a community if the bill was opposed by three-fourth members of that community in the Legislative Council,
10. Term of the Legislative council should be five years,
11. The members of the Legislative Council should elect their President,
12. Half of the members of the Imperial Legislative Council should be Indians,
13. Indian Council must be abolished,
14. The salary of the Secretary of State for Indian affairs should be paid by the British Govt. and not from the Indian fund,
15. One of two under-secretaries, one should be Indians,
16. The executive should be separated from the judiciary.
The Hindu-muslim unity was not able to last for more than eight years i.e upto 1924, and collapsed after the development of differences between the two communities after the Khilafat movement. But the Muslim League secured its political identity from the Congress.
This was the politics of Mr. Jinnah, Head you loose ,Tail I win.
