PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26542, 18 August 1947, Page 4

PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN

Through being chosen unanimously by the Pakistan Assembly as its first president, Mohammed Ali Jinnah has reached the apex of a career dedicated to one purpose. He now leads in a separate State eighty million Moslems who for many years have professed, mainly through him, fear of tyranny at the hands of the Hindus if such autonomy were not granted. Home rule for India, first seriously suggested by the British authorities a decade ago, received nothing but opposition from Mr Jinnah, and even when the British Cabinet Mission last year almost forced it on the country by sheer diplomatic ingenuity and a large measure of public support, he remained, obdurate. While refusing to join the Interim Government in preparing a Constitution, he firmly rejected in advance, as not being the will of the whole community, any regulations made by it. Pakistan was the only solution of the Indian problem which Mr Jinnah would accept, and he fought unswervingly for it. He was •at all times ready for discussion with the British authorities and to listen courteously to new suggestions, but Pakistan was always his goal, and any proposal which deviated, however slightly, from this principle was firmly opposed. On the personal side, Mr Jinnah, though he has been for many years president and Qaid-e-Azam (Grand Leader) of the Moslem League, is not fanatically religious. He lives in Western style, shaves regularly and smokes and eats heartily between sunrise and sunset even in the month of Ramadan. He is a keen, intelligent debater, and his • English is .fluent and colloquial. Seventy-one years of age, he is greyhaired, tall and thin to the point of emaciation. In this last connection, John Gunther may be quoted as having once said: “ He is beyond doubt the thinnest man I ever saw.” Even his political enemies pay generous tribute to Mr Jinnah’s incorruptibility. Though under the British rule he is said to have been offered titles and more than one Government post, he remained true to the cause to which he had pledged himself. Mr Jinnah’s move after the completion of Britain’s. t withdrawal will be keenly awaited. He has clearly indicated that he does not regard the adherence of the Moslem State to the British* Commonwealth as inevitable or qyen necessary. On the other hand, his feelings towards Britain have noticeably mellowed in recent months, concurrently with an obvious appreciation of Lord Mountbatten’s statesmanship. The Commonwealth and Pakistan have much to offer each other, and it is safe to assume that the astute Moslem leader will not lightly dismiss such a consideration when he starts to direct the political and economic alignments of his new State.