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STATEMENTS and letters of political leaders provide raw material for students of history and politics, especially the ones written before they acquired fame. We are fortunate in having the excellently compiled Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi and Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. Its first volume, in the First Series, began from the year 1903 and was published in 1972. The second series began from 1947. The last volume in this series (No. 38), covering the period May-July 1957, was published last January. We have also Sardar Patel's Correspondence and the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Correspondence and Select Documents. Let alone historians and political scientists, no constitutional lawyer can ignore these volumes.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah has been less fortunate. Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada compiled a good few volumes of his correspondence. Three volumes published 20 years ago covered the period 1906-31, and stopped at that.
Dr. Riaz Ahmed has undertaken a stupendous task of compiling the record from 1893 onwards till his death in 1948. He has delved into the archives in London as well as in Islamabad.
Besides writing an able work, Formative Years 1892-1920, he has compiled two particularly interesting volumes on Jinnah as an advocate and as a presidency magistrate. For this he consulted The Bombay Gazette, The Bombay Chronicle and The Times of India.
The present series will cover Jinnah's record as a lawyer, as legislator and politician. It begins with his application for admission to the Lincoln's Inn in London to qualify for the Bar. It was dated April 25, 1893. He was less than 17.
The volumes cover his participation in the annual sessions of the Congress and, later, the Muslim League, besides reports of notable cases, such as his defence of Bal Gangadhar Tilak to whom he paid warm tributes after his death.
The record dispels two wrong impressions. One is that when he was in the Congress he was not interested in his community's (Muslims') welfare. The other is that when he parted with the Congress in 1920 on the issue of civil disobedience, he was embittered. On the contrary, he paid warm tributes to Gandhi. Incidentally, Jinnah was also elected to the Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1904.
Several such facets of his career are recorded in this series, which will be indispensable to students of history. One incident bears recalling. Jinnah and D.M. Bahadurji, both barristers, were at Panchgani, a hill station near Pune, during the October vacation of the High Court. Ram Sarup was in the employ of Jinnah as a coachman. One day he was disobedient to Bahadurji, whereupon Jinnah rebuked him. He became insolent and left the service. He demanded his wages but was refused.
The news report adds: "He was, however, paid three rupees to be able to come to Bombay. On the 10th instant when Jinnah as usual was driving along the Coperage from his bungalow to the Court House, the accused came up and held the horse by the reins. He stopped the cab and demanded his wages from Jinnah. He detained Jinnah for 20 minutes. The accused was given in charge of the police. The Magistrate convicted the accused and sentenced him to three weeks' rigorous imprisonment." This occurred in 1906. Evidently, by then Jinnah's briefless days were over and he was on the road to great success at the Bar.
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