Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a barrister, statesman, and the founder of Pakistan. He served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the independence of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, and then as the first Governor-General of Pakistan until his death a year later in 1948.

Born at Wazir Mansion in Karachi, Jinnah was trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London, England. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Bombay High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated for Hindu–Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in which Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah became a key leader in the All-India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy.

After joining the All-India Muslim League, Jinnah worked for the rights of Muslims in the subcontinent to protect them from the threat of marginalisation in a Hindu-dominated state. In 1940, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were imprisoned, and in the provincial elections held shortly after the war, it won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula that would allow the entirety of British India to be united as a single state following independence, leading all parties to agree instead to the independence of a Hindu-majority India, and for a predominantly Muslim state of Pakistan.