"The Mussalmans are not a minority. They are a nation by any definition. By all canons of International law we are a nation."

(On 23rd March, 1940 at the historic session of the Muslim League at Lahore)

Any light thrown on the enigma of Jinnah's personality is also light thrown on the genesis of Pakistan. For Jinnah stands alone among the nation-builders of Pakistan in a way that no Indian, not even Mahatma 'Gandhi, stands among Indian patriots. Of him it can be said with some truth, that "alone he did it. To personal integrity and devotion to principle must be added courage and the absence of petty feelings or motives. Whether holding the balance between Swaraj and government forces in the Assemblies of the mid-twenties, or facing Hindu contumely in the All-parties discussions. or pursuing a lonely course against the prestige of a Gandhi or the determination of a government immersed in a world war, or standing firm against the pressures of the post-war negotiations his courage never faltered. The elegant man of fashion was no wooden figure painted to look like iron. but made of finely tempered steel. His single-mindedness created respect and drew men to him when other programmes and leaders had failed, his clarity of vision provided a beacon for their hopes, and his courage sustained them in their efforts. He was not a man who fitted into a situation, but one to whom a situation must be fitted. In other times he might have been nothing more than an eminent lawyer or polished parliamentary politician. Jinnah's greatness lay in his inherent qualities; they did not develop as the result of a crisis, but were revealed by the particular crisis which occurred. No recent of figure in British politics will serve and we return to the Victorian age before there emerges the figure of Charles Stuart Parnell. The Irish leader and Jinnah had many points of resemblance. Both stood somewhat apart from their own people, the one as a Protestant leader of Catholics and landlord leader of tenants, the other as an unorthodox Muslim, the westernised leader of an Islamic revival, the professional director of a mass movement who could not speak his people's language. He attracted attention by their single-mindedness and sheer force of character, and wrested a homeland from the unwilling jaws of colonial stranglehold, for the Muslims of the Sub-continent. Percival Spear