Number of words: 232

In 1915 and 1916, when the UP Municipal Bill was introduced the provincial interests were fully aroused, for this Bill proposed a large-scale devolution of power to the municipalities, thus sharpening communally-oriented demands, for it seemed to the aspirants that the power of municipal patronage was now within their grasp. Inevitably, this inflamed the issue of separate versus joint electorates and brought it to a head. The provincial satraps sought a communal alliance at the provincial level advising a surrender of local advantage for provincial profit, a diffcult trade off in the best of circumstances. Jinnah, was of course, not involved in any such communal wrangles of UP, though he was very much a part of a national settlement, at Lucknow in 1916. But these provincial tangles severely restricted his capacity for manoeuvre, so much so that his views on separate electorates finally altered, and that, too, radically. In 1913, he was still a passionate advocate of joint electorates; by 1916 he had begun to argue with the Congress leaders that unless the Muslims’ demand for separate electorates was conceded a settlement would not be reached. This is where Jinnah, the Muslim leader first begins to emerge; the compelling rationale for this transformation being the existing political reality of the country, his own largely notional political constituency, and his public standing.

Excerpted from Page 92-93 of ‘Jinnah: India-Partition Independence’ by Jaswant Singh