The Fourteen Points of Jinnah

[MUKHTIAR ALI]

The Fourteen Points of Jinnah were proposed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in a self-governing India. The report was given in a meeting of the council of the All India Muslim League on March 28, 1929.


The Fourteen Points

The form of the future constitution should be federal with the residuary powers vested in the provinces.

A uniform measure of autonomy shall be granted to all provinces.

All legislatures in the country and other elected bodies shall be constituted on the definite principle of adequate and effective representation of minorities in every province without reducing the majority in any province to a minority or even equality.

In the Central Legislature, Muslim representation shall not be less than one third.

Representation of communal groups shall continue to be by means of separate electorate as at present, provided it shall be open to any community at any time to abandon its separate electorate in favor of a joint electorate.

Any territorial distribution that might at any time be necessary shall not in any way affect the Muslim majority in the Punjab, Bengal and the North West Frontier Province.

Full religious liberty, i.e. liberty of belief, worship and observance, propaganda, association and education, shall be guaranteed to all communities.

No bill or any resolution or any part thereof shall be passed in any legislature or any other elected body if three-fourth of the members of any community in that particular body oppose such a bill resolution or part thereof on the ground that it would be injurious to the interests of that community or in the alternative, such other method is devised as may be found feasible and practicable to deal with such cases.

Sindh should be separated from the Bombay presidency.

Reforms should be introduced in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan on the same footing as in the other provinces.

Provision should be made in the constitution giving Muslims an adequate share, along with the other Indians, in all the services of the state and in local self-governing bodies having due regard to the requirements of efficiency.

The constitution should embody adequate safeguards for the protection of Muslim culture and for the protection and promotion of Muslim education, language, religion, personal laws and Muslim charitable institution and for their due share in the grants-in-aid given by the state and by local self-governing bodies.

No cabinet, either central or provincial, should be formed without there being a proportion of at least one-third Muslim ministers.

No change shall be made in the constitution by the Central Legislature except with the concurrence of the State's contribution of the Indian Federation.

Reactions

One newspaper headline described the 14 points as Muslims' irreducible minimum. These demands were rejected by the Congress Party, leaving Jinnah an isolated man even amongst the Muslims, who he had convinced to scale down their demands. He was then invited to attend the round table conferences, where he forwarded the Muslims' point of view as he understood it. However neither the nationalists nor the pro-British Muslim nobility were willing to listen to him.
Years later he would remark to his Hindu friend Dalmiya how he was finally able to bring the British lackeys, "Jee Huzoors"(yes men) and "nawabs" into line
.