Political Life
During the transfer of power in 1947, Jinnah formed the Women's Relief Committee, which later formed the nucleus for the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA) founded by Rana Liaquat Ali Khan. She also played a significant role in the settlement of Muhajirs in the new state of Pakistan.
In the 1960s, Jinnah returned to the forefront of political life when she ran for the presidency of Pakistan as a candidate for the Combined Opposition Party of Pakistan (COPP). She described her opponent, Ayub Khan, as a dictator. In her early rallies, nearly 250,000 people thronged to see her in Dhaka, and a million lined the 293 mile route from there to Chittagong. Her train, called the Freedom Special, was 22 hours late because men at each station pulled the emergency cord, and begged her to speak. The crowds hailed her as Madr-e-millat, (Mother of the nation).
In her rallies Jinnah argued that, by coming to terms with India on the Indus Water dispute, Ayub had surrendered control of the rivers to India. Jinnah lost the election, but only narrowly, winning a majority in some provinces. The election is suggested by journalists, as well as subsequent historians, to be rigged in favour of Ayub Khan.
Read more about this topic: Fatima Jinnah
Famous quotes related to political life:
“The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)