Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Born in Karachi in 1876, Jinnah studied law at Lincoln's Inn and returned to practice at the Bombay High Court before politics consumed him. He rose through the Indian National Congress in the early 20th century, helped negotiate the 1916 Lucknow Pact, and pushed constitutional reforms to protect Muslim political rights. In 1920 he broke with Congress over its satyagraha campaign, which he saw as anarchy. Leading the All-India Muslim League from 1913 onward, he steered the 1940 Lahore Resolution and argued that Muslims required their own state to avoid marginalisation. When power-sharing talks collapsed, partition became the only path: on 14 August 1947, Pakistan was born. Jinnah spent his final year as governor-general overseeing refugee camps for millions displaced by the new borders, then died in September 1948 at 71, leaving a country that calls him Quaid-e-Azam and Father of the Nation.