ABSTRACT
Mohammad Ali Jinnah returned to India in July 1896, and was enrolled as an Advocate of the Bombay High Court in the following month. Evidently, he restrained his enthusiasm for politics for nearly eight years while he was struggling to establish himself at the Bombay Bar. In March 1906, Jinnah resigned from the Bombay Corporation; apparently it was too small a forum for the talents and ambitions of the budding politician. The same year witnessed his real debut on the stage of national politics. The significance of Jinnah’s stance at Calcutta in December 1906 can be best understood in the light of the turn which Muslim politics was taking at the time. One of the basic premises of Sir Syed’s political philosophy was loyalty to the British Raj. Besides the promise of separate electorates and inflated representation, the Muslim community was encouraged to form a separate political party.
