On 4 July 1947 , Liaquat asked Mountbatten on Jinnah 's behalf to recommend to the British king , George VI , that Jinnah be appointed Pakistan 's first governor-general . This request angered Mountbatten , who had hoped to have that position in both dominions — he would be India 's first post-independence governor-general — but Jinnah felt that Mountbatten would be likely to favour the new Hindu-majority state because of his closeness to Nehru . In addition , the governor-general would initially be a powerful figure , and Jinnah did not trust anyone else to take that office . Although the Boundary Commission , led by British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe , had not yet reported , there were already massive movements of populations between the nations-to-be , as well as sectarian violence . Jinnah arranged to sell his house in Bombay and procured a new one in Karachi . On 7 August , Jinnah , with his sister and close staff , flew from Delhi to Karachi in Mountbatten 's plane , and as the plane taxied , he was heard to murmur , " That 's the end of that . " On 11 August , he presided over the new constituent assembly for Pakistan at Karachi , and addressed them , " You are free ; you are free to go to your temples , you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan ... You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State ... I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims , not in the religious sense , because that is the personal faith of each individual , but in the political sense as citizens of the State . " On 14 August , Pakistan became independent ; Jinnah led the celebrations in Karachi . One observer wrote , " here indeed is Pakistan 's King Emperor , Archbishop of Canterbury , Speaker and Prime Minister concentrated into one formidable '' Quaid-e-Azam '' . " The Radcliffe Commission , dividing Bengal and Punjab , completed its work and reported to Mountbatten on 12 August ; the last Viceroy held the maps until the 17th , not wanting to spoil the independence celebrations in both nations . There had already been ethnically charged violence and movement of populations ; publication of the Radcliffe Line dividing the new nations sparked mass migration , murder , and ethnic cleansing . Many on the " wrong side " of the lines fled or were murdered , or murdered others , hoping to make facts on the ground which would reverse the commission 's verdict . Radcliffe wrote in his report that he knew that neither side would be happy with his award ; he declined his fee for the work . Christopher Beaumont , Radcliffe 's private secretary , later wrote that Mountbatten " must take the blame — though not the sole blame — for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men , women and children perished " . As many as 14,500,000 people relocated between India and Pakistan during and after partition . Jinnah did what he could for the eight million people who migrated to Pakistan ; although by now over 70 and frail from lung ailments , he travelled across West Pakistan and personally supervised the provision of aid . According to Ahmed , " What Pakistan needed desperately in those early months was a symbol of the state , one that would unify people and give them the courage and resolve to succeed . " Among the restive regions of the new nation was the North-West Frontier Province . The referendum there in July 1947 had been tainted by low turnout as less than 10 percent of the population were allowed to vote . On 22 August 1947 , just after a week of becoming governor general , Jinnah dissolved the elected government of Dr. Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan . Later on , Abdul Qayyum Khan was put in place by Jinnah in the Pashtun-dominated province despite him being a Kashmiri . On 12 August 1948 the Babrra massacre in Charsadda occurred resulting in the death of 400 people aligned with the Khudai Khidmatgar movement
Babrra massacre
Babrra massacre
Muhammad Ali Jinnah