But the students had called it right. A clamour for Muslim representation was surging across India, and it was about to sweep Jinnah away. After his return to Bombay in the mid-1930s, Jinnah became leader of the Muslim League and established himself as the self-styled ‘sole spokesman’ of India’s Muslims. He came under the spell of Allama Muhammad Iqbal, a poet and philosopher who floated the idea of a Muslim homeland in 1930, and began to sprinkle his speeches with Islamic references. In 1940, Jinnah presided over a meeting in Lahore that formally called for an independent Muslim state.
