Choudhary Rahmat Ali

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Choudhary Rahmat Ali
Alternate name(s):	Chaudhary Rehmat Ali Gujjar
Place of birth:	Balachaur, Nawanshahr District, British India
Place of death:	Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Movement:	Pakistan Movement
Major organizations:	Pakistan Muslim League

Chaudhary Rahmat Ali (Urdu: چودھری رحمت علی ) (or Rehmat Ali; Urdu: رحمت علی ) (November 16, 1897 - February 3, 1951) was an Pakistani ^{[1] [2] [3]}Muslim nationalist who was one of the earliest proponents of the creation of the state of Pakistan. He is credited with creating the name "Pakistan" for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia.

Education and career

Rehmat Ali was born into a Gujjar^[4] family in the town of Balachaur in Hoshiarpur District of Punjab (now Nawanshahr District), India. After graduating from Islamia Madrassa Lahore in 1918, he taught at Aitchison College Lahore before continuing Law studies at Punjab University. In 1930 he moved to England to join Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1931. In 1933, he published a pamphlet, Now or Never, coining the word Pakistan for the first time. Subsequently, he obtained a BA degree in 1933 and MA in 1940 from University of Cambridge. In 1943, he was called to the Bar, Middle Temple Inn, London. Until 1947, he continued publishing various booklets about his vision of the South Asia. The independence process disillusioned him due to the mass killings and mass migrations. He was also dissatisfied with the distribution of areas among the two countries and considered it a major reason for disturbances. He died on 3 February 1951 and was buried on 20 February at Newmarket Road Cemetery, Cambridge, UK.

Conception of 'Pakistan'

He was the Secretary of Pakistan Movement in U.K with Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak as President, and Dr. Abdur Rahim as Vice President. In this Organisation the name "PAKISTAN" was first suggested.

There are several accounts to the conceptualising of the name. According to a friend (Abdul Kareem Jabbar) the name came up when Rehmat Ali was walking along the banks of the Thames in 1932 with his friends Pir Ahsan-ud-Din and Khawja Abdul Rahim. According to Rehmat Ali's secretary Miss Frost, he came up with the idea of the name ‘Pakistan’ while riding on the top of a London bus^[5].

The front page of Now or Never pamphlet

In the early 1930s, Ali began writing about the formation of a Muslim nation in India. On January 28, 1933, he voiced his ideas in the pamphlet entitled "Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?"^[6]. The word 'Pakstan' referred to "the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, (Afghanistan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan ""^[7] . By the end of 1933, 'Pakistan' become common vocabulary where an i was added to ease pronunciation (as in Afghan-i-stan).^[8]

In a subsequent book Rehmat Ali discussed the etymology in further detail.^[9]

'Pakistan' is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our South Asia homelands; that is, Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan. It means the land of the Pure.

Philosophy

Headstone of Ali's Grave

Like Allama Iqbal, Ali believed that the Muslims of India had to undergo a reformation politically in order to remain a viable, and independent community there. Ali noted that Hazrat Muhammad had succeeded in uniting fractured Arab tribes and that this example was to again be used by Muslims of India to pool together in order to survive in what he perceived to be an increasingly hostile India.

As such, Chaudhary Rahmat Ali's writings, in addition to those of Iqbal and others were major catalysts for the formation of Pakistan. He offered "Bang-i-Islam" for a Muslim homeland in the Bengal, and "Usmanistan" for a Muslim homeland in the Deccan. He also suggested "Dinia" as a name for a South Asia for various religions^[10].

Ali dedicated a lot of time and energy to the idea of Pakistan, and after its formation in 1947, he argued on its behalf at the United Nations over the issue of occupied-Kashmir.

Pakistan and the India

In the years preceding the end of direct colonial rule in the western term of the so-called South Asia, although indirect rule of the successor empire "Republic of India". Patriotic Pakistani nationalists (Muslims in general) were virtually alone at the time in proposing a future for the Indus valley region and its people, based on historical facts and Islamic principles as opposed to imperial and other nationalistic non-Muslim views, namely Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan (1897-1951) the founder of porposing the famous name PAKSTAN also had argued for the cause of Kashmir and Jammu at the U.N. that since southern Asia came under colonial British rule much distortion, lies and myths have been perpetrated especially by the Brahmin Hindus who control their artifical country falsely named INDIA have been in power since 1947 by the transfer of power by the modern imperialists. What is called 'India'?

• The main falsehoods are:

1. India has existed from the beginning of time as UNITARY STATE? NOT TRUE - IT only became a unitary state under the British Indian empire ruling thousands of miles away in the western world in London by a British monarch, claiming to have uniting the whole Indian sub-continent. Prior to the English Raj, no one ever had full complete control of the Continent, not even the Greek Alexander of Macedonia, nor the Muslims including Afghans and the Mughals etc... This is confirmed by the 11th Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica Vol 14 (HUS to ITA) page 375 that states "the natives of British India can scarcely be said to have a word of their own by which to express their 'common' country". Thus, 'INDIA' became the arbitrary name of the empires overseas in southern Asia. In any case readers must consult maps showing Border of all empires between the Arabian Peninsula and 'India' from 1,500 B.C. onwards; words can be written to mislead but rarely maps.

2. India is a country or a subcontinent? NOT TRUE - both geographically and historically, India actually to be more accurate Dinia (Land of Religions) IS a CONTINENT having seas and mountains that are more stupendous than those of other major recognised continents and consisting of religions, nations, cultures, tribes, civilisations and languages more diverse than even the continents of Latin southern America and Europe combined, note here that Europe is recognised as separate continent because of its history and peoples but geographically it is part of Asia other terms include Eurasia for Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia and Central Asiatic states of Turkestan.

3. Pakistan was a territory carved OUT of India? NOT TRUE - most of present-day State of Pakistan did not even form a vital part of 'India' until Britain seized the territory and forcibly made them an administrative region of their British so-called Indian Empire. In doing so, they have 'Indianised' the Muslim population a process that still continues today by uneducated backwards Pakistanis due to their own faults, anyway at the time of pre-independence at least 90 yrs since Pakistan officially became part of the British Raj (November 1st 1857 to present), making them a MINORITY of the British Indianized Raj. Moreover, much of Northern and central Dinia were actually dependencies of the Islamic Pak nation - that is the Muslim territory that was once UNDIVIDED EASTERN FLANK to the heartland of Islam which included PERSIA, Khorasan and Central Turk Asia.

4. The events of 1947 are described as 'Partition'? NOT TRUE - the original aim IS Independence from Imperialism, Indianism, Indian hegemonic federation and Hindu irredists nationalism and reversion to the original Fatherland and federation with ancestral homelands from where Islam first came into India, that is, from the Arabian peninsula, through to: Iran, Afghanistan (Greater Khorasan) and Central Asia.

5. Muslims were a minority in India? NOT TRUE - for over a millenia, Muslims from the Pak Empire [that includes Iran, Afghans and other Central Asian tribes and Pakistanis] had ruled parts of the Continent of India from Haryana (where Hinduism originated), Rajasthan, Gujarat in the west and beyond to the east far as North-east India. Those areas in 'India' that came under Muslim control were considered as Dependencies of the PAK empire. A comparable example is the Ottoman Empire where the Turk Nation is Turkey and its dependencies were Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece etc... Similarly, the British Empire no longer exists but the British Nation still does as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Union of Ireland. EMPIRES are short-lived but not NATIONS! with the exception being CHINA. It should now be apparent that the history of South Asia has been told from an INDIAN bias by the former colonial power, and not from the Pak or Islamic perspective (see how Islam progressed from the Arabian Peninsula eastwards and the Islamic homelands that were built on the eastern flank of the heartland of Islam).

So the Conclusion is that more than half of present day Pak Watan, in particular its western Persian-influenced provinces, Rojhan in Sindh and Dera Ismail, Ghazi Khans in Punjab were hardly ever part of India that is west of the mighty Indus river until the British seized the territory and unlawfully incorporated it as part of the British Indian Raj. Those Paks living in Afghania and Baloch and Brahuis were Farsi speakers have never regarded themselves as "Indian", though they may have been unwilling subjects of the Crown Colony of British India, which finally led them as whole i.e. Pakistanis in the place of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Post-independence

While Chaudhary Rahmat Ali was a leading figure for the conception of Pakistan, he lived most of his adult life in England. The Cambridge-based pamphleteer had been voicing his dissatisfaction with the creation of Pakistan ever since his arrival in Lahore on April 6 1948. He was unhappy over a Smaller Pakistan than the one he had conceived in his 1933 pamphlet Now Or Never.

Consequently, Rahmat Ali died in 1951, buried in Cambridge City graveyard.

Notes

Unknown link in text: [1]

See also

• Pakistan Declaration
• Grave of C. Rahmat Ali in Cambridge
• Qawwals 'Sabri Brothers' praying at C. Rahmat Ali's grave

External links

• "Location of Newmarket Road Cemetery, Cambridge, UK (Graveyard)". http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=52.2125&lon=0.1682&scale=5000&icon=x. 
• "Eye-witness account of how Ch. Rehmat Ali began his Pakistan campaign through Woking Mission". http://www.wokingmuslim.org/work/pakistan.htm. 
• "Ch. Rahmat Ali". Chaudhry Rahmat Ali Foundation. http://www.chaudhryrahmatali.com/index.htm. 
• "Rahmat Ali". Pakistan History. http://www.zyworld.com/slam33/rahmat.htm. 
• "Chaudhary Rahmat Ali The man who conceived the idea of Pakistan". The Shelley family. http://www.shelleys.demon.co.uk/Ali.htm. 

• "Chaudhary Rahmat Ali (1895-1951)". Story of Pakistan. http://www.storyofpakistan.com/person.asp?perid=P008. 

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