Did Chaudhry Rahmat Ali suggest the name Pakistan alone

 

Did Chaudhry Rahmat Ali suggest the name Pakistan alone

The first plan for the establishment of Pakistan presented in 1933 was dismissed by Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal as a frivolous and unworkable proposal.

Chaudhry Rehmat Ali wrote a pamphlet 90 years ago that formed the foundation of Pakistan 

On January 28, 1933, an organization called the Pakistan National Movement from Cambridge, England published a four-page cyclo style pamphlet titled NOW OR NEVER, ARE WE TO LIVE OR PERISH FOREVER.

However, this pamphlet became better known as NOW OR NAVER. The four Companions who signed at the end of this leaflet were Chaudhry Rahmat Ali, Sahibzada Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq, Khyber Union Trustee Inayatullah Khan (of Char Sadah) and Khyber Union President Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak.

The signature of these four people on the booklet gives an impression that this booklet is the result of collective effort of these four people but they try to know what is the truth.

This booklet was distributed to the British and Indian participants of the Third Round Table Conference. This pamphlet proposed the establishment of an independent Muslim state in India and named it as 'PAKSTAN'.

Sir Reginald Crook, an English delegate to the Round Table Conference, took serious notice of this pamphlet and questioned the Muslim delegates attending the conference about it, but most of the Muslim delegates, including such luminaries as Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam, Called it a frivolous student and impractical proposal.

Abdullah Yusuf Ali, one of the Muslim delegates to the conference, also called it a scholarly proposal and Sir Zafarullah Khan, who later became Pakistan's foreign minister, called it speculative, impractical and baseless. Nothing worth considering.

Dr. Khalifa Shujauddin said that so far no representative person or organization has considered any such scheme and it should not be considered as a scam.

In the 1980s, Justice Javed Iqbal said that Quaid-e-Azam Chaudhry considered Rehmat Ali's scheme to be a clumsy scheme to show all the cards instead of holding them.

Noted historian Khursheed Kamal (KK) Aziz, in his biography of Chaudhry Rahmat Ali, speculates that Chaudhry Rahmat Ali derived the title of this booklet from the book "Auto-Emancipation" by the nineteenth-century Jewish political thinker Leon Pinsker, published in 1882. and in it Leon Pinsker wrote that now our guiding phrase will be Now or Never.

Chaudhry Rahmat Ali (standing right) with Allama Iqbal 1932

KK Aziz further writes that the entire draft of 'Now and Never' was written by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali alone, but to give it a representative status, he started looking around for people who would agree with him on this pamphlet. Sign it.

This search did not prove easy because the grip of Indianism was so strong on the young people studying in British universities that after more than three months of searching, they found only three young people in London who read and discussed the pamphlet. After discussion, he offered to sign it and support it.

The names of these youths were Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak (President, Khyber Union), Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq (Sahibzada) and Inayat Ali Khan (of Char Sadah) (Secretary, Khyber Union).

None of these signatories were Cambridge students. Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak was in Oxford, Sahibzada Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq was studying barristery and a student at the Inns of Court in London, while Khan Inayatullah Khan was a student at a veterinary college in England.

Aslam Khattak himself signed this pamphlet as the president of Khyber Union and Inayatullah Khan as the secretary of this union.

KK Aziz introduces these signatories thus: 'We have no knowledge whatsoever about Sahibzada Muhammad Sadiq. Some say he belonged to the ruling family of the Junagadh state.

Aslam Khan Khattak, who hailed from the North-West Frontier Province, was a graduate student at Oxford University, later joined the Provincial Education Service and the Pakistan Diplomatic Service after the establishment of Pakistan.

Rehmat Ali said in 1947 about Anayatullah Khan that he was not in a veterinary college but in an engineering institution.

Rahmat Ali said that the work of these students was limited to signing the declaration and later they did not play any role in naming Pakistan or promoting the concept of Pakistan.

KK Aziz further writes: 'Khattak and Inayatullah gave up this booklet in March 1933.

Anayatullah Khan graduated from the University of London with a degree in civil engineering in 1934. Returning to India, he first worked as a municipal engineer in Peshawar and then became associated with the provincial PWD, from where he retired in 1966. I retired.'

Inayatullah told KK Aziz that in January 1933, Aslam Khattak came to Rehmat Ali's residence to meet him and after a discussion, the three of them signed the declaration.

He further stated that he never met Chaudhry Rahmat Ali after signing Now or Never. Convinced by Rehmat Ali's arguments, these three students who signed Now or Never regretted their signatures and withdrew their cooperation in this regard for the future.

 KK Aziz writes: 'It appears that the students had signed under Rahmat Ali's very strong arguments and inspired by his charismatic personality, but now they reconsidered and withdrew their signatures. had decided.

On March 17, 1933, Aslam Khattak wrote a letter to Rahmat Ali which is preserved in the National Museum Karachi. In this letter, he wrote that 'I am sorry to say that today the administration of Khyber Union has decided to ignore your announcement.'

In the same letter, Aslam Khattak further wrote that 'As the President of Khyber Union, I wish to state that this Union has nothing to do with the pamphlet published under the title Now or Never.

The President (i.e. me) and Secretary (Enayatullah) of Khyber Union signed this pamphlet in their personal capacity and not as representatives of Khyber Union which is purely a social organization and has no political activities of any kind. There is no relation.'

KK Aziz writes: 'There can be no room for any doubt that Rahmat Ali alone was the author of this declaration, but the four signatures below it make it permanent. This concept was of a group of Muslim students.

Chaudhry Rahmat Ali died on February 3, 1951 while Aslam Khattak died on October 10, 2008.

He was also associated with the Civil Service and All India Radio. He also served as a diplomat in Afghanistan and Iran and was elected as a member of the provincial and national assembly several times. His memoirs were also published under the title 'A Pathan Odyssey'.