08-12-2005, 07:31 AM
THE HISTORY MAN: Rehmat Aliâs impossible dream âIhsan Aslam
Jinnah had become disillusioned and had lost hope for India when Rehmat Ali started his youthful agitation for Pakistan. Rehmat Ali discussed the Pakistan idea with Jinnah in the spring of 1933
When Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah bid farewell to Delhi and arrived in Karachi on August 7, 1947, he confessed to his ADC, âDo you know, I never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime.â Pakistan was a dream â a Cambridge studentâs dream at that. When the idea was first proposed it was labelled âchimerical and impracticableâ. Student follies, however, have a habit of sometimes becoming reality. Pakistan was one âstudentâs schemeâ.
Chaudhary Rehmat Ali, a Cambridge University law student, initiated the movement for Pakistan by issuing the pamphlet Now or Never, or the Pakistan Declaration, on January 28, 1933 from 3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge. To make the claim more representative he had the document signed by three other students, none of whom were at Cambridge.
Calling Rehmat Ali âa historical figure and a seminal thinkerâ, Pakistanâs eminent historian KK Aziz acknowledges in Rehmat Ali: A Biography: âHe was the first to think of a sovereign status for the Muslims of India, to prepare a well-defined plan for this, to organise a movement for advancing the cause, and to mount a proper campaign for preaching to the unconverted.â And in addition he also came up with the anagram âPakistanâ.
Jinnahâs biographer, Stanley Wolpert, has written that Rehmat Ali issued a âmassive quantity of strange religio-political pamphlets and letters.â According to Aziz Beg, another biographer of Jinnah, Rehmat Aliâs ideas stirred the young and inspired the âgrowth of Muslim political consciousness throughout Indiaâ. Wolpert says that Jinnah chose to ignore Rehmat Ali, but âHe (Jinnah) would not, however, be able much longer to ignore the political demand of Rehmat Aliâs obviously well-funded movement sponsored from the heart of Cambridge.â
Both Jinnah and Rehmat Ali arrived in the UK in November 1930. Jinnah, the brilliant lawyer from Bombay, soon bought a house in Hampstead and pursued his legal career and attempted, without much luck, to enter parliament. The young Rehmat Ali went to Cambridge and commenced his bar-at-law in London. In 1933, when Now or Never was issued, Jinnah was aged 57, while Rehmat Ali was 36.
Jinnah had become disillusioned and had lost hope for India when Rehmat Ali started his youthful agitation for Pakistan. When Rehmat Ali discussed the Pakistan idea with Jinnah in the spring of 1933, Jinnah called it an âimpossible dreamâ. When things didnât work out as he expected in London or perhaps he simply got bored leading the life of an English gentleman, Jinnah returned to India in 1934 to take up the leadership of the All-India Muslim League.
By 1940 the League had got nearer to the Pakistan idea by adopting the famous Lahore Resolution. However, it did not mention the word Pakistan. Jinnah himself did not use the word Pakistan until the early 1940s. Once Jinnah took up a case, it was a certainty that heâd win. (only when the British back him covertly) As far as Pakistan was concerned, Jinnah was a late starter. But once the single-minded barrister had picked up the Pakistan file, it was only a matter of time before the country would be established. August 14, 1947 came soon enough. For Jinnah it was a case of âBetter a moth-eaten Pakistan than no Pakistanâ. Rehmat Ali, the visionary, found this difficult to accept.
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre write in Freedom at Midnight, âThe man who had first articulated the impossible dream of Pakistan spent the day of 14 August alone in his cottage at 3 Humberstone Road [he was actually there only as a student in the academic year 1932/33]... His dream belonged to another man now, the man who scorned it when Rehmat Ali had first begged him to become its champion.â
Ihsan Aslam is exploring public history at Ruskin College, Oxford. He can be contacted at: timeshistoryman@yahoo.co.uk or visited at: http://www.pakistanhistory.com
Jinnah had become disillusioned and had lost hope for India when Rehmat Ali started his youthful agitation for Pakistan. Rehmat Ali discussed the Pakistan idea with Jinnah in the spring of 1933
When Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah bid farewell to Delhi and arrived in Karachi on August 7, 1947, he confessed to his ADC, âDo you know, I never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime.â Pakistan was a dream â a Cambridge studentâs dream at that. When the idea was first proposed it was labelled âchimerical and impracticableâ. Student follies, however, have a habit of sometimes becoming reality. Pakistan was one âstudentâs schemeâ.
Chaudhary Rehmat Ali, a Cambridge University law student, initiated the movement for Pakistan by issuing the pamphlet Now or Never, or the Pakistan Declaration, on January 28, 1933 from 3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge. To make the claim more representative he had the document signed by three other students, none of whom were at Cambridge.
Calling Rehmat Ali âa historical figure and a seminal thinkerâ, Pakistanâs eminent historian KK Aziz acknowledges in Rehmat Ali: A Biography: âHe was the first to think of a sovereign status for the Muslims of India, to prepare a well-defined plan for this, to organise a movement for advancing the cause, and to mount a proper campaign for preaching to the unconverted.â And in addition he also came up with the anagram âPakistanâ.
Jinnahâs biographer, Stanley Wolpert, has written that Rehmat Ali issued a âmassive quantity of strange religio-political pamphlets and letters.â According to Aziz Beg, another biographer of Jinnah, Rehmat Aliâs ideas stirred the young and inspired the âgrowth of Muslim political consciousness throughout Indiaâ. Wolpert says that Jinnah chose to ignore Rehmat Ali, but âHe (Jinnah) would not, however, be able much longer to ignore the political demand of Rehmat Aliâs obviously well-funded movement sponsored from the heart of Cambridge.â
Both Jinnah and Rehmat Ali arrived in the UK in November 1930. Jinnah, the brilliant lawyer from Bombay, soon bought a house in Hampstead and pursued his legal career and attempted, without much luck, to enter parliament. The young Rehmat Ali went to Cambridge and commenced his bar-at-law in London. In 1933, when Now or Never was issued, Jinnah was aged 57, while Rehmat Ali was 36.
Jinnah had become disillusioned and had lost hope for India when Rehmat Ali started his youthful agitation for Pakistan. When Rehmat Ali discussed the Pakistan idea with Jinnah in the spring of 1933, Jinnah called it an âimpossible dreamâ. When things didnât work out as he expected in London or perhaps he simply got bored leading the life of an English gentleman, Jinnah returned to India in 1934 to take up the leadership of the All-India Muslim League.
By 1940 the League had got nearer to the Pakistan idea by adopting the famous Lahore Resolution. However, it did not mention the word Pakistan. Jinnah himself did not use the word Pakistan until the early 1940s. Once Jinnah took up a case, it was a certainty that heâd win. (only when the British back him covertly) As far as Pakistan was concerned, Jinnah was a late starter. But once the single-minded barrister had picked up the Pakistan file, it was only a matter of time before the country would be established. August 14, 1947 came soon enough. For Jinnah it was a case of âBetter a moth-eaten Pakistan than no Pakistanâ. Rehmat Ali, the visionary, found this difficult to accept.
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre write in Freedom at Midnight, âThe man who had first articulated the impossible dream of Pakistan spent the day of 14 August alone in his cottage at 3 Humberstone Road [he was actually there only as a student in the academic year 1932/33]... His dream belonged to another man now, the man who scorned it when Rehmat Ali had first begged him to become its champion.â
Ihsan Aslam is exploring public history at Ruskin College, Oxford. He can be contacted at: timeshistoryman@yahoo.co.uk or visited at: http://www.pakistanhistory.com