The Pakistan Resolution was adopted by the All India Muslim League at its three-day general session held at Minto Park (now Iqbal Park), Lahore between 22 -24 March, 1940. The Resolution was moved by A.K. Fazlul Huq, the Chief Minister of undivided Bengal and was seconded by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman who explained his views on the causes which led to the demand of a separate muslim state. It was in this epoch making session that Quaid-Azam, the President of the all India Muslim League, lambasted the Congress and the nationalist Muslims, and espoused the Two-Nation Theory. He also explained the underlying factors that led to the demand for a separate Muslim homeland in British India. The relevant portion of the Resolution states:

“No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”

Earlier the poet philosopher Allama Iqbal, the close associate of the Founder of Pakistan and a prominent Muslim League leader had in his famous presidential address at the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League at Allahabad on 29 December 1930, for the fist time, gave a specific proposal for the formation of a separate Muslim state in India. In that session he said:

“I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.”

Yet as mentioned above, it was Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, a muslim student living in London who actually conceived the word ‘Pakstan’. It referred to "the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, (Afghanistan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan. By the end of 1933, 'Pakistan' became a common word among the Indian Muslims. The letter ‘I’ was later added to ease pronouncement (as in Afghan-i-stan). Choudhary Rahmat Ali mentioned the word Pakistan for the first time, in his pamphlet titled “Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?”

To commemorate the 23 March 1940, a 60 meters tall monument named “Minar-e-Pakistan” has been built at the same site in Iqbal Park Lahore, where this landmark Resolution was passed. 23 March is a national holiday in Pakistan. It is celebrated as a Republic Day to commemorate Lahore Resolution as well as to mark the day in 1956 when the country had its first constitution and became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Contributed by Faraz Saeed