KARACHI: The struggle for an independent country, consisting of Muslim majority provinces in India, commenced on 23rd March, 1940 (86 years ago) with the passage the Pakistan Resolution.
Considering Muslims as rivals, the East India Company used Hindus to get rid of Mughal Emperors. In this dismal scenario the Muslims were given a new hope and direction by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who founded All India Muhammadan Educational Conference (AIMEC) Aligarh, in 1886.
AIMEC contributed significantly towards empowering Muslims by means of modern edification, socio-economic development and political unity. As a result British Colonialists were forced to pay heed to their voices.
Under the flag of All India Muslim League (AIML), founded on 30th Dec, 1906 at Dhaka, the Muslims got united. Quaid-e- Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah formally joined AIML in 1913.
Poet of the East Allama Iqbal, during his 1930 Allahabad address, presented the two-nations theory maintaining that Muslims were a distinct nation and deserved political independence from other regions and communities of the united India.
In 1933, during a high-level huddle in London, Ch. Rehmat Ali presented the name of Pakistan. Muslims, under the leadership of Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, gathered at Iqbal Park in Lahore on 23rd March, 1940 where they passed the Pakistan Resolution.
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah reorganised AIML and toured Muslim majority provinces repeatedly to mobilize masses for the creation of Pakistan and the rêve transformed into reality on 14th August, 1947.
Lahore Resolution:
- While approving and endorsing the action taken by the Council and the Working Committee of the All-India Muslim League, as indicated in their resolutions dated the 27th of August, 17th and 18th of September and 22nd of October, 1939, and 3rd of February 1940, on the constitutional issue, this session of the All-India Muslim League emphatically reiterates that the scheme of Federation embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935 is totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country and is altogether unacceptable to Muslim India.
- It further records its emphatic view that while the declaration dated the 18th of October, 1939, made by the Viceroy on behalf of His Majesty’s Government is reassuring in so far as it declares that the policy and plan on which the Government of India Act, 1935 is based will be reconsidered in consultation with the various parties, interests and communities in India, Muslim India will not be satisfied unless the whole constitutional plan is reconsidered de novo and that no revised plan would be acceptable to the Muslims unless it is framed with their approval and consent.
- Resolved that it is the considered view of this session of the All-India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principle, namely, that geographically 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 a 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.
That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these units and in these regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them; and in other parts of India where Mussalmans are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguard shall be specially provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.
This session further authorises the Working Committee to frame a scheme of constitution in accordance with these basic principles, providing for the assumption finally by the respective regions of all powers such as defence, external affairs, communications, customs and such other matters as may be necessary.
Newspakistan.tv
