Chaudhary Rehmat Ali Memorial Trust Lahore and Chaudhary Rehmat Ali Forum Lahore are jointly organizing a seminar to remember and pay tribute to the Pakistan Muslim League leader Chaudhary Rehmat Ali.
The seminar will be started at 4pm on February 29 — Thursday.
Notable personalities from media and academia will share their thoughts in the seminar.
On the occasion, two books on the Chaudhry Rehmat Ali will be launched as well.
Professor (rtd) Zaid Bin Umar, President of Chaudhry Rehmat Ali Forum Lahore and Khalid Mehmood Rasool, secretary general of the Chaudhry Rehmat Ali Memorial Trust, Township Lahore invited people to attend the memorial seminar.
Who was Chaudhary Rehmat Ali?
Founder of Pakistan National Movement Chaudhry Rehmat Ali is credited with creating the name "Pakistan" for a separate Muslim homeland in British sub-continent.
He was born in a Muslim family in Hoshiarpur District of Indian Punjab in 1895 and after graduating from Islamia Madrassa Lahore in 1918, he taught at Aitchison College Lahore before joining Punjab University to study law.
Now or Never pamphlet in England
In 1930, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali moved to England to join Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1931. In 1933, he published a pamphlet, "Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever", coining the word Pakistan for the first time.
The pamphlet was addressed to the British and Indian delegates to the Third Round Table Conference in London.
In 1933, he have huge contirbution to kick start Pakistan National Movement in England.
He obtained a BA Degree in 1933 and MA in 1940 from the 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 for South Asia.
Ali's pamphlet described the Muslims of his proposed 'Pakistan' as a 'nation', which later formed the foundation for the two-nation theory of the All-India Muslim League:
Chaudhry Rahmat Ali in January 1933 wrote in his phamplet: "Our religion and culture, our history and tradition, our social code and economic system, and our laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are fundamentally different from those of most peoples living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our people to make the highest sacrifices are essentially different from those which inspire the Hindus to do the same. These differences are not confined to broad, basic principles. Far from it. They extend to the minutest details of our lives. We do not inter-dine; we do not inter-marry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress are different."
On 18 November he joined one of the Inns of Court, Middle Temple and on 26 January 1931, he was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he passed the Law Tripos examination in June 1932, received his BB degree on 29 April 1933 and his MA degree on 18 October 1940.
He founded the Pakistan National Movement in 1933. The Movement fought against 'Indianism', and from his Cambridge address Rahmat Ali published a series of pamphlets over the next years.
In 1942, he published the pamphlet 'The Millat and the Mission: Seve Commandments of Destiny for the "Seventh" Continent of Dinia', in which he called for two further independent Muslim states, Bangistan (an abbreviation of Bang-i-Islamistan) and Osmanistan.
Burial place
Chaudhry Rehmat Ali died on February 3 1951 and was buried at Newmarket Road Cemetery, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
