Chaudhary Rahmat Ali remembered

Islamabad : The 28th January is a corner stone in the history of Pakistan movement. On the same day, before over 14 and a half years earlier than its actualisation, the name of an independent Muslim State, its name ‘Pakistan’ was coined and consolidated and made public to the Muslims of the subcontinent and the world at large.

Right some 90 years ago on this day, when the whole Muslim world was celebrating Eidul Fitr, late Chaudhary Rahmat Ali was completing and dissemination of his historic document known a ‘Now or Never’ - containing this everlasting magic word ‘Pakistan’.

The honour, respect and credit of coining this word was bestowed upon him by the invisible hands of destiny as a compensation of his decades of hard work, labour and efforts. The alphabets of this word were taken from the geographically integrated five political units having majority of Muslim population.

Those units were later to become the integral parts of the purposed Muslim country. These views were expressed by M Yousuf Aziz, President, Pakistan National Movement at a symposia organized jointly by PNM and the History department of Allama Iqbal open university here today. It was presided over by Rafique Tahir, adviser to the Centre of Excellence of the said university.

Dr Kishwar Sultana, chairperson, Dr Abdul Basit Mujahid along with all his colleagues, research scholars, students and office bearers of PNM actively participated in this academic pursuit.

Dr Kishwar Sultana addressing the meeting said that their History Department have the privilege of highlighting the services of all our national heroes without any prejudice. He also appreciated the day in and day out services of PNM for disseminating historic facts to the younger generation. Rafique Tahir in his concluding remarks, besides thanking the PNM for this academic pursuit, gave of his details of Cambridge based training event and visiting of the grave of late Chaudhary Rahmat Ali.