Forgotten hero Ch Rahmat Ali

There are many Pakistani and Kashmiri elders in Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi who reminiscence the crucial days of struggle for freedom from imperialist rule before and after 1940.

Then ‘daal-roti’ might have been problem for ordinary citizens, but they cared for each other’s welfare. The same spirit of brotherhood and self-determination as witnessed on February 5 every year is notable.

Educated youth caught hold of city olds the other day and asked them repeatedly why they and most politicians had forgotten Chaudhry Rahmat Ali -- the young student credited with creating the name of Pakistan. Why was he harassed when he came from England to Pakistan after it was achieved? How he returned dejected and died on February 3, 1951.

Octogenarian Khawaja Shahid of Lahore, who had served the British government in Delhi until independence, told the inquisitive youth that the forgotten hero was born in November 1897 at Mohar village in Hoshiarpur. After early education he joined the Islamia College, Railway Road, Lahore, worked as part-time staffer in the Paisa Akhbaar, and was also on the editorial desk of the Kashmiri Gazette to overcome the financial problem.

He also joined the Law College, and later he served as House Master in the Atchison College.

The young man left the job in 1930 and went abroad for higher studies, and got admission in Emmanuel College of Cambridge on January 5, 1931 as an affiliated student from the University of the Punjab. He did his graduation and passed the MA examination from the same institution. He became a Barrister-at-Law in January 1943 from the Inner Temple Inn, London, where Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah also had studied.

The unforgotten hero launched the Pakistan National Movement (PNM) and published several pamphlets on partition of the sub-continent. It was he who coined the word “Pakistan”, and presented his ideas for the first time in a circular letter dated January 8, 1933 to the members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Indian Constitutional Reforms.

He entitled his famous pamphlet ‘Now or Never’ which was an appeal on behalf of nearly 30 million Muslims of the sub-continent for recognition of their national status quite distinct from other inhabitants of India. When the British Parliament was finalising the Government of India Bill 1935, Ch. Rahmat Ali, founder-president of the PNM, distributed a four-page letter among the members of Parliament, leading officials as well as dignitaries of the foreign countries in London.

His active struggle for Pakistan, the Pakistan National Movement, and united work of his associates and friends to join hands with MA Jinnah generated the interest of the masses in his performance and personality.

The son of a peasant -- who fought for freedom and dreamed an exploitation-free state not ruled by any blood-thirsty feudal lord and power-hungry capitalist -- breathed his last on February 3, 1951, and was buried as ‘amanat’ (trust) at Cambridge.

“How cruel we are to such heroes?” say angry youth.

-- zasarwar@hotmail.com