Chaudhry Rehmat Ali played a key role in coming up with the idea of a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia. But his relationship with Pakistan was marked by shattered hopes.
Rehmat Ali was born in 1897 in the town of Balachaur, Punjab, during the British Raj. He received his early education in his homeland before moving to Britain to study at Cambridge University. It was during his time at Cambridge that Rehmat Ali began to express his vision for a separate Muslim state.
In 1933, he published a pamphlet titled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever? Today, this pamphlet is considered one of the foundational documents of the Pakistan movement. In it, Rehmat Ali proposed the creation of a separate state for Muslims, which he named "Pakistan," an acronym derived from the names of Muslim-majority regions: Punjab, Afghania (North-West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan.
Rehmat Ali's vision was clear and uncompromising. He argued that Muslims of India constituted a separate nation, distinct from the Hindus, with their own cultural, religious, and historical identity. For him, the creation of Pakistan was not merely a political necessity but a moral imperative to ensure the survival of Muslims as a distinct community in the South Asian Subcontinent. This idea, while far from the actual demands of the Muslim leadership at that moment, still resonated with a growing sense of Muslim identity and insecurity in the face of the Hindu majority’s dominance in politics.
Famously, he expressed his vision for the future of South Asia’s Muslims in the form of maps. Here, he renamed the Indian subcontinent as "Pakasia" or more frequently "Dinia." This Dinia included not just a Pakistan, but also Osmanistan for Hyderabad Deccan, and Bangistan for Bengal. He even gave new names to the seas surrounding the South Asian Subcontinent!
In the pamphlet Now or Never, Rehmat Ali expressed some ideas which later became mainstream in the Muslim nationalist movement. He wrote:
"India, constituted as it is at the present moment, is not the name of one single country; nor the home of one single nation. It is, in fact, the designation of a State created for the first time in history, by the British. It includes peoples who have never previously formed part of India at any period in its history; but who have, on the other hand, from the dawn of history till the advent of the British, possessed and retained distinct nationalities of their own.
In the five Northern Provinces of India, out of a total population of about forty millions, we, the Muslims, contribute about 30 millions. Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-faith living in these provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the 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, calendars, even our diet and dress are different.
It is preposterous to compare, as some superficial observers do, the differences between Muslims and Hindus with those between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Both the Catholics and Protestants are part and parcel of one religious system - Christianity; while the Hindus and Muslims are the followers of two essentially and fundamentally different religious systems. Religion in the case of Muslims and Hindus is not a matter of private opinion as it is in the case of Christians; but on the other hand constitutes a Civic Church which lays down a code of conduct to be observed by their adherents from birth to death."
But even after the Lahore Resolution of 1940, Rehmat Ali was isolated from the leadership of the All-India Muslim League, the party that was actually spearheading the demand for Pakistan. Rehmat Ali’s tough stance on complete separation was seen as too extreme and impractical by many of the League's leaders – even in the early 1940s. The divergence in vision led to a strained relationship between Rehmat Ali and the League leadership. MA Jinnah, who came to be known as the Quaid-e-Azam of the Muslims, was willing to work within the legal framework of British India and was initially open to the idea of a federated India. Rehmat Ali, on the other hand, viewed any compromise as a betrayal of the Muslim cause.
His feelings are best captured in his statement: "What they have made is not my Pakistan. My Pakistan has been lost"
This ideological division led to Rehmat Ali being sidelined in the political debates around the creation of Pakistan.
The creation of Pakistan in 1947 was a moment of triumph for many Muslims who had long dreamed of a separate homeland. However, for Rehmat Ali, the reality of Pakistan was very far from his vision. He was dismayed by the geographical boundaries of the new state, which included only some parts of the regions he had envisioned as part of Pakistan. He was also deeply troubled by the large Muslim populations that were left behind in India – particularly in regions like Bengal and Hyderabad.
Rehmat Ali’s distance from the real Pakistan that emerged in 1947 was increased by his own treatment at the hands of the new government. Upon his return to Pakistan in 1948, he found himself unwelcome. The government, led by MA Jinnah, had little interest in accommodating a man whose ideas were so far from the mainstream League leaders.
Soon, Rehmat Ali's outspoken criticism of the government and his insistence on the original vision of Pakistan led to his further marginalization. He was effectively forced into exile, returning to England, where he would spend the rest of his life in obscurity.
Rehmat Ali's later years were marked by a sense of bitterness. His criticism of the leadership, particularly Jinnah, whom he once admired, should indicate to us the depth of his disappointment. His feelings are best captured in his statement: "What they have made is not my Pakistan. My Pakistan has been lost."
Today, Rehmat Ali is seen as the visionary who first articulated the idea of a separate Muslim state. His pamphlet Now or Never is taught to school children as a basic document in the history of the Pakistan movement. His refusal to compromise has also resulted in some viewing him as a misguided idealist.
The vision of Pakistan as a homeland for all Muslims of South Asia, free from the influence of any other community, was never fully implemented. The Pakistan that emerged in 1947 was a difficult compromise, shaped by political realities that Rehmat Ali struggled – and eventually failed – to come to terms with.
Sadly, Rehmat Ali died in England in 1951, far from the country he had named and fought for. Emmanuel College in Cambridge paid for his funeral costs – which were only later and reluctantly recompensed by the Pakistani High Commission.