Today is Pakistan Day. On this day, All India Muslim League had presented a resolution at Lahore which demanded a separate homeland for Muslims, who inhabited the majority areas of North Western and Eastern Zones of India.

The Lahore Resolution of March 1940, commonly known as the Pakistan Resolution, had played a pivotal role in determining the political destination of the Muslims in India. Prior to this, many individuals had given various suggestions regarding the creation of a state for Muslims or division of India. However, Lahore Resolution was important in the sense that it presented a clear demand for the formation of a separate state for Muslims of India from the political platform of All India Muslim League for the first time.

The main reason for presenting this resolution by the All India Muslim League, under the leadership of the Quaid-i-Azam, was that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations, governed by their different laws and traditions; The Western concept of a Nation State seemed utterly impossible to be applied on two different nations of India. However, the British Indian governments attempted to govern them by a single set of laws by ignoring the religious boundaries of Muslims that was eventually rejected by the Muslims (Restoration of Muslim Wakf al-aulad Law through the Indian Legislative Council with efforts of Quaid-i-Azam in 1913 is one of such examples). The correspondence of Dr Mohammad Iqbal with Jinnah during 1936 - 1937 became the basis of Lahore Resolution in 1940. In their correspondence, Iqbal requested Jinnah to demand an independent state for the Muslims in India. He also suggested convening the next session of All India Muslim League at Lahore. Quaid-i-Azam later expressed that he accepted Iqbal’s views in that connection only because they were in consonance with his own thoughts.

The historic 27th session of All India Muslim League was held in the Minto Park of Lahore from 22nd to 24th March 1940. A spacious pandal was specially made in the park for this particular session, which was held in three sittings under the presidentship of the Quaid-i-Azam. The first sitting of the session commenced on 22nd of March 1940 with the recitation of the Holy Quran. Next, Ghayas Ghaziabidi read out a famous poem written by Mian Bashir Ahmed comprising the lyrcis “Millat ka pasban hay Mohammad Ali Jinnah; Millat hai jism, jaan hay Mohammad Ali Jinnah”. In this session, Quaid-i-Azam delivered his presidential speech extemporaneously for about two and a half hours.

Evaluating the political development in India, especially on the Hindu-Muslim question, Quaid-i-Azam said, “.... Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together and they indeed belong to two different civilisations based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions..... Muslim India can not accept any constitution which must necessarily results in a Hindu majority government. Musalmans are not a minority as it is commonly known and understood... Musalmans are a nation, according to any definition of a nation and they must have their homeland, their territory and state...”

Through this speech, Jinnah clearly explained the need for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India and rejected the hope for Hindu-Muslim Unity.

The Lahore Resolution, March 1940, was drafted by the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, while Maulana Zafar Ali Khan translated it in Urdu. During the night of March 22, 1940, Liaquat Ali Khan presented the draft resolution before the Subject Committee of All Indian Muslim League for discussion. The Subject Committee again met on March 23rd from 10:30am to 2.00 pm; the time limit was short especially for a resolution which was going to carve out a state. Hence, any omission in the language, typing or proofreading could have been possible.

The second sitting of All Indian Muslim League open session was held on 23rd March 1940 at 3.00pm under the presidentship of Quaid-i-Azam. The pandal was packed to its maximum capacity with a gathering of about two lac (200000) persons. After Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan read the annual report, A K Fazlul Haq, Premier of Bengal, moved the following resolutions:

“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 the Muslims, unless, it is designed on the following basic principles viz that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in North Western and Eastern Zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”

The Resolution was seconded by Chaudhri Khaliq-uz-Zaman and was then put