India ~ Pakistan : The Partition.

In the spring of 1939 a special committee headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah was set up
by the Muslim League to examine various schemes that had already been advanced to
insure the rights of the Muslim minority in India. One of the first of these had been
tentatively sketched by the great Muslim poet, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, in his presidential
address before the League hi 1930. He advocated a single Muslim state in northwest
India, a state to be endowed with extensive autonomy but forming one of the constituent
elements of a greater all-India federation.

Pakistan: SG0097


The next development was much more ambitious. In 1933 a group of young Indian
Muslims, led by Chaudhuri Rahmat Ali at Cambridge University in England, circulated a
four-page leaflet calling for the creation of a new state in India, to be called Pakistan. The
authors declared that "India is not the name of one single country, nor the home of one
single nation," and called for the establishment of a Muslim national state in northwest
India. To form the name of this new state,

"P" was taken from Punjab;
"A" from Afghan, a term rep the North-West Frontier prov
"K" from Kashmir;
"S" from Sind; and
"TAN" from the last syllable of Baluchistan.



disputed territory:



Map of India and text
"A short history of India and Pakistan"
T Walter Wallbank
Mentor book 1951

I didn't know this. Thanks Rod!

Very interesting, you learn something new everyday.
Thanks.

Steve

yea the last remnants of dirty colonialism. partition was the biggest mistake. there are more muslims in india than in pakistan and we dont have to look for to see what is happening all over the world as far as terrorism is concerned

also the stamp above is pure propoganda issue the part of kashmir that is annexed by pakistan is shown as is while the one that is india is marked as disputed unfortunately east pakistan is not in pakistan anymore because of genocide a separate state was created.


while god only knows how the pakistan idea entered mainstream here are a few thoughts on the origin. Rod's being the prominent one that was marketed to the west for obvious reasons. it still does not say how they manages to grab a piece of bengal clealry seen in the stamp :)

The name Pakistan means Land of (the) Pure in Urdu and Persian. It was coined in 1934 as Pakstan by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan movement activist, who published it in his pamphlet Now or Never. The name is a portmanteau representing the "thirty million Muslims of PAKISTAN, who live in the six Northern Units of British Raj — Punjab, Afghania (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Kashmir, Islamabad Capital Territory, Sindh and BalochisTAN.

However, the authorship of the name is controversial. It is also maintained that the word Pakistan was invented by Khawaja Abdul Rahim and he obtained Sir Muhammad Iqbal's blessings for his coinage. Sir Muhammad Iqbal himself wrote to Prof. Edward John Thompson of Oxford University, that "Pakistan scheme proposes a separate federation of Muslim Provinces directly related to England as a separate dominion. This scheme originated in Cambridge. The authors of this scheme believe that. The word "authors" means that there are more than one author. According to Stephen Philip Cohen,a group of Indian students at Cambridge proposed naming it Pakistan.

Very interesting history lesson Spock. Thanks for sharing.

Nicely done Rod. Thank you.

Super post , another great read on this forum !

I won't get too into this, but as a Pakistani I take an issue with this. Pakistan was created and I for one am glad I'm not part of India.

It is a shame this thread has attracted political feelings,
it was meant to educate and illustrate, if we could all bite
our tongues and remain neutral, harbouring resentments does
absolutely no good to anyone.
We all belong to the one family really.

Rod222 is right. If we start arguing over the politics of every stamp or stamp subject, we discuss, we'll never get anywhere. And we'll have a very tedious time of it, too. It may not be possible to keep politics entirely out of stamp collecting, but do let us try to remain above it at least.

While politics cannot be completely avoided because of the nature of our pursuits, we as philatelist should be able to remain objective in our approach to our more or less academic discussions. Its the only fair way to proceed towards our mutual endpoints.