Founding members of the All India Muslim League | White Star
On March 23, 1940, the Pakistan Resolution was passed by the All-India Muslim League's annual session in Lahore. Looking back over the fifty years that have elapsed since that day, one is left with a whole host of mixed feelings. Does the truncated Pakistan of today with its unending cycle of ethnic animosities, it’s mortgaged economy, its opportunist politics and the perpetual shadow of dictatorship hovering over it bear any resemblance at all to the ideals of the movement that gave birth to the country?
To understand the Pakistan Movement and its ideals, it is essential to place the upsurge of Muslim Nationalism at the time in its context.
The hot topic at the time was the place of the Muslims in Indian politics- a subject that provoked a great deal of passionate debate. This was the time when Mohammad Ali Jinnah -subsequently the Quaid-e-Azam -made his famous marathon address in the Strachey Hall of Aligarh University. Although the speech was only partly understood at the time, the effect it had on those present was profound.
This was, in fact, the first lecture -cum-speech delivered by Jinnah after t he passage of the Pakistan Resolution. In it he expounded the theoretical basis for demanding the division of India, a demand that later came to be known as Muslim Nationalism.