Lahore Resolution

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Minar-e-Pakistan, where Pakistan Resolution was passed

The Lahore Resolution, later called Pakistan Resolution, is a political statement adopted by the All India Muslim League on 23 March 1940.

Although the idea of founding the state Pakistan had been introduced as early as 1930, very few had responded to it. However, the volatile political climate and hostilities between the Hindus and Muslims in British India gave the idea stronger backing. The division of India into two separate sovereign states is sometimes referred as Two Nation Theory.

In 1939, the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India's entrance into World War II without consulting provincial governments. In protest, the Indian National Congress asked all of its elected representatives to resign from the government. In 1940, Mohammad Ali Jinnah called a general session of the All India Muslim League in Lahore to discuss the situation. The meeting was also aimed at analyzing the reasons that led to the defeat of the Muslim League in the Indian general election of 1937 in the Muslim majority provinces. Jinnah, in his speech, criticised the Congress and the nationalist Muslims, and espoused the Two-Nation Theory and the reasons for the demand for separate Muslim homelands. Sikandar Hayat Khan, the Chief Minister of the Punjab, drafted the original Lahore Resolution, which was placed before the Subject Committee of the All India Muslim League for discussion and amendments. The resolution, radically amended by the subject committee, was moved in the general session by Shere-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Huq, the Chief Minister of Bengal, on 23 March and was supported by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman and other Muslim leaders.

The statement

"No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.() That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in the units and in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights of the minorities, with their consultation. Arrangements thus should be made for the security of Muslims where they were in a minority".()

See also

• History of Pakistan
• Pakistan Movement

References