THE OXON DIARY
Rahmat Ali
By Sir Oxon
Oxford, UK
Choudhary
Rahmat Ali was a law student at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge in the early 1930s. Edward Welbourne,
the master of the college from 1951-1964 had been
Rahmat Ali’s tutor. He knew Rahmat Ali quite well
from the time of Ali’s arrival in Cambridge in
1931 right up to his death in 1951. Reproduced
below is the obituary by Welbourne. The original
is one long paragraph stretching over two pages.
I have modified it by creating paragraphs and
adding a few comments in square brackets so as
to make it more readable and informative.
OBITUARY NOTE
Emmanuel College Magazine, 1950-51, Vol.XXXIII,
pp.68-69. “Rahmat Ali will be remembered by a
few of his contemporaries as a tall man, old for
his undergraduate status, who came into [College]
residence in 1932 from Islamia College, Lahore,
to read law. They may also remember how impressive
could be his formal and sincere courtesy and how,
suddenly, he could speak as if inspired on the
subject which he had already made his life, the
defense of Islam against Hindu nationalism. It
may not be the function of a College magazine
to awaken the rancours of the politics of other
lands, but it would be absurd not to record the
fact that this obscure and single-handed undergraduate
of Emmanuel College, who died in Cambridge [February
3, 1951] in the influenza epidemic of the spring
of this year [1951] and who is buried in the Newmarket
Road cemetery, has influenced world events, and
may yet influence the future, more than falls
to the lot of most men. In his own way he followed
a career not unlike that of Karl Marx.
Ideas no doubt already developed in India fermented
in his mind, until he issued from his undergraduate
lodgings [3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge] a pamphlet
[Pakistan Declaration, ‘Now or Never’, 1933],
in which he demanded the creation of an independent
Muslim state in North India, and gave to it the
name now well known, of Pakistan. It may well
be that invention of the name was his essential
feat. For some years all that could be officially
allowed was that this [Rahmat Ali’s Pakistan idea]
was mere student folly, but as its popularity
grew, Ali’s invention was seized by men of perhaps
greater political gifts. His share in the creation
of a new and now powerful state might well have
been forgotten though he continued to issue other,
and less inspired pamphlets, and to attempt other,
and less successful name creations, among them
which was Dinia, a simple shuffling of the word
from which it is plainly derived [ie. India; Rahmat
Ali considered it to be a multi-religious subcontinent,
hence Dinia]. He paid one or two sudden and rather
secret visits to the East [1940 and 1948] but
in fact he made Cambridge his home, shifting a
little unhappily from lodging to lodging, and
using, perhaps rather more than was proper, the
College as an accommodation address.
His political, or rather semi-religious ideas,
are collected in his book Pakistan: the Fatherland
of the Pak Nation [1948]. He was from time to
time sought out by men whose interest in his mission
he soon found generally cloaked intentions with
which he had little sympathy. He conducted an
immense correspondence, and latterly became a
lonely figure, as his integrity compelled on him
quarrels with his associates and as his recent
years were harassed by poverty strangely produced
by the loss of his source of income, for his family
properties [in district Hoshiarpur on the Indian
side of the Punjab] were lost to him in the storms
of partition. In the course of its history a college
comes to number among its sons men of different
claims of fame.
Emmanuel accepted Ali in good faith as one of
its annual entrants from India, for Emmanuel always
recognized its duty to maintain its connection
with worlds beyond England. By mere accident,
we may have made the college a place of pilgrimage
to the faithful or curious, and have added another
name to be misunderstood by the guide books. “This
college was the college of the founder of Pakistan”...
If a guide were to be overheard in such a story
it would be a much truer one than many which are
heard to-day in our Front Court about John Harvard
[Cambridge man who went on to found Harvard University,
USA].” “Who are the Paks?” The year 1933 is a
significant one for it is when the word “Pakistan”
was published by Choudhary Rahmat Ali from his
student flat in Cambridge.
On a personal level, the year is important for
me because my mother was born in that year. So,
too, was another 1933 lady, my “adopted mother”
Aunty Zarina, Prof KK Aziz’s dedicated wife of
fifty years (it’s their golden jubilee this month).
KK Aziz, of course, is the renowned historian
whose magnum opus is Rahmat Ali: A Biography.
Rahmat Ali died on February 3, and, here’s another
personal connection, so did my father. Rahmat
Ali studied, lived, and died in Cambridge.
Having studied and lived in this city for nearly
25 years, I feel a connection not only with Rahmat
Ali, but also with former Cambridge students such
as Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Allama Iqbal, and Allama
Mashriqi. If at times I seem a bit (well, perhaps,
a wee bit more than just a “bit”) obsessed with
the likes of Rahmat Ali or Abdullah Yusuf Ali,
it is because I am trying to reconcile the personal
narrative with the public one.
In other words, I can’t help it! “For all nations,
old or new,” writes KK Aziz in Rahmat Ali, “the
lives of their great men are a fount of instruction,
pride and pleasure. Biography is in its essence
a cardinal dimension of history”. Yes, biography
is the flesh and blood of history. But how is
it that Pakistanis generally tend to shy away
from this genre, and if they do indulge in it,
it is either to raise the subject of study to
the status of an angel or a devil? Don’t ask me,
mate, I’m just a doodler! One thing is certain,
though, that it is time to assess and acknowledge
the role of Rahmat Ali in the Pakistan Movement
more publicly than has been the case so far.
True, poor Rahmat Ali has his share of screaming
detractors, who have no hesitation in murdering
a dead man, but the brave chap is a fighter and
will not be buried (or reburied) so easily. I
can hear his gentle voice as he says defiantly
- and this is from his last statement before he
died in 1951 - “They can suppress me if they like;
but they cannot silence me while I am alive. They
can finish my life, which has been dedicated to
the cause [of Pakistan] since 1932, but they cannot
finish my Mission. For this Mission is inspired
by the eternal Islamic truths; and it will, therefore,
even after my death, call the Paks to the cause
of the Faith, the Fatherland, and the Fraternity”.
Note how he uses the word “Paks”. Recall, also,
that his 1947 book was entitled Pakistan: The
Fatherland of the Pak Nation. Besides being an
acronym, the word Pakistan meant the “land of
the Paks” in the way Afghanistan is the land of
the Afghans, or England is land of the Engles
or Angles. In Rahmat Ali’s original usage, it
is therefore “Paks” and not Pakistanis or even
the derogatory “Paki”. How is it that the people
of Pakistan are called Pakistanis, while the people
of Afghanistan or Uzbekistan are not Afghanistanis
or Uzbekistanis but just Afghans or Uzbeks? Don’t
ask me, pal, I’m just a doodler! One thing is
sure, though, had the inhabitants of Pakistan
been correctly called Paks, then we British Paks
wouldn’t be insulted specifically with “Oi! Paki”
but with a general racist “Oi! Wog/Nigger”.
Which brings me to another point: if we are to
be called Paks, do we use terms such as “Pakman”
just as we say “Englishman”? Isn’t Pacman a computer
game, by the way? Don’t ask me, sir, I’m just
a doodler! However, in Persian and Urdu “pak”
does mean “spiritually pure and clean”. Are you
a Pakwoman or Pakperson? Don’t ask me, madam,
I’m just a doodler! Rahmat Ali died aged 54 on
February 3, 1951, and is buried in Cambridge,
where he was exiled in life, and continues to
be exiled in death, too.
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