The name 'Pakstan' (later Pakistan) was coined in 1933, in a pamphlet titled 'Now or Never', by:

The name "Pakstan" (later spelt "Pakistan") was coined by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a Muslim student at Cambridge, in a pamphlet titled "Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish for Ever?", published on 28 January 1933.

The pamphlet:

• It was written by Rahmat Ali and signed by him and three other students at Cambridge.
• It demanded a separate Muslim nation, made up of five northern units of India.
• It was distributed among the delegates to the Round Table Conferences in London.

Meaning of the name:

• The name was formed from the names of the Muslim-majority regions of north-western India: P for Punjab, A for Afghania (the North-West Frontier Province), K for Kashmir, S for Sind, and "stan" from Baluchistan.
• Rahmat Ali also explained that "Pakistan" meant "the land of the pure" in Persian and Urdu ("pak" means pure).

Reaction:

• At first, the idea was not taken seriously by most Muslim leaders.
• Some Muslim delegates at the Round Table Conference described it as a student's scheme that was "chimerical and impracticable".
• The name became widely used only after the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League (1940).

About Choudhary Rahmat Ali:

• He was born on 16 November 1897 in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab.
• He studied at Islamia College, Lahore, and later at Cambridge, where he founded the "Pakistan National Movement".
• He also proposed the names "Bangistan" for Muslim Bengal and "Osmanistan" for Hyderabad.
• He was disappointed with the Pakistan that was created in 1947, because it was smaller than he had hoped.
• He died in Cambridge on 3 February 1951, and is buried there.

The two-nation theory:

The idea that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations was later developed by Jinnah, who used it to demand Pakistan.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Iqbal proposed a Muslim state in the north-west in 1930 but did not coin the name; Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan were leaders of the Muslim League.