IN its issue of December 5, 1938, The Times of London had carried a special article entitled `Federation in India` in which Muslims were said to be `again toying` with the idea of the creation of a `Pakistan` in the Muslim-majority provinces.

Rehmat Ali wrote a letter to the newspaper on the same day, alleging that the words used in the article were `somewhat misleading` in the sense that they gave `the impression to the reader that the `idea` of creating a Pakistan has been intermittent and spasmodic`.

After pointing out that the idea had first been put forth in 1933, and had since then been consistently upheld by the Pakistan National Movement, he affirmed that `no constitution, whether federal or unitary, can succeed which condemns our 80,000,000 Muslims to the status of a minority community, especially in the territories where, for centuries, we have been, and still are, the overwhelming majority of the population`.

He concluded by declaring that the Muslims living in North-western India `have never been Indian in the true sense of the word; nor do we aspire to that title in the future`. Shortly after this, on December 12, 1938, he wrote an elucidative letter to Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, in which he explained his conception of the population basis on which Muslims of North-western India would have a homeland in Pakistan, and the Muslims remaining in India would still retain the position of a viable minority.

Quoting the 1931 census figures, he visualised that out of some 78 million Muslims in the subcontinent, constituting 22 per cent of the total population of around 353 million, only about 29 million would be living in Pakistan with some 15 million non-Muslims; so that, on the basis of population, Muslim representation in the central legislature of India would only be reduced `from 22 per cent to 16 per cent at the lowest` — 49 million out of a total of 307
million.

Thus, at this time, Rehmat Ali had apparently still given no thought to a separate destiny for the Muslims of Bengal, within or outside Pakistan.

We next hear from Rehmat Ali in the spring of 1940. On March 22, one day before the Lahore Resolution was moved at the Muslim League session, and when the session had already begun its deliberations, the Supreme Council of the Pakistan National Movement assembled in Karachi, perhaps its first meeting outside England.

Rehmat Ali`s address to the Council was later published as a pamphlet by the movement, with the title of The Millat of Islam and the Menace of `Indianism`.

The pamphlet bears no date, but the covering letter with which it was circulated has `August 15, 1941`
written in on the right-hand top corner below Rehmat Ali`s Cambridge address. It is signed by M. Anwar, Member, Supreme Council, Pakistan National Movement.

Defining the fundamental creed of the Movement, he declared, `It is that we are Muslim, not Hindu; Pakistani, not Hindustani; and Asian not Indian; that, in retrospect, the India of today, is the South Asia of yesterday, but, in prospect, the sphere of the individual solidarity of several nations of tomorrow...` What, then, was the next step? Pakistan, Bengal and Usmanistan were `the political foundations of our heritage`, which had to be saved to ensure the ultimate safety of the millat.

The Pakistan demand, which had been put forward in 1933, was merely the first part of the movement whose final objective was, and remained, the `permanent defence of our entire millat against the persistent dangers of Indianism`. The second part, now to be taken in hand, was to save Bengal and strengthen Usmanistan.

Bengal, with its hinterland of Assam, was to the Muslims the `Bang-i-Islam`. Like Pakistan, it, too, had a Muslim majority and therefore was entitled to the exercise of the right to self-determination. For this purpose, a national movement would have to be started and built up on the soil of Bengal.

Usmanistan (Hyderabad, Deccan) was a princely state, not a part of British India. Yet it was `a part of our patrimony`, and its future was inseparably bound up with that of the millat. The Muslims derived their right to Usmanistan `from those canons of International Law from which other nations deduce their claims to their domains`.
The people of Usmanistan should embark upon a `sustained constitutional struggle` for the de facto recognition of her de jure sovereignty. It was imperative for them to establish an organisation to work to this end.

Pakistan, a Muslim Bengal and a sovereign Hyderabad would form three independent Muslim nations in South Asia. But the struggle for the achievement of their independence could not be left in separate, divided hands without weakening it.

The national effort would have to be coordinated by creating an international organisation. The only existing central organisation, the All India Muslim League, had become `an anachronism, and a fatal one at that`, because the millat had decided to sever its ties with India and seek its future in Asia. So the All India Muslim League would have to go and be replaced with `an alliance of the nations of Pakistan, Bengal, and Usmanistan`.

Perhaps because it was a transcript of the spoken word, this address lacked the close reasoning and incisive clarity characteristic of everything Rehmat Ali wrote. There is too much of rhetoric here, as if he had been carried away by his own eloquence.

Words supplant arguments. At places, his fondness for alliteration produces meaningless statements which spoil his case. There is little doubt that in both style and reasoning this is the worst pamphlet Rehmat Ali ever wrote.

The importance of this statement of his lies in its claims on behalf of Bengal and Hyderabad. Though Rehmat Ali maintains that they constituted the second step or stage of his programme and stemmed out of his original conception, there is no mention, direct or oblique, of Bengal or Hyderabad in his earlier declarations.

The pamphlet, however, claims that he had given the name of `Bang` to Bengal and Assam in 1937. In a later pamphlet, of October 1942, he again asserts that he had announced this for the first time in 1937. It is possible that he had done so; but I have not come across any earlier pamphlet or other writing that makes any reference to `Bang`.

His Pakistan, which is supposed to contain all his important pamphlets and other writings, does not produce any declaration of 1937; nor does it print any pre-1940 map embodying `Bang`.

Moreover, if he had the idea of `Bang` in mind, why did he make no mention of it in his explanatory letter to Khaliquzzaman and, on the contrary, argue that Muslims remaining in India would retain a population ratio of 16 per cent.

Be that as it may, now his Pakistan plan of 1933 had become the first stage of a programme of which the second was his 1940 plan for a Bang-i-Islam and an Usmanistan. In 1942, he inaugurated what he called Parts III, IV, VI and VII of the Pak Plan; what was to be Part V, and what happened to it, is not mentioned in this or any other pamphlet.

These parts of his Pak Plan were outlined in a pamphlet entitled The Millat and the Mission Seven commandments of destiny for the `seventh` continent of Dinia first published in October 1942.

The pamphlet opens with a list of seven commandments avoid minorityism; avow nationalism; acquire proportional territory; consolidate the individual nations; coordinate them under a Pak Commonwealth of Na tions; convert India into Dinia; and organise Dinia and its dependencies into a Pakasia. Rehmat Ali drew up a timetable for the realisation of the formidable programme outlined in these seven commandments.

The first stage, now the creation of not only Pakistan but also Bang-i-Islam and Usmanistan, would be achieved within 15 years (that is by 1957). The seven national strongholds would come into existence before the end of the century. India`s conversion into the continent of Dinia and its incorporation in the orbit of Pakasia, would be effected `in far less time than we took to build our present heritage`.

With this pamphlet, we reach the end of Rehmat Ali`s plans. He has stretched the concept of Pakistan to its uttermost limits, and visualised the final shape of things to be no less than another Islamic sway over the subcontinent. In essence, the entire scheme takes him to the conclusion drawn by F.K. Khan Durrani more than 10 years earlier.

Both wanted a re-enthronement of Islam in India Durrani by outright conquest leading to an Islamic empire; Rehmat Ali by slow stages resulting in an Islamic orbit.

The scale of Rehmat Ali`s plan is truly breathtaking. The dimensions of his thought are heroic, even if its flight is not sustained by any practical logic.