On January 26, 1931, it was bitterly cold in Cambridge, when this tall, muscular and relatively mature young man from the Punjab province of India entered Immanuel College as a freshman. Who knew that now his whole life would be spent in this city, and this land would be his eternal abode.
Getting to Cambridge was not easy for the young man. He first came to Lahore from the rural atmosphere of village Mohran in district Hoshiarpur. After completing his BA from Islamia College, he toiled day and night in the city for the next twelve years to pay for his higher education in the UK.
In this struggle, the idea of building a house never came, nor of settling a house. According to the rules of Cambridge University, it is mandatory for undergraduate students to live in a hostel, but when the young man expressed his insistence that he could not afford the cost of the hostel, he was allowed to stay in a room in the outskirts of the city. These rooms were called digs, which in older settlements were inside houses, and were rented out by the needy.
According to records in 1932 this student lived at 3 Humberstone Road, the second house on the left as you enter the street. Historian KK Aziz visited this house in 1971 in his research quest and found the area shrouded in profound silence, so he began to think that in 1932-33, a deeper silence would reign here. This is the historic house, inside a single-bed room for rent, at some time of the gospel, this student Chaudhry Rehmat Ali sat alone and penned the pamphlet Now or Never, from which the world got the complete awareness of the geographical boundaries and ideological nature of the largest Islamic state that will come into existence under this name for the first time.
This is the time, when in the London Round Table Conferences, under the shadow of Great Britain, considering the Indian Federation as an eternal reality, new reforms were being prepared within it. Muslim leaders were also found saying that no sane Muslim considered the idea of an independent Muslim state in north-west India viable outside the British Commonwealth. But according to Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, it was as if some invisible force was ordering him to challenge the Indian federation and fight for an independent Muslim state of ‘Pakistan’. In British and Indian political circles, the clear and unequivocal message of ‘now or never’ was nothing short of a nod.
The historical, religious, political and legal arguments given in favor of Pakistan in this pamphlet were so rich and complete that after that the Muslim League itself could not add anything to the creation of Pakistan and kept repeating them. After presenting the scheme of an independent Muslim state in the name of ‘Pakistan’, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali did not sit quietly, but also founded an organization named ‘Pakistan National Movement’ to add color to the reality in this scheme. Onlookers could see that Hindu politicians were calling the scheme a childish demand by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali of Cambridge and his fellow students. The reason was definitely that for the first time, the establishment of an independent Muslim state comprising Punjab, Kashmir, Sindh, Sarhad, Balochistan was being demanded, which was unbearable for them.
Chaudhry Rehmat Ali’s Pakistan scheme received a lot of unseen support at this critical stage in such a way that famous Turkish writer and journalist Khaleda Adib visited India during this period. In 1937, his book Inside India, containing his testimony, was published, which included a long conversation with Chaudhry Rahmat Ali, the creator of the Pakistani scheme based in Cambridge. He did not give any importance to the rest of the Muslim leaders of India. Chaudhry Rahmat Ali elaborated the Pakistani scheme in this interview, calling it the only permanent solution to India’s communal problems.
Through this book, the message of Chaudhry Rehmat Ali reached Britain and India, but also beyond it to those circles, where it was impossible to reach under normal circumstances. The translation of the book and the dialogue was published in the multi-circulation Urdu newspapers of India, so every Indian Muslim felt ‘Pakistan’ as the call of his soul. Its echoes can be clearly heard in the resolution of 1940 in Lahore. In fact, because of this congruence between ‘Now or Never’ and the Lahore Resolution, the Hindu press termed the ‘Lahore Resolution’ as the ‘Pakistan Resolution’ and started opposing it vigorously; And, this is where the second and heartbreaking turn of the story begins.
The Muslim League, especially the feudal leadership of Punjab, which consisted mostly of Unionists, was unwilling to give credit for the Pakistani scheme to Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, who lived day and night in a small rented room in Kemeraj, far from India, on whose heart this divine plan was first revealed. So in 1940 they came to India, the Unionist government did not allow them to enter Punjab. In 1948, he packed up everything from Kemraj and came to the paradise of his dreams in Pakistan, a house was also arranged in Lahore, but after the death of Quaid-e-Azam, he returned to Kemraj with a heavy heart after suffering the inappropriate behavior of the government.
Even his last wish to travel on Pakistani passport could not be fulfilled. The precious belongings of his house, which reached Karachi by sea, landed somewhere in Karachi and Lahore. What was the crime? It was just that he considered Pakistan incomplete without a united Punjab and Kashmir and criticized the Muslim League leadership for accepting the plan of partition of India.
Chaudhry Rahmat Ali remained lonely throughout his life, but in the circumstances he had to leave Pakistan, after that he felt really alone, helpless and abandoned, but Pakistan was still his first and last love. Wrote his last message to the nation in January 1950, in which he also warned his countrymen of the challenges facing them and gave sincere advice. But his health was steadily declining. It was the cold evening of January 29, 1951. In Camridge there was a constant drizzle along with a strong gusty wind. Miss Watson suddenly looked out to see her former tenant, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, who was aging in the days and weeks since his return from Pakistan, taking his mail out of the letterbox as usual. On that day he neither had an umbrella nor was he wearing an overcoat.
The English lady scolded him a little and asked him to sit by the fireplace for a while, but he took the mail and went back, drenched in the rain. By the time he reached his room, the cold was embedded in his veins. Here, too, it was the English landlady who admitted him to the nearby Evelyn Nursing Home, the first room on the left on the ground floor, the window of which coincidentally opened onto Cambridge University, his beloved alma mater.
Welbourne, his kind teacher at Immanuel College, came to know that his Pakistani student Rehmat Ali was dying in a nursing home adjacent to the Botanic Garden. In the last time, no fellow countryman came even to say two words of sympathy, I am passing through life and place for the sake of Mir Jin, they are escaping from my grave as well. No relatives, friends and compatriots arrived for fifteen days, so Kemraj embraced Chaudhry Rehmat Ali in his kind embrace and never let him leave again, the same cool land of Kemraj city where he had come as a new student years ago.
Naseem A Naseem A Nasim Ghabar Ae
I have heard that I have sown blood and heart
