Lahore Resolution

Lahore Resolution
Muslim leaders from across British India at the All-India Muslim League Working Committee session in Lahore
CreatedMarch 1940
Presented23 March 1940
Ratified23 March 1940 (1940-03-23)
Date effective14 August 1947 (1947-08-14)
LocationMinto Park, Lahore, Punjab, British India
Commissioned bySpecial Working Committee
SignatoriesAll-India Muslim League (General Session)
PurposeEstablishment of a separate Muslim homeland in the territories of the British Raj

The Lahore Resolution,[a] later called the Pakistan Resolution, was a formal political statement adopted by the All-India Muslim League on 23 March 1940 during its three-day general session in Lahore, Punjab, from 22 to 24 March 1940, calling for a group of "independent states" in the Muslim-majority regions of the British Raj. It was written and prepared by a nine-member subcommittee of the Muslim League;[b] presented by A. K. Fazlul Huq, the Prime Minister of Bengal; and approved by the General Session of the Muslim League.

The resolution mainly called for independent sovereign states:

That geographically contiguous units are demarcated regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute 'independent states' in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.

Although the name "Pakistan" had been proposed by Choudhary Rahmat Ali in his Pakistan Declaration,[4] it was not until after the resolution that it began to be widely used.

Jinnah's address to the Lahore conference was, according to Stanley Wolpert, the moment when Jinnah, once a proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity, irrevocably committed to force the creation of an independent Pakistan.[5]


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  1. ^ Sherwani, Latif Ahmed (1990). Pakistan Resolution Revisited. National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research. p. 45.
  2. ^ Khan, Zafarullah. The Agony of Pakistan. Kent Publications. p. 15.
  3. ^ Zaidi, Hassan Jafar. "Pakistan Resolution". Dawn.
  4. ^ Choudhary Rahmat Ali, (1933), Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, pamphlet, published 28 January. (Rehmat Ali at the time was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge)
  5. ^ Stanley Wolpert (1984). Jinnah of Pakistan. Oxford University Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-19-503412-7. Jinnah's Lahore address lowered the final curtain on any prospects for a single united independent India ... once his mind was made up he never reverted to any earlier position ... The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had totally transformed himself into Pakistan's great leader. All that remained was for his party first, then his inchoate nation, and then his British allies to agree to the formula he had resolved upon.