Today Is August 14

Today is the anniversary of Pakistan gaining independence from the British Empire.

Pakistan flag

The political session of the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference was held at the Ahsan Manzil palace of the Dhaka Nawab Family on December 30, 1906. In this session a motion to form an All India Muslim League (AIML), the first Muslim political party in the history of India, was proceeded. AIML developed into the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state on the Indian subcontinent.

Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever? in 1933 while a student at Cambridge University's Emmanuel College. It was from Ali's small backstreet house, 3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge that he called for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that the young student termed "Pakstan" (without the letter "i").

“Pak” means spiritually pure in Urdu and “Stan” means land. The name coined by Ali was accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.

The Muslim League slowly rose to mass popularity in the 1930s thanks to fears of under-representation and neglect of Muslims in politics. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, greatly espoused the two-nation theory and led the Muslim League to adopt the Lahore Resolution of 1940, popularly known as the Pakistan Resolution.

As the United Kingdom agreed upon partitioning of the Indian empire of British Raj, the modern state of Pakistan was established on August 14, 1947. The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was sworn in as first Governor-General of Pakistan in Karachi the nest day.

Queen Elizabeth II ended her role as monarch of Pakistan in 1956, when it became the first country in the world to declare itself an Islamic Republic.