Acronym of Pakistan
The Sovereign Nation of Pakistan was created in 1947 as a Muslim nation carved out of former British India (Dissolution). But where did the name come from? It was coined by a Muslim Indian nationalist named Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan, in a 1933 pamphlet entitled “Now or Never”.
Rehmat Ali, who was based in the UK as an academic working at Cambridge University (He himself is buried at the campus), simply took the names of the Five Major-provinces of India that were to be incorporated as the new country. The initial letters of four of them, plus the end of the Fifth, could be read as the new name. These were:
The
Put together, this made Pakstan, so adding a “ī” made sense in terms of producing something more pronounceable. The idea caught on and before long everyone was referring to the putative new country as Pakistan, although its creation was still 15 years into the future.
Rehmat Ali later claimed that a slightly different amended derivation was what he had in mind, namely:
- P/PUNJAB - The Cultural Heart of the Country
- A/Afghania (North-West Frontier Province) - Frontier Region
- K/KASHMIR - The Jugular Vein of the Country (Muslim-Majority)
- I/IRAN - Persianate heritage
- S/SINDHU - Civilisational heritage
- T/TURKESTAN - Central Turkic States
- A/AFGHANISTAN - Muslim Brethren
- N/BalochisTAN - Gateway to South Asia
Thus the Very Word Pakistan means “A Land Bounding in the Pure” or “A Land in which the Pure Abound,” in Urdu and Persian.
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