Lahore Resolution

The Lahore Resolution, later called the Pakistan Resolution, was a formal political declaration, adopted by the All-India Muslim League on 23 March 1940, that served as the foundational basis for the Pakistan Movement. It was adopted during the League's three-day general session in Lahore, Punjab, from 22 to 24 March 1940, calling for "independent states" in the Muslim-majority regions of British India. The resolution was written and prepared by a nine-member subcommittee of the Muslim League; 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 1933 Pakistan Declaration, it was not until after the resolution that it began to be widely used. Muhammad Ali 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.