Iqbal and Jinnah
On 29 Dec 1930, Muhammad Iqbal delivered his monumental address. He said:
I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.
According to some scholars, that Iqbal had not presented the idea of an autonomous Muslim State; rather he wanted a large Muslim province by amalgamating Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Baluchistan into a big North-Western province within India. They argued that "Iqbal never pleaded for any kind of partition of the country. Rather he was an ardent proponent of a 'true' federal setup for India.... And wanted a consolidated Muslim majority within the Indian Federation".
Another Indian historian, Tara Chand. also held that Iqbal was not thinking in terms of partition of India but in terms of a federation of autonomous states within India. Dr. Safdar Mehmood also fell a prey to the same misconception and in a series of articles he asserted that in Allahabad address Iqbal proposed a Muslim majority province within the Indian federation and not an independent state outside the Indian Federation.
On 28 January 1933, Choudhry Rahmat Ali voiced his ideas in the pamphlet titled "Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?" The word 'Pakstan' referred to "the five Northern units of India, viz. : Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan"". By the end of 1933, the word "Pakistan" became common vocabulary where an “I” was added to ease pronunciation (as in Afghan-i-stan). In a subsequent book Rehmat Ali discussed the etymology in further detail. "Pakistan' is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our South Asia homelands; that is, Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan. It means the land of the Pure".
The British and the Indian Press vehemently criticized these two different schemes and created a confusion about the authorship of the word "Pakistan" to such an extent that even Jawaharlal Nehru had to write: ""Iqbal was one of the early advocates of Pakistan and yet he appears to have realized its inherent danger and absurdity. Edward Thompson has written that in the course of conversation, Iqbal told him that he had advocated Pakistan because of his position as President of Muslim League session, but he felt sure that it would be injurious to India as a whole and to Muslims especially."
In 1934, Choudhry Rahmat Ali and his friends met Muhammad Ali Jinnah and appealed for his support of the Pakistan idea. He replied; "My dear boys, don’t be in a hurry; let the waters flow and they will find their own level.”
Read more about this topic: Choudhry Rahmat Ali