40 Fun Facts About Pakistan Independence Day

Pakistan's first anniversary stamps, issued in 1948, printed which date of the month as the nation's independence day?

The 15th was the date written into the Independence Act and used in Jinnah's first broadcast, and only in later years did 14 August settle as the holiday. Pakistan's handover ceremony had simply come a day early.

Which country was the first to recognise Pakistan, establishing diplomatic relations on 14 August 1947 itself?

Iran recognised Pakistan on its first day, and when its Shah paid a state visit in March 1950 the new country's still-wordless anthem was played for a visiting head of state for the first time.

What does 'Zindabad', the word Pakistanis chant after their country's name at every 14 August rally, literally mean?

Long live is the literal sense, a Persian-derived suffix tacked onto a name, and the cry was first raised during the Pakistan Movement before becoming the Muslim League's greeting.

In which city, at the Ahsan Manzil palace of its Nawab, was the All-India Muslim League founded in December 1906?

Dhaka hosted the founding at a Muslim educational conference, on the Nawab's proposal, three months after the Simla Deputation had won a hearing from the viceroy.

Muhammad Iqbal's tomb in Lahore, with its state-provided guard, stands beside the gateway of which Mughal landmark?

Badshahi Mosque's entrance faces the tomb across Hazuri Bagh, the walled garden between the mosque and Lahore Fort, which is why Iqbal's grave sits inside a Mughal showpiece.

Which country gave the four-tiered crystal chandelier that hangs above Jinnah's grave inside Mazar-e-Quaid in Karachi?

China's gift throws a green glow over the inner sanctum of the white-marble mausoleum, which also holds the graves of Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan.

Which British monarch was Pakistan's first head of state, reigning as its king from 1947 until 1952?

George VI was King of Pakistan as well as of Britain, and on his death in 1952 his daughter Elizabeth inherited the Pakistani throne, which she kept until the country became a republic.

How many guns salute the 14 August flag-raising in Islamabad, more than the 21 fired in each provincial capital?

31 guns follow the hoisting at Parliament House and the Presidency, after which the President and Prime Minister address the nation on television.

The lambskin hat Jinnah wore in his later years, now sold across Pakistan as the 'Jinnah cap', is what kind of hat?

Karakul hats are made from the fleece of the Karakul sheep of Central Asia, the fur also sold as Persian lamb or astrakhan, and Jinnah insisted on formal dress even on his deathbed.

Before politics, Fatima Jinnah qualified in 1923 as the first woman in British India in which profession?

Dentistry came first: a Calcutta degree in 1923 and her own clinic, which she closed in 1929 to run her widowed brother's household and, later, his campaigns.

Which military president did Fatima Jinnah, then aged 71, challenge as the united opposition's candidate in 1965?

Ayub Khan won, but only after sneering at her clothing and painting the founder's sister as pro-Indian and pro-American in a bitter campaign.

Fatima Jinnah is honoured in Pakistan as 'Madar-e-Millat'; what does that title mean?

Mother of the Nation is paired with a second title, Khatun-e-Pakistan, and she was buried beside her brother at Mazar-e-Quaid only after sustained public pressure.

Which 1916 Congress–League agreement, shaped by Jinnah, earned him the title 'ambassador of Hindu–Muslim unity'?

The Lucknow Pact had Congress concede separate Muslim electorates, and Jinnah signed it as a member of both parties, a quarter-century before he demanded a separate state.

Jinnah, who had hidden his tuberculosis from almost everyone since the 1930s, died how long after Pakistan's creation?

Just over a year: he died in September 1948 aged 71, and only his sister and a handful of confidants had known how ill he was through the Partition talks.

What did Cyril Radcliffe do with his 40,000-rupee fee after seeing the violence that followed the line he drew?

Refused to accept it, and he destroyed all his papers before leaving India, so the reasoning behind the line can never be checked.

What Arabic-derived term names the Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan at Partition, and their descendants?

Muhajir means immigrant, echoing the Prophet's followers who left Mecca for Medina, and today Muhajirs are Pakistan's fifth-largest ethnic group, concentrated in Karachi.

Only one word of Pakistan's anthem, 'ka', is not shared with Persian; in which language is it officially written?

Urdu in its classical register, so heavy with Persian vocabulary that Persian speakers can follow much of it; 'ka' simply means 'of'.

Which poet wrote the words of Pakistan's anthem, and sang them himself at its first radio broadcast in August 1954?

Hafeez Jalandhari's verses were picked in 1952 and formally adopted on 16 August 1954, so Pakistan went seven years without official words to its anthem.

Who composed the tune of Pakistan's anthem in 1949, first played without words for a visiting head of state in 1950?

Ahmed G. Chagla died in February 1953, before the anthem was officially adopted with Hafeez Jalandhari's words in August 1954, so he never heard his melody sung as the anthem; a navy band gave its 1950 premiere.

Which reformer, who founded the Aligarh college in 1875, is widely credited as the father of the two-nation theory?

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan began as a champion of Hindu–Muslim unity, then told a Meerut audience in 1888 that the two communities were separate nations.

Pakistan's anthem opens 'Pak sarzamin shad bad'; how does that first line translate into English?

Blessed be the sacred land is the literal rendering, and the whole three-stanza anthem runs about 80 seconds without repeating a single verse.

Which barrister led the team that turned the Muslim League banner into the national flag adopted on 11 August 1947?

Syed Amir-uddin Kedwaii, an Aligarh graduate, kept the League's green field and white crescent and added the white hoist stripe, and was awarded a Pakistan Movement Gold Medal only in 1991.

Choudhry Rahmat Ali, who coined 'Pakistan', died destitute in which English city, his college paying for the funeral?

Cambridge's Emmanuel College buried the man who named the country; he had left Pakistan in 1948 with his belongings confiscated, after falling out with its new rulers.

Leaving Delhi for Karachi on 7 August 1947 in Mountbatten's plane, Jinnah was heard to murmur which words as it taxied?

That's the end of that was his farewell to Delhi, and four days later Jinnah was presiding over Pakistan's new legislature in Karachi.

Which chief minister of undivided Bengal moved the 1940 Lahore Resolution, seconded by Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman?

A. K. Fazlul Huq, the 'Sher-e-Bangla' or Tiger of Bengal, moved it on 23 March 1940; the text never used the word Pakistan, which the Hindu press attached to it within days.

Which British general, lately head of India's Northern Command, became the Pakistan Army's first commander-in-chief?

Frank Messervy, born in Trinidad, held the post for only a year, and in November 1947 publicly denied that any serving Pakistani officers were directing the fighting with India.

Which 1909 measures, named for a viceroy and a secretary of state, first granted Indian Muslims separate electorates?

The Morley–Minto Reforms granted what the Simla Deputation had asked of Lord Minto in 1906, and Congress saw the separate electorates as imperial divide-and-rule.

The lapis lazuli tombstone on Muhammad Iqbal's grave in Lahore was a gift from the people of which country?

Afghanistan's gift carries Quranic verses carved there, while the tomb's red sandstone came from Jaipur, and India's post-1947 export curbs on it delayed the building for years.

In which city's Company Bagh, since renamed in his memory, was Liaquat Ali Khan shot dead while speaking in 1951?

Rawalpindi's park became Liaquat Bagh; the prime minister was addressing 100,000 people when the assassin, Said Akbar, shot him twice, and police killed the gunman on the spot.

Which 1949 measure, moved by Liaquat Ali Khan, declared that sovereignty over the universe belongs to Allah alone?

The Objectives Resolution passed on 12 March 1949 over the votes of every non-Muslim member, and it is now part of Pakistan's constitution under Article 2A.

In which Balochistan hill station, ringed by an ancient juniper forest, did Jinnah spend his final months in 1948?

Ziarat's 1892 wooden Residency, where he stayed, now appears on the 100-rupee note; doctors had moved him there from Quetta as his tuberculosis advanced.

Which Dalit leader from Bengal chaired Pakistan's first legislative session in 1947 and became its first law minister?

Jogendra Nath Mandal had sided with the Muslim League against caste-Hindu dominance, but resigned in 1950 and returned to India, citing anti-Hindu bias in the new administration.

Which body did Jinnah address on 11 August 1947, declaring citizens 'free to go to your temples' or 'to your mosques'?

The Constituent Assembly had just elected him its president, and he told it that religion was 'not the business of the state' in the new Pakistan.

The night of 14–15 August 1947 fell on 27 Ramadan, which Muslims associate with which holy night of the year?

Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Power when the Quran's revelation began, is one of Ramadan's last odd nights, so the coincidence gave the birth of Pakistan an extra layer of meaning.

Which district of Assam voted in a July 1947 referendum to leave India for East Bengal, and so to join Pakistan?

Sylhet's vote on 6 July 1947 went for Pakistan, yet its Karimganj subdivision was handed to India anyway, and the district is now in Bangladesh.

Which joint unit, active from 1 August 1947 and disbanded a month later, could not stop the killings around Lahore?

The Punjab Boundary Force had about 50,000 men under Major-General Rees, far too few for the violence, and the two new armies took over on 1 September.

Jinnah's Fourteen Points of 1929 answered which Congress document that had upheld none of the Muslim League's demands?

The Nehru Report of 1928 wanted joint electorates in place of separate ones, and Jinnah's reply demanded that separate electorates stay and that residuary powers go to the provinces.

Who led the 1906 Simla Deputation to the viceroy and became the Muslim League's first honorary president?

Aga Khan III took the presidency without attending the inaugural session, and his deputation to the viceroy had argued that Muslims must count as a separate community at the polls.

Who succeeded Jinnah as governor-general in 1948, having been East Bengal's first chief minister after independence?

Khwaja Nazimuddin later stepped down to become prime minister when Liaquat Ali Khan was killed in 1951, only to be dismissed by his own successor as governor-general in 1953.

Which first foreign minister of Pakistan alone has presided over both the UN General Assembly and the World Court?

Zafarullah Khan, chosen by Jinnah, held the foreign ministry for seven years before joining the International Court of Justice in 1954, rising to its presidency.