PAKISTAN
StR,—Mr. Brocklesby Davis suggests that the readers of The Spectator should not "take seriously" my "acrostic derivation of the word, which, incidentally, leaves out all reference to the Eastern part of Pakistan." In the chapter linnah—Master Muslim in Immortal Years I mention the fact that Mr. Jinnah explained to me how the word Pakistan was coined ; his explanation was as I gave it in The Spectator. If your correspondent will turn to Indian Politics, 1936-1942, by Sir Reginald Coupland, which is Part II of the Nuffield Report on the Constitutional Problem in India, on page 199 the birth of Pakistan is explained. The author refers to a four-page leaflet, Now or Never, signed by Mohd. Aslam Khan and others, privately circulated from Cambridge in January, 1933. The following sentence occurs: "On behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in Pakstan—by which we mean the five northern units of India, viz., Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan." Pakistan, as it was later spelt, means "land of the pure." The original conception of Pakistan grew, and in 1940 C. Rahmat Ali, in a pamphlet, refers to the Eastern part of Pakistan as Bang-t-Islam (Islam in Bengal).—Yours faithfully, EVELYN WRENCH. The Mill House, Marlow, Bucks.
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