- published: 17 Aug 2011
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The Pakistan Movement or Tehrik-e-Pakistan (Urdu: تحریک پاکستان) refers to the successful historical movement against British Raj and Indian Congress to have an independent Muslim state named Pakistan created from the separation of the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, partitioned within or outside the British Indian Empire. It had its origins in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (present day Uttar Pradesh). Muslims there were a minority, yet their elite had a disproportionate amount of representation in the civil service and a strong degree of cultural and literary influence. The idea of Pakistan spread from Northern India through the Muslim diaspora of this region, and spread outwards to the Muslim communities of the rest of India. This movement was led by lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah, along with other prominent founding fathers of Pakistan including Allama Iqbal, Liaqat Ali Khan, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Aga Khan III, Fatima Jinnah, Bahadur Yar Jung, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, A.K. Fazlul Huq, Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, Jogendra Nath Mandal, Victor Turner, Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, and Dr. Sir Ziauddin Ahmed.
Pakistan (i/ˈpækɨstæn/ or i/pɑːkiˈstɑːn/; Urdu: پاکستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪˈst̪aːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman.
The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures. Thus the area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Indian Mauryan Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India's struggle for independence, Pakistan was created in 1947 as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions in the east and west of India where there was a Muslim majority. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a new constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. A civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh.