39 Fun Facts About Pakistan Independence Day

Pakistan's first commemorative stamps gave 15 August 1947 as independence day; who scheduled its handover ceremony a day earlier?

Lord Mountbatten held Pakistan's ceremony on the 14th so he could also attend India's in Delhi on the 15th, and Pakistan later made the earlier date its holiday.

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', as in the patriotic slogan 'Pakistan Zindabad', literally mean?

Long live is the literal sense of the Persian-derived word, which India's freedom fighters also shouted in 'Inquilab Zindabad', 'Long live the revolution'.

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

Dhaka, where the party that went on to demand Pakistan was born, is now the capital of Bangladesh, which broke away from Pakistan in 1971.

Muhammad Iqbal's tomb in Lahore stands beside the walls of which Mughal landmark?

Badshahi Mosque's neighbour is the grave of Pakistan's national poet, who died in 1938, nine years before the country he helped inspire existed.

The crystal chandelier above Jinnah's grave inside Mazar-e-Quaid was a gift from which country?

China's gift hangs in a tomb designed by Yahya Merchant, who got the job at Fatima Jinnah's wish after earlier designs, including a British firm's, were rejected.

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

George VI was King of Pakistan until his death in 1952, and his daughter reigned over it until 1956, six years after India had become a republic.

In which city, Pakistan's first capital, was the new country's independence ceremony held in August 1947?

Karachi hosted the ceremony and stayed the capital until 1959, when the government moved north, eventually to purpose-built Islamabad.

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

Karakul hats use the pelts of very young Karakul lambs, whose tight black curls open and lose their pattern as the lamb grows.

Before politics, Fatima Jinnah trained for which profession, opening her own clinic in Bombay in 1923?

Dentistry was her trade until 1929, when she closed her clinic to run her widowed brother's household, the start of nearly two decades at his side.

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

Ayub Khan won an indirect vote cast only by 80,000 'Basic Democrats', amid opposition charges that the election was rigged.

Which title is Fatima Jinnah honoured with in Pakistan?

Mother of the Nation is her title, and when the opposition parties could not agree on a candidate for the 1965 presidential election, they turned to her.

Which 1916 Congress–League agreement, shaped by Jinnah, led Sarojini Naidu to hail him as 'ambassador of Hindu–Muslim unity'?

The Lucknow Pact had Congress concede separate Muslim electorates, and Jinnah, then a member of both parties, helped broker it long before he demanded a separate state.

Jinnah, who had long suffered from tuberculosis, died how long after Pakistan's creation?

Just over a year: Jinnah died on 11 September 1948, aged 71, after years in which his sister Fatima had cared for him through his lung illness.

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

Muhajir is the name, and in 1984 a party was launched for them, the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, which in 1997 renamed itself the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

Pakistan's anthem is built almost entirely from Persian vocabulary, yet in which language is it officially written?

Urdu, whose 1948 choice as Pakistan's sole national language sparked the Bengali Language Movement in East Pakistan, where police shot protesters in 1952.

Which poet wrote the words of Pakistan's national anthem, officially adopted in August 1954?

Hafeez Jalandhari wrote his verse to fit a tune approved years earlier, and he led the anthem's first radio performance himself.

Which Lahore landmark stands where the Muslim League passed its 1940 resolution calling for a separate homeland?

Minar-e-Pakistan was paid for partly through a surcharge on cinema tickets, imposed to raise money for the tower.

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 renders the line, and in 2022 Pakistan re-recorded the anthem with 155 singers from across its regions.

What does the white stripe on Pakistan's flag, beside the green field, represent?

Religious minorities are what the stripe stands for, and since 2009 Pakistan has marked 11 August as National Minorities Day, recalling Jinnah's 1947 promise of equal rights.

Choudhry Rahmat Ali, credited with coining the name 'Pakistan', died destitute in 1951 in which English city?

Cambridge is where he died, little more than two years after being ordered out of Pakistan with his belongings confiscated, and he lies in the city's cemetery.

Jinnah's official birthday, a public holiday in Pakistan, falls on which day that much of the world celebrates for another reason?

Christmas Day is the birth date Jinnah maintained, though his school records put his birth on 20 October 1875.

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

A. K. Fazlul Huq moved it on 23 March 1940, yet the text never used the word Pakistan, a name the Hindu press soon attached to it.

Over which princely state did India and Pakistan fight their first war, within months of independence?

Kashmir: the UN-brokered ceasefire of 1949 left the state divided, and UN military observers arrived that January to watch over it.

Which 1909 measures granted Indian Muslims separate electorates?

The Morley–Minto Reforms granted what the Simla Deputation had asked of Lord Minto in 1906, letting Muslim voters elect Muslim members to the councils.

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

Afghanistan's gift carries Quranic verses, while the tomb's red sandstone came from Jaipur, and India's post-1947 curbs on that stone long delayed the building.

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

Rawalpindi's park, renamed Liaquat Bagh, was also where Benazir Bhutto was fatally attacked in 2007 as she left a rally.

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, and in 1985 a presidential order made it a substantive part of Pakistan's constitution as Article 2A.

In which Balochistan hill station, ringed by ancient juniper forest, did Jinnah spend some of his last weeks?

Ziarat's wooden Residency, where he stayed, was badly damaged by fire in June 2013 after Balochistan Liberation Army militants attacked it.

Which border crossing near Lahore stages a daily flag-lowering ceremony by Pakistani and Indian troops?

Wagah: in November 2014 a suicide bomber killed more than 50 people near the Pakistani side just after the daily ceremony.

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 first president, but in October 1954 Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dissolved it.

Pakistan's independence in August 1947 fell on 27 Ramadan, which Muslims associate with which holy night?

Laylat al-Qadr's exact date is uncertain, and the Prophet told Muslims to search for it in the odd nights of Ramadan's last ten days.

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

Sylhet voted for Pakistan, yet the Radcliffe Line still kept part of the district, around Karimganj, in India.

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

The Punjab Boundary Force was too small for so vast an area, and its failure to contain the riots got it disbanded on 1 September.

Jinnah's Fourteen Points of 1929 answered which 1928 constitutional scheme from an all-parties committee?

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's deputation argued that Muslims should elect their own representatives, in numbers reflecting their political importance, not just their population.

Who succeeded Jinnah as governor-general in 1948, then stepped down to become prime minister after Liaquat Ali Khan's killing?

Khwaja Nazimuddin was dismissed as prime minister in April 1953 by his own successor as governor-general, Ghulam Muhammad.

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

Zafarullah Khan had argued the Muslim League's case before the Radcliffe Boundary Commission in July 1947, weeks before independence.