A protest at the Secretariat
Fatima Sughra was a young activist remembered for taking down a British flag and raising a Muslim League flag at the Punjab Civil Secretariat in Lahore during the movement for Pakistan. A 2017 Dawn obituary records recollections from Sughra and another participant as well as a Pakistan Movement Workers’ Trust account. The reports differ over details, including the year and the making of the flag. The Muslim League flag in these accounts was a political symbol before Pakistan’s establishment; the later national flag should not automatically be treated as the same historical object. Recollections preserve important experiences but require careful comparison.[1]
Dates and evidence
A Princeton University photograph catalogue captions the scene as Sughra after a flag raising on 16 February 1947; its separate creation date gives the year 1947.[2]
The Dawn obituary also quotes an account giving 1946. These descriptions do not establish a single uncontested date. A catalogue caption is evidence of how an image has been identified, not necessarily an independently verified event chronology. Contemporary newspaper reports and the original photograph’s provenance could help resolve the discrepancy. Her precise age at the protest also varies among published descriptions.[1]
Women and political mobilisation
The Punjab study places the episode within the history of women’s political organising and the Muslim League’s women’s groups. The study dates a procession to the Punjab Secretariat to late February 1947 and describes Sughra as a teenager. Women participated in meetings, processions and other forms of campaigning, though their experiences and political commitments were varied. The episode is often remembered as an individual act, but other participants and organisers were present. Studying the wider campaign alongside personal testimony gives a fuller picture without assuming every woman in Punjab supported the same political movement.[3]
A Concordia University thesis compares retellings of the improvised flag and shows how versions of the story can differ.[4]
Sources & notes
Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.
- Xari Jalil, Dawn. Fatima Sughra is no more ↗Written source · Source date: 2017-09-26 · Locator: Obituary, Trust account and recollections. Accessed 2026-11-03.Obituary inspected through indexed text; it contains differing descriptions of the year and flag.Return to A protest at the Secretariat, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Dates and evidence, paragraph 2 ↑
- Muhammad Bakhsh Bhatti; Princeton University Digital Collections. Fatima Sughra Begam after hoisting the Muslim League flag ↗Written source · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Title caption, date created and provenance. Accessed 2026-11-03.Catalogue title and metadata inspected; the date in the caption is not independent verification of the event.Return to Dates and evidence, paragraph 1 ↑
- Sajida Shabbir. Struggle for Muslim Women’s Rights in British India (1857–1947) ↗Written source · Source date: 2011 · Locator: Pakistan Vision 12(2), p. 27 of PDF; women’s League and procession. Accessed 2026-11-04.The university-hosted article and the journal issue contents were rechecked. The paper describes the procession and its participants; underlying contemporary records were not independently examined.Return to Women and political mobilisation, paragraph 1 ↑
- K. Syed, Concordia University. We Sinful Women: Urban Feminist Visuality in Contemporary Art and Feminist Movements in Pakistan After 9/11 ↗Written source · Source date: 2022 · Locator: Comparison of oral-history and newspaper accounts. Accessed 2026-11-03.Relevant passage and notes inspected via indexed text; direct download timed out.Return to Women and political mobilisation, paragraph 2 ↑
Record PH-PEO-0080 · English edition · human review not performed