Liaquat Ali Khan

Liaquat Ali Khan (1 October 189516 October 1951) was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Pakistan from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. He played a key role in consolidating the state of Pakistan, much as Muhammad Ali Jinnah did in founding it. A leading figure in the Pakistan Movement, he is revered as Quaid-e-Millat ("Leader of the Nation") and Shaheed-e-Millat ("Martyr of the Nation").

Khan was born in Karnal, Haryana, to a wealthy rajput family. His grandfather, Nawab Ahmad Ali, provided significant support to the British during the Mutiny uprising of 1857–1858, earning him substantial rewards in the form of prestigious honours and complete remission of rent. Khan was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University and the University of Oxford. After first being invited to the Indian National Congress, he later opted to join the All-India Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an Indian independence activist who later advocated for a separate Muslim nation-state out of Hindu-majority India. Khan assisted Jinnah in the campaign for what would become known as the Pakistan Movement and was known as his 'right hand'. He was a democratic political theorist who promoted parliamentarism in British India.

Khan's premiership oversaw the beginning of the Cold War, in which Khan's foreign policy sided with the United States-led Western Bloc over the Soviet Union-led Eastern Bloc. He promulgated the Objectives Resolution in 1949, which stipulated Pakistan to be an Islamic democracy. He also held cabinet portfolio as the first foreign minister, defence minister, and frontier regions minister from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. Prior to the part, Khan briefly tenured as Finance minister of British India in the Interim Government that undertook independence of Pakistan and India, led by Louis Mountbatten, the then-Viceroy of India. In March 1951, he survived an attempted coup by left-wing political opponents and segments of the Pakistani military. While delivering a speech in the Company Bagh of Rawalpindi, Khan was shot dead by an Afghan militant Said Akbar for unknown reasons.

Early life and education

Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was born on 1 October 1895 into a wealthy family belonging to the Mandal clan, in the Karnal, Punjab Province with roots in Talera Village of Jansath Tehsil in Muzaffarnagar District of present day-Uttar Pradesh. He was the second of four sons of the wealthy land owner Rukn-ud-Daulah Shamsher Jung Nawab Bahadur Rustam Ali Khan of Karnal and his wife, Mahmoodah Begum, the daughter of Nawab Quaher Ali Khan of Rajpur a Feudal Estate In Doon Prominenet Scion Of The Muslim Rajputs in Saharanpur. He received his early education at home before attending school in Karnal. Khan was instructed in the Qur’an and hadith and was also given music lessons, learning to play the harmonium and flute; in addition, he developed an interest in singing and theatre. They had adopted the Urdu language. Khan identified as a Punjabi.

According to his family, Khan gained sufficient prestige that the British East India Company recognised him with titles such as Rukun-al-Daulah, Shamsher Jang and Nawab Bahadur, which they say were later inherited by his sons. The validity of those titles has been questioned because the family estates in Uttar Pradesh were diminished as a result of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, after which Uttar Pradesh itself ceased to be an autonomous area. His family had deep respect for the Indian Muslim thinker and philosopher Syed Ahmad Khan, and his father had a desire for young Liaquat Ali Khan to be educated in the British educational system. He was sent to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), where he earned degrees in law and political science.

In 1913, Khan attended the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University), graduating with a BSc degree in Political science and LLB in 1918, and married his cousin, Jehangira Begum, also in 1918, however the couple later separated. At Aligarh, he expanded his range of interests, captaining the cricket team and learning to play chess; he also continued his musical education by studying classical Hindustani vocal music and taking piano lessons. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple of London in 1922 but never practised.

Political activism in British India

Khan returned to India in 1923, entering in national politics, determined to eradicate what he viewed as the injustice and ill-treatment of Indian Muslims under the British Indian Department and by the British government. His political philosophy strongly emphasised a united India, first gradually believing in Indian nationalism. The Congress leadership approached Khan to become a part of the party, but after attending the meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru, Khan's political views and ambitions gradually changed. Khan refused, informing the Congress Party about his decision, and instead joining the Muslim League in 1923, led under another lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah who called for an annual session meeting in May 1924 in Lahore where the goals, boundaries, party programs, vision, and revival of the League, was an initial party agenda and was carefully discussed at the Lahore caucus. At this meeting, Khan was among those who attended this conference, and recommending the new goals for the party.

United Province legislation

Khan was elected to the provisional legislative council in the 1926 elections from the rural Muslim constituency of Muzaffarnagar. Khan embarked his parliamentary career, representing the United Provinces at the Legislative Council in 1926. In 1932, he was unanimously elected Deputy President of UP Legislative Council.

During this time, Khan intensified his support for Muslim-dominated populations, often raising the problems and challenges faced by the Muslim communities in the United Province. Khan joined academician Sir Ziauddin Ahmed, taking to organise the Muslim students' communities into one student union, advocating for the provisional rights of the Muslim state. His strong advocacy for Muslims' rights had brought him into national prominence and significant respect was also gained from Hindu communities whom he fought for at higher levels of the government. Khan remained the elected member of the UP Legislative Council until 1940, when he was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly; he participated actively, and was the influential member in legislative affairs, where his recommendations would also be noted by other members.

During his parliamentary career, Khan established his reputation as "eloquent, principled and honest spokesman" who would never compromise on his principles even in the face of severe odds. Khan, on several occasions, used his influence and good offices for the resolution of communal tension.

Joining the Muslim League

Khan rose to become one of the influential members of the Muslim League and was one of the central figures in the Muslim League delegation that attended the National Convention held at Calcutta. Earlier, the British Government had formed the Simon Commission to recommend the constitutional and territorial reforms to the British Government. The commission, compromising seven British Members of Parliament, headed under its Chairman Sir John Simon, met briefly with the Congress Party and Muslim League leaders. The commission had introduced the system of dyarchy to govern the provinces of British India, but these revisions met with harsh criticism and clamour by the Indian public. Motilal Nehru presented his Nehru Report to counter British charges.

In December 1928, Khan and Jinnah decided to discuss the Nehru Report. In 1930, Khan and Jinnah attended the First Round Table Conference which ended in disaster, leading Jinnah to depart from British India to the UK. In 1932, Khan married for a second time to Begum Ra'ana who was a prominent economist and academic who became an influential figure in the Pakistan movement.

In his party presidential address delivered at the Provisional Muslim Education Conference at AMU in 1932, Khan expressed the view that Muslims had "distinct [c]ulture of their own and had the (every) right to persevere it".

During this time, Khan and his wife joined Jinnah, with Khan practising economic law and his wife joining the faculty of economics at the local college. The couple spent most of their time convincing Jinnah to return to British India to unite the scattered Muslim League mass into one full force. Meanwhile, Choudhry Rahmat Ali coined the term Pakistan in his famous pamphlet Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever? He assisted Jinnah in his negotiations with the members of the Cabinet Mission and the leaders of the Congress during the final phases of the Freedom Movement and it was decided that an interim government would be formed consisting of members of the Congress, the Muslim League and minority leaders. When the Government asked the Muslim League to send five nominees for representation in the interim government, Khan was asked to lead the League group in the cabinet. He was given the portfolio of finance. The other four men nominated by the League were Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar, Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Abdur Rab Nishtar, and Jogendra Nath Mandal. By this point, the British government and the Indian National Congress had both accepted the idea of Pakistan, which came into existence on 14 August 1947.

The Daily Times, a leading English-language newspaper, held Khan responsible for mixing religion and politics, pointing out, "Liaquat Ali Khan had no constituency in the country, his hometown was left behind in India. Bengalis were a majority in the newly created state of Pakistan and this was a painful reality for him". According to the Daily Times, Khan and his legal team restrained from writing down the constitution, the reason being simple: The Bengali demographic majority would have been granted political power and, Liaquat Ali Khan would have been sent out of the prime minister's office. The Secularists also held him responsible for promoting the Right-wing political forces controlling the country in the name of Islam and further politicised the Islam, despite its true nature.

Economy

thumb|right|Khan with faculty members of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 1950]]In 1947, Khan and his Finance minister Malik Ghulam Muhammad proposed the idea of Five-Year Plans, by putting the country's economic system on investment and capitalism grounds. Focusing on an initial planned economic system under the directives of private sector and consortium industries in 1948, economic planning began to take place during his time in office, but soon collapsed partly because of unsystematic and inadequate staffing. Khan's economic policies were soon heavily dependent on United States aid to the country. In spite of planning an independent economic policy, Khan's economic policies focused on the United States' aid programme, on the other hand, Nehru focused on socialism and went on to be a part of Non Aligned Movement. An important event during his premiership was the establishment of a National Bank in November 1949, and the installation of a paper currency mill in Karachi. Unlike his Indian counterpart Jawaharlal Nehru, under Khan Pakistan's economy was planned, but also an open free market economy. Khan's government authorised the establishment of the Sindh University. Under his government, science infrastructure was slowly built but he continued inviting Muslim scientists and engineers from India to Pakistan, believing it essential for Pakistan's future progress. The house passed it on 12 March 1949, but it was met with criticism from his Law Minister Jogendra Nath Mandal who argued against it. Severe criticism were also raised by MP Ayaz Amir On the other hand, Liquat Ali Khan described as this bill as the "Magna Carta" of Pakistan's constitutional history. Khan called it "the most important occasion in the life of this country, next in importance, only to the achievement of independence". Under his leadership, a team of legislators also drafted the first report of the Basic Principle Committee and work began on the second report.

Soon after appointing a new government, Pakistan entered a war with India over Kashmir. The British commander of the Pakistan Army General Sir Frank Walter Messervy refused to attack the Indian army units. When General Douglas Gracey was appointed the commander in chief of the Pakistan Army, Liaquat Ali Khan ordered the independent units of the Pakistan Army to intervene in the conflict. On the Kashmir issue, Khan and Jinnah's policy reflected "Pakistan's alliance with [the] U.S and United Kingdom" against "Indian imperialism" and "Soviet expansion". However, it is revealed by historians that differences and disagreement with Jinnah arose over the Kashmir issue. Jinnah's strategy to liberate Kashmir was to use military force. Thus, Jinnah's strategy was to "kill two birds with one stone", namely decapitate India by controlling Kashmir, and to find a domestic solution through foreign and military intervention.

Regarding Khan's personal accounts and views, the prime minister preferred a "harder diplomatic" and "less military stance". The prime minister's diplomatic stance was met with hostility by the Pakistan Armed Forces and the socialists and communists, notably the mid-higher level command who would later sponsor an alleged coup led by the communists and socialists against his government. The visit further cemented strong ties between the two countries and brought them closer.right|thumb|Khan with U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., May 1950]]According to many sources, Khan's formulated policies were focused on Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, and his trip to U.S. in 1950, Khan had made clear that Pakistan's foreign policy was neutrality.

Khan began to develop tighter relations with the Soviet Union, China, Poland, and Iran under its Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh as well. Khan sent invitations to Stalin and the Polish Communist leader Władysław Gomułka to visit the country. However, the visits never happened after Khan was assassinated and Stalin died. In 1948, Pakistan established relations with the Soviet Union, and an agreement was announced a month later. The offing of U.S. trade had frustrated Khan who sent career FSO Jamsheed Marker as Pakistan Ambassador to the Soviet Union, a few months later, a Soviet ambasaddor, arrived in Pakistan, with her large staff and accompanied military attaches. In 1950, Khan established relations with China by sending his ambassador, making Pakistan to become first Muslim country to establish relations with China, a move which further dismayed the United States. While in Iran, Khan spoke with the Soviet Ambassador. Moscow promptly extended an invitation to him to visit the Soviet Union. However, he was hopeful that Pakistan's membership would produce benefits, particularly regarding a resolution to the Kashmir dispute with India. For this reason, Khan refused to attend the 1951 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London unless the conference would discuss Kashmir. In 1951, Khan was assassinated by Sayyid Akbar Babrak, an Afghan national.

Domestic struggles

Khan's ability to run the country was put in doubt and great questions were raised by the communists and socialists active in the country. In his last months, Jinnah came to believe that his Prime Minister Khan was a weak prime minister—highly ambitious—and not loyal to Jinnah and his vision in his dying days.

Assassination and funeral

On 16 October 1951, Khan was shot twice in the chest while he was addressing a gathering of 100,000 at Company Bagh (Company Gardens), Rawalpindi. The police immediately shot the presumed murderer who was later identified as professional assassin Said Akbar. He was known to Pakistani police prior to the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan. The exact motive behind the assassination has never been fully revealed and much speculation surrounds it. A major overseas newspaper and an Urdu daily published in Bhopal, India, saw a US hand behind the assassination.

Upon his death, Khan was given the honorific title of Shaheed-e-Millat ("Martyr of the Nation"). After his funeral, he was buried at Mazar-e-Quaid, the mausoleum built for Jinnah in Karachi. The Municipal Park, where he was assassinated, was renamed Liaquat Bagh (Bagh means Garden) in his honor. It is the same location where ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007.

First cabinet and appointments

{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4" style="margin:3px; background:#f8f8f8; border:1px solid #aaa; float:left;"

! style="background:#dcdcdc;" colspan="3"|The Ali Khan Cabinet

|align="left"|Ministerial office||align="left"|Officer holder||align="left"|Term

! style="background:black;" colspan="3"|

|align="left"|Prime minister||align="left"|Liaquat Ali Khan||align="left"|1947–1951

! style="background:black;" colspan="3"|

|align="left"|Foreign Affairs||align="left"|Sir Zafrullah Khan||align="left"|1947–1954

|align="left"|Treasury, Economic||align="left"|Malik Ghulam||align="left"|1947–1954

|align="left"|Law, Justice, Labour||align="left"|Jogendra Nath Mandal||align="left"|1947–1951

|align="left"|Interior||Khwaja Shahabuddin||align="left"|1948–1951<br/>

|align="left"|Defence||align="left"|Iskander Mirza||align="left"|1947–1954

|align="left"|Science advisor||align="left"|Salimuzzaman Siddiqui||align="left"|1951–1959

|align="left"|Education, Health||align="left"|Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry||align="left"|1947–1956

|align="left"|Finance, Statistics||align="left"|Sir Victor Turner||align="left"|1947–1951

|align="left"|Minorities, Women||align="left"|Sheila Irene Pant||align="left"|1947–1951

|align="left"|Communications||align="left"|Abdur Rab Nishtar||align="left"|1947–1951

Legacy

thumb|right|Khan with his family, 1949

Khan is Pakistan's longest serving Prime Minister spending 1,524 days in power. His legacy was built up as a man who was the "martyr for democracy" in the newly founded country. Many in Pakistan saw him as a man who sacrificed his life to preserve the parliamentary system of government. After his death, his wife remained an influential figure in the Pakistani foreign service and was Governor of Sindh Province in the 1970s. Khan's assassination remains unsolved. Popularly, he is known as Quaid-i-Millat (Leader of the Nation) and Shaheed-i-Millat (Martyr of the Nation), by his supporters. His assassination was a first political murder of any civilian leader in Pakistan, and Liaqat Ali Khan is remembered fondly by most Pakistanis. In an editorial written by Daily Jang, the media summed up that "his name will remain shining forever on the horizon of Pakistan".

Eponyms

Liaquat National Library, Pakistan's largest library and open-source library, named after him.
Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, medical university established in the memory of Liaquat Ali Khan.
Liaquat National Hospital, government hospital named after Liaquat Ali Khan.
Liaquat National Garden, government-owned garden where Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated.
Liaquat Pur, census-designated town-city named after Liaquat Ali Khan.
Liaquat Pur Railway Station, a railway station in Liaquatpur also named after Liaquat Ali Khan.
Liaquatabad Town, a populated town in Karachi named after Liaquat Ali Khan.

Assessment of foreign policy

Others argue that Khan had wanted Pakistan to remain neutral in the Cold War, as declared three days after Pakistan's independence when he declared that Pakistan would take no sides in the conflict of ideologies between the nations. Former serviceman Shahid M. Amin has argued that the Soviets themselves could not settle convenient dates for a visit, and that, even during his visit to the United States, Liaquat had declared his intention to visit the Soviet Union. Amin also notes that "Failure to visit a country in response to its invitations has hardly ever become the cause of long-term estrangement".

In popular culture

In Pakistan, many documentaries, stage and television dramas have been produced to enlighten Liaqat Ali Khan's struggle. Internationally, Ali Khan's character was portrayed by actor Yousuf "Shakeel" Kamal in the 1998 film Jinnah.

Notes

References

External links

Pictures of Liaquat Ali Khan's Visit to the USA—type Pakistan in the search bar.