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Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the second President of India who died in office. Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the second man who served as the President of India from the Muslim Community. He was a truly politician and statesman.
He born in an army doctor family. His primary education was done in India and in the year 1927 went to England for higher education and studied history at the University of Cambridge. In the year 1935 he returned to India and elected to the Assam legislature. To know more about his profile and struggle in life please stay connected with the blog.
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Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed served as the fifth president of India from 1974 to 1977. He was an Indian lawyer and politician. Some of his achievements are as under –
– He was born and brought up at Delhi of British India.
– In the year 1928 he studied in Cambridge and called to the bar from the Inner Temple, London.
– He practiced law in Lahore and then in Guwahati.
– In 1939 and from 1957 to 1966 he became the finance minister of Assam in the Gopinath Bordoloi and Bimala Prasad Chaliha ministry respectivally.
– In 1946 he became the Advocate General of Assam.
– In 1966 he became a cabinet minister in the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi cabinet and served various ministries including Power, Irrigation, Industries and Agriculture.
– He was elected president of India in 24 August 1974.
– As the president he imposed The Emergency in August 1975 and he also supported the Emergency in public speeches.
– He died in February 1977 of a heart attack and became the second President of India who died in office.
– He was accorded a state funeral and is buried in a masjid near Parliament House in New Delhi.
– He was the second Muslim to become the president of India.
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Family back ground of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was born on 13 May 1905 in Hauz Qazi area of Old Delhi.
– The name of his grandfather was Shri Kaliluddin Ali Ahmed. He was a famous Islamic scholar.
– The name of his father was Col. Zalnur Ali. He was a doctor and belong to Indian Medical Services and it is believed that he was the first medical graduate from Assam.
– The name his mother was Sahibzadi Ruqaiyya Sultan and she was the daughter of the Nawab of Loharu.
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had total nine siblings out of that four brothers and five sisters.
– It is come in the light that in the year 2018 that several relatives of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed were left out of the National Register of Citizens for Assam because they could not produce documents to prove their antecedents.
Wife and Children
– The name of his wife was Begum Abida Ahmed.
– The couple had two sons and a daughter.
– Credit goes for overhauled of the kitchen of the President House and ensuring Awadhi cuisine was included in its repertoire to his wife Begum Abida Ahmed.
– In the 1980s, she was elected MP for two-term from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh as the candidate of Indian National Congress.
– Shri Parvez Ahmed, the elder son of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad is a doctor.
– In the general election of 2014, Shri Parvez Ahmed contested from Barpeta as a candidate of the Trinamool Congress party.
– The younger son of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, Shri Badar Durrez Ahmed, served as a judge of the Delhi High Court and retired as Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
How Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed belongs to Assam state?
The grandfather Shri Khaliluddin Ali Ahmed of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had married in one of the families who were the relics of Emperor Aurangzeb’s bid to conquer Assam. who lived in Kacharighat near Golaghat town in the Sibsagar district Assam and the transfer of his father had been to distant North-West Province.
Educational portfolio of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– The primary education Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had been done in the Bonda Government High School in U.P.
– Later he matriculated from the Delhi Government High School then under the Punjab University.
– He attended St. Stephen’s College, Delhi during the year 1921 and 1922.
– In the year 1923 he went to England for seeking higher education in order to groom him for the I C S exam.
– He joined the Catherine College of Cambridge University and he was also called to the Bar from Inner Temple of London.
– Due to his illness he could not appear in the exam for the I.C.S. then he came back to India in the year 1928 and he started his legal practice in the Lahore High Court.
Legal career of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– In the year 1928 when he returned to India from England He started his legal career at the Lahore High Court.
– In the year 1930 when he moved to Guwahati initially he worked as a junior lawyer under Nabin Chandra Bardoloi.
– He became the founding president of the Bar Association of the Assam High Court after its formation in 1948.
– Later he became the Advocate General for the state Assam.
How he come across with the Congress leaders?
In the year 1930 Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed visited Gauhati to look after his paternal property. On that time he came in contact with the leaders of the Congress in Assam. And in the year 1931 he enrolled himself as its primary member of India National Congress which became a turning event of his life.
His role in the Indian National Congress
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed joined the Indian National Congress as a primary member in 1931.
– Upto the year 1936 he became a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, the Working Committee of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee and the All India Congress Committee.
– In the year 1946 to 1947 he became a member of the Working Committee of the All India Congress Committee.
– During the year 1964 to 1974 just before he was elected as the President of India he was the member of the Parliamentary Board of the Indian National Congress.
Electoral & political career in pre-Independence India
– In the year 1937 Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was elected to the legislative assembly of Assam in the provincial elections which were held in accordance with the Government of India Act, 1935.
– He was one of three Muslim ministers of the Congress government of Assam province which was headed by Gopinath Bordoloi.
– He served as Minister for Finance, Revenue and Labour from 20 September 1938 to 16 November 1939.
– In the year 1938 he presented his first budget for the financial year 1939 – 1940.
– In the budget he introduced a new tax system to eliminate the state’s revenue deficit. like
* tax on agricultural income,
* taxes on amusements and betting,
* tax on sale of goods.
– He also introduced a new tax on agricultural income imposed a levy on the profits of the tea industry, a part of which was to be used for the welfare of workers in the tea plantations.
– The policy of pro-labour stance adopted by the Bordoloi Ministry and the strike in the Assam Oil Company was deemed as the inimical for the commercial interests of British government.
– In the year 1940 he was arrested and imprisoned for a year when he performed a satyagraha on Gandhi’s Permission.
– In the year 1942 when the Quit India Movement lunched he was also detained as a prisoner for a further three years at the jail in Jorhat.
– He was opposed to the Muslim League’s demand for the creation of Pakistan on communal lines and the Partition of India.
– In the elections for the year 1946 he lost the election for seat of the constituency of North Kamrup by Moulvi Abdul Hye the candidate of Muslim League.
– Thereafter he was appointed as the Advocate General of Assam and he hold post until 1952.
Career of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in independent India
– In the year 1952 the first general election in India he refused to contest the elections due to disagreements with the leadership of the Congress party and the Chief Minister of Assam Shri Bishnuram Medhi.
– In the year 1954 he was nominated and elected as the member of Rajya Sabha.
– In the year 1957 he resigned from his Rajya Sabha membership to contest in Assam Legislative Assembly election.
– He contested for Assam Legislative Assembly election and won in the year 1957 and 1962 by 66.13% and 84.56% votes respectively.
– He served as Minister of Finance, Law, Community Development, Panchayats and Local Self Government during 1957 to 1962 tenour in Assam Government.
His role in enforcing the Prevention of Infiltrators Plan
– The impact of his efforts was that he facilitated the entry of Muslim League leader Muhammad Saadullah into the Congress Party in 1951 along with Assam Chief Minister Shri Gopinath Bordoloi.
– He played a role in frustrating Chief Minister Chaliha’s attempts at enforcing the Prevention of Infiltrators Plan. which was based on the National Register of Citizens 1951. In which the illegal migrants had to identify and deported from Assam.
– He argued that if the Congress Party were to continue with this plan. It would lead to its loss of support among Muslims in Assam and across the rest of India.
– He had been accused for allowing the steady influx of Muslims from East Pakistan resulted a big vote-bank created for the Congress Party.
– It is also believed that the act of the entry of the illegal migrants into Assam was became one of the factors that led to the Nellie Massacre in Assam in the year 1983 in which nearly 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered by a mob in just six hours.
As the Union Minister of Irrigation and Power
– In the Year 1966 he was appointed the Union Minister for Irrigation and Power in first cabinet of Sushri Indira Gandhi government
– He was one of a handful ministers Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi brought from the cabinet of Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri.
– In the year 1966 he was elected to the Rajya Sabha for second time.
As the Union Minister of Education
– His portfolio had been changed in November 1966 as the Union Minister for Education and served upto March 1967.
– In the brief period as Union Minister of Education he voiced over the reduced allocations government seats in colleges made by the Education Ministry.
– He oversaw the reconstruction of the educational programs in India and also the amendment bill of Banaras Hindu University Act 1966.
As the Union Minister of Industrial Development and Company Affairs
– In March 1967 his portfolio had been changed once again and took charge as the Union Minister of Industrial Development and Company Affairs.
– In the 1967 parliamentary elections he was elected first time to the Lok Sabha from the Barpeta constituency of Assam.
– During his tenure as the Union Minister of Industrial Development, his ministry issued a letter of intent to Sanjay Gandhi to manufacture fifty thousand Maruti cars annually through the Directorate General of Technical Development.
– It is believed that the letter of intent was issued to Shri Sanjay Gandhi even though he had no technical expertise for such a venture and also lacked the capital required to set up such a venture.
– In the year 1969 he introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to ban corporate funding to political parties by made amendment in the Companies Act, 1956.
– The bill aimed to curb the influence of large businesses on the political establishment and also aimed to hamstring the centre-right Swatantra Party by preventing its access to funding.
– The result of this amendment was the abolishment of the key legal source to collect the election funds by the political parties but was the birth of a subsequent proliferation of illegal practices as campaign funding.
– In the year 1969 he was sent to Rabat, Morocco as head of the Indian delegation at the Islamic Summit.
– But on his arrival in Morocco the Indian delegation was barred from attending the summit on the objections by General Ayub Khan, the head of the Pakistani delegation.
– This incident treated as the diplomatic failure for India and led to a vote of censure was also presented in the Parliament, but the Government had been succeed to defeat the vote of censure with the help of the communist and regional parties.
As the Union Minister for Food and Agriculture
– He was appointed as the Union Minister for Food and Agriculture from 27 June 1970 to 3 July 1974.
– In the 1971 general election he was re-elected the member of Lok Sabha from Barpeta constituency.
– In the year 1971 he was also appointed as the minister in charge of Wakf Board under the Muslim Wakfs Act, 1954.
– In the year 1971 he was appointed as the chairman of the Central Land Reforms Committee. Which was constituted with the aim of helping the state governments to undertake comprehensive land reform.
– He had supported the creation of food and fertilizer buffer stocks to meet shortfalls in production during his term as the Minister of Food and Agriculture.
– In the year 1973 the nationalization of the wholesale trade in wheat by the government of India was implemented during his term.
– In the year 1974 the proposals of the nationalization to the trade in rice had been abandoned due to massive corruption and mis-management seen in the nationalization of the wholesale trade in wheat scheme which was launched in the year 1973.
What was the corruption and mis-management found in the nationalization of the wholesale trade in wheat.
The aim of the plan to nationalize the wholesale trade in wheat was to prevent market distortions and ensure price stability. But the policy proved disastrous because of the corruption and mismanagement that occurred under the scheme and the wheat procurement was reduced in this period leading to reduced buffer stocks and ultimately forcing the import of more than 60 lakh tones of the grain at higher prices.
Role as the President of India
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had taken charge for the office of the President of India on 24 August 1974 and served upto his death on 10 February 1977.
– In July 1974 the Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi and the Congress Party had selected and chosen him as the candidate for the election for next President of India and by doing this the congress party overlooked the nomination of the Vice President Shri Gopal Swarup Pathak, who was elected with the support of the Congress Party in the year 1969.
– The presidential election for the year 1974 was held on 17 August and the direct contest between the candidate of Congress Party Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and Shri Tridib Chaudhuri, the candidate of opposition, Who was a member of Lok Sabha from the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed won the election by getting 80.18% votes and was declared elected for the office of President of India on 20 August 1974.
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was sworn in as the fifth President of India on 24 August 1974.
– He made the history to became the second person of the Muslim community to hold that office and the first person to be directly elevated as the President of India directly from the Union Cabinet Minister.
– He was also the first President to be elected after the amendment in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Election Act, 1952, to made it mandatory for any of the contestant for the office that the contestant have to deposit a security deposit of Rs 2500. Along with a letter of ten MLA’s to propose his name and an additional 10 Members to second his name.
Who challenged the Presidential election 1974?
An advocate-on-record Shri Charu Lal Sahu had filed an unsuccessful petition before the Suprema Court of India for challenged the Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s election for President of India.
Emergency of 1975 and Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had signed the ordinance to impose a national emergency under Article 352 of India’s Constitution late in the night of 25 June 1975 on the advice of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
– The legality of its imposition of emergency was on the ground of “a grave emergency exists in the country whereby the security of India is threatened by internal disturbances.”
– The Intelligence Bureau, the Home Ministry, the Governor of any state had no information about it, nor was there any discussion on this proposal in the Union Council of Ministers. makes this action suspicious.
– The draft of action of impose national emergency was written by the Prime Minister Sushri Indira Gandhi’s Private Secretary Mr. R. K. Dhawan and the proposal was brought in front of the president by him personally.
– It is said that the President was informed of the constitutional impropriety of this action. But President Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed did not raise any questions on this draft and decided to sign the order imposing emergency.
– Next day the prime minister Sushri Indira Gandhi addressed the nation on All India Radio announcing the Emergency, beginning with the words “The President has proclaimed an emergency. This is nothing to panic about.”
– The national emergency which was imposed in the country on 25 June 1975 lasted until 21 March 1977 and the period of emergency has been described as a period of darkness for India’s democracy.
Constitutional Amendments taken place during the term of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Some of the major constitutional amendments had been done during his term as President of India –
– In August 1975 the 38th and 39th Constitutional Amendment Bills introduced and passed by Parliament and also received presidential assent because the Congress Party enjoyed the two-thirds majority in the parliament .
– As per The 38th Constitutional Amendment Bill precluded the Emergency and the ordinances passed during this period from judicial review.
– And as per the 39th Constitutional Amendment Bill the courts were barred from deciding election petitions filed against the President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Lok Sabha and also any proceedings pending before the courts were deemed null and void.
– During this period a bill had been passed by both houses of Parliament which amended articles 59 of the Constitution and the Preamble had also amended by introducing a new section containing the Fundamental Duties of citizens.
– In December 1976, the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Bill was passed and signed by the President, which is treated as the mini constitution of India.
Importance of 38th and 39th Constitutional Amendments
In the year 1975, Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi gave literal instructions to President Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to issue some ordinances out of Parliament to allow her to rule by decree.
In August 1975 the 38th and 39th Constitutional Amendment Bills introduced and passed by Parliament and also received presidential assent because the Congress Party enjoyed the two-thirds majority in the parliament .
As per The 38th Constitutional Amendment Bill precluded the Emergency and the ordinances passed during this period from judicial review.
And as per the 39th Constitutional Amendment Bill the courts were barred from deciding election petitions filed against the President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Lok Sabha and also any proceedings pending before the courts were deemed null and void.
Ordinances passed by President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– In the year 1975, Prime Minister Ms. Indira Gandhi gave literal instructions to President Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to issue some ordinances out of Parliament to allow her to rule by decree.
– The Ordinances issued in this period included one abolishing bonded labour.
– The Equal Remuneration Ordinance had also been passed by which provided for equal pay for equal work or work of similar nature.
– The amendment to the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974, which allowed detention of the offenders for a period of two years.
– An amendment had also been passed to secure the Import and Export (Controls) Act, by increasing the severity of penalties for offences relating to the misuse of import licenses and imported goods among scores of other ordinances issued during the year.
– The Indira government dispatched a special courier carrying three executive ordinances in December 1975, when President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was on a state visit to Egypt and Sudan.
– The three executive ordinances were as under which was promptly signed by the President of India Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in Cairo –
– Preventing publication of material deemed objectionable by the government,
– Abolishing the Press Council of India,
– Lifting immunities on media’s coverage of Parliament.
– In January 1976 the President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed dismissed the government of Tamil Nadu which was headed by the CM M. Karunanidhi and declared President’s rule.
– In March 1976 an Ordinance had been passed by which the responsibility of maintaining government accounts were taken away from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
– In June 1976 an ordinance was also passed by which detainees could be detained for a period of one year under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act.
– During this period some other amendment had also been passed included –
– It attempted to severely limit the powers of the Supreme Court,
– Transferring many responsibilities assigned to the state governments till now to the central government,
– Extended the tenure of Lok Sabha by six years.
Support of the Emergency by the President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had always spoken as a President of India in favour of the imposition of Emergency throughout his term period.
– In the year 1975 when he addressed the nation on the eve of Independence Day he assured citizens that the imposition of emergency was necessary to save the country from chaos and disruption.
– He said in his speech that the indiscipline and disorder brought about by reactionary forces had slowed down India’s development and he also cautioned that liberty should not “degenerate into license”.
– In the year 1976 in the address to the nation on Republic day he said that the Emergency has helped to boost the country’s economy and brought about “national discipline at all levels”.
– In the year 1976 on the eve of Independence Day he stated that the Emergency had not been used to switch over from the parliamentary system of government to a presidential system of government.
– He stated that the main reason for imposing the Emergency was to enable the government to acquire powers in excess of those given under the Constitution so that the government can “bring about such economic, social and political changes as may be relevant and necessary in the interest of the people of India.”
State visits and President of India Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad
– He was visited Saudi Arabia in March 1975 to attend the funeral of King Faisal was the first time an Indian President had been personally present at the funeral of another head of state.
– He was the first Indian President to visit Saudi Arabia.
– He was the second senior Indian leader to visit Saudi Arabia after Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit in 1956.
– In December 1975, Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed visited Juba in South Sudan and he addressed the Regional Peoples’ Assembly.
– During his tenure as President of India he visited the following countries. Which includes Indonesia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Sudan, Iran and Malaysia.
President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed as a sportsman
– President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was a keen sportsman throughout his life.
– He was an active golfer during his presidency period.
– He was also a hockey player and played for the Combined Universities Hockey Team in Cambridge as the centre-half position.
– He was the president of Assam State Football Association as well as the Assam State Cricket Association for many years.
– He served as the vice-chairman of the Assam Council of Sports and later he also served as the President of the All-India Lawn Tennis Federation and he was associated with the Indian Olympic Association also.
– The credit goes to Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed for reviving the Shillong Golf Club and resurrecting the mini golf course at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
– In the year 1975 he introduced the President’s Polo Cup as an open tournament, which was temporarily discontinued in the year 2005. Now since the year 2013, it is organized as President’s Polo Cup exhibition match.
Awards and Honours received by Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– During his visit to Yugoslavia he was conferred with an honorary degree of Doctor of Law by the University of Pristina, Kosovo.
– The Bangladesh government posthumous honoured him in the year 2013 with the “Bangladesh Liberation War Honour”.
Commemoration in the honour of President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– In the year 1977 the Indian Post issued a commemorative postage stamp to commemorate him.
– The name of Assam Medical College which is in Barpeta Assam had been changed as “The Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College to commemorate him.
– The name of a Teachers Training College of Darbhanga, Bihar had also been changed to “The Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Teachers Training College”.
– In the year 1977 The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has introduced an award which carries a citation and the cash prize of ₹2 lakh named as “The Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Award” for the scientists doing research in tribal and remote areas.
– In the year 1977 the Films Division of India produced a short documentary film directed by J. S. Bandekar on the life and career of President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed named as “Salute To The President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed”.
Cartoon of the cartoonist Abu Abraham on President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– The period of the presidential term of Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed is treated as the Rubber Stamp presidency
– It was also depicted in the form of a cartoon created by the famous cartoonist Abu Abraham.
– By escaping the notice of the government censors, on 10 December 1975, a cartoon created by the cartoonist Abu Abraham published in the Indian Express news paper.
– The cartoon showed President Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed sitting in a bathtub filled with water in semi-nude position and handing over a signed paper to the outstretched hand of a man dressed in a formal suit and shirt and telling him, “If there are any more ordinances, just tell them to wait.” This was depicted in the speech balloon of the cartoon.
– This cartoon became an iconic image of the Emergency. The cartoon shows the lampooned President’s pliability in signing the ordinances put before him.
– This published cartoon caused irreparable damage to the image and legacy of President Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, and he became widely known as a rubber stamp President.
Death and last rites of the President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
– President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad was on the state visit to Malaysia, Philippines and Burma, suddenly flew back to New Delhi from Kuala Lumpur on 10 February 1977 due to ill health.
– In the morning of 11 February 1977, President Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad who had already suffered with heart attacks in 1966 and 1970 and now his health was described as being uncertain. He was found lying unconscious in his bath room of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
– He was attended to by doctors but was declared dead at 8:52 a.m. having succumbed to a heart attack.
– He was the India’s second president to die in office.
– The body of President late Shri Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed lay in the Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan for people pay their respect to him.
– He was accorded a state funeral and buried in the grounds of the Jama Masjid near Parliament House on 13 February 1977.
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