Nurul Amin | |
|---|---|
নুরুল আমিন نور الامین | |
 | |
| Vice President of Pakistan | |
| In office 20 December 1971 – 14 August 1973 | |
| President | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Preceded by | Post created |
| Succeeded by | Post abolished |
| President of Pakistan | |
| In office 20 January 1972 – 28 January 1972 | |
| President | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Preceded by | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Succeeded by | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| In office 1 April 1972 – 21 April 1972 | |
| President | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Preceded by | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Succeeded by | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Prime Minister of Pakistan | |
| In office 7 December 1971 – 20 December 1971 | |
| President | Yahya Khan |
| Deputy | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Preceded by | Feroz Khan Noon Ayub Khan (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto |
| Leader of the Opposition | |
| In office 9 July 1967 – 7 December 1970 | |
| Preceded by | Fatima Jinnah |
| Succeeded by | Khan Abdul Wali Khan |
| Chief Minister of East Bengal | |
| In office 14 September 1948 – 3 April 1954 | |
| Governor | Feroz Khan Noon Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman |
| Preceded by | Khawaja Nazimuddin |
| Succeeded by | Fazlul Huq |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1893-07-15)15 July 1893 Shahbazpur,Bengal Presidency,British India |
| Died | 2 October 1974(1974-10-02) (aged 81) Rawalpindi,Punjab,Pakistan |
| Resting place | Mazar-e-Quaid,Karachi, Pakistan |
| Citizenship | Pakistan |
| Political party | Pakistan Democratic Party (1969–1974) |
| Other political affiliations |
|
| Relatives |
|
| Alma mater | |
Nurul Amin[a] (15 July 1893 – 2 October 1974) was a Pakistani politician and jurist who served as the eighthprime minister of Pakistan from 7 December to 20 December 1971. His term of only 13 days as prime minister was the shortest served in Pakistani parliamentary history. He was also the onlyVice President of Pakistan.
Starting his political career in 1948 asChief Minister of East Bengal, he headed theMinistry of Supply. Despite being aBengali, Amin was against theBengali language movement of 1952. After participating in the1970 Pakistani general election, He was appointed as thePrime Minister of Pakistan. He was the first and onlyVice President of Pakistan from 1970 to 1972 and also led Pakistan during theBangladesh War of Independence.
Nurul Amin was born on 15 July 1893 inShahbazpur,Sarail located inTippera District of theBengal Presidency (now inBrahmanbaria District,Bangladesh).[1] He belonged to aBengali Muslim family from the village of Bahadurpur inNandail,Mymensingh District.[2] His father was azamindar, and his grandfather served as theAʻlā Ṣadr (district judge) under theNawabs of Bengal.[3][4]
In 1915, Amin passed the college entrance examination fromMymensingh Zilla School, joiningAnanda Mohan College two years later to obtain his Intermediate in Arts (I.A); he graduated with a bachelor's degree inEnglish literature in 1919.[2] After graduating, Amin took a position teaching at the local school Gaffargaon Islamia Government High School and then another local school inCalcutta, but decided to pursue his career in law.[2] In 1920, Amin began at theUniversity of Calcutta; he gained an LLB in Law and Justice in 1924, and passed the Bar exam the same year. Amin started his career in law after joining the Mymensingh Judge Court Bar.[citation needed]
In 1929, Amin was appointed as a member of the Mymensingh Local Board, and later became a member of the Mymensingh District Board in 1930. In 1932, theBritish Indian Government appointed him as commissioner of Mymensingh Municipality. In 1937, Amin was appointed as the Chairman of Mymensingh District Board, an assignment he continued until 1945.[citation needed]
During this time, Amin's interest in politics increased. He became an early member of theAll-India Muslim League led byMohammad Ali Jinnah. During this time, Amin was appointed as President of the Muslim League's Mymensingh district unit. In 1944, he was elected vice-president of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League.[citation needed]
In 1945, Amin participated in the Indian general elections, securing a landslide victory. He became a Member, and the following year was elected as the Speaker General of theBengal Legislative Assembly.[citation needed]
Amin became a trusted lieutenant ofMuhammad Ali Jinnah inEast Bengal, fighting for the rights ofBengali Muslims in British India.[5] Amin took an active part in thePakistan Movement, organising Bengali Muslims, while he continued to strengthen the Muslim League in Bengal.[5]
In 1946, Jinnah came to visit Bengal, where Amin assisted him. He promised the Bengali nation that, he would build a democratic country.[5] In East Bengal, Amin promoted the unity of Muslims. By the time of the creation of Pakistan, Amin had become one of the leading advocates and activists of the Pakistan Movement; he had wide approval ratings by the Bengali population.[5]
After the death of Jinnah, Amin was nominated as the Chief Minister of East Bengal in September 1948 byKhawaja Nazimuddin, who succeeded Jinnah as Governor General.[6]
Amin worked for the Muslim League in East Bengal, while continuing his relief programme for the population. As Chief Minister, his relations were significantly strained with Prime MinisterLiaquat Ali Khan and theGovernor-General of Pakistan Khawaja Nazimuddin. Soon after theassassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, Amin was appointed asMinister of Supply. He was elected as a member of thePakistan National Assembly from 1947 until 1954.[citation needed] Amin assumed the office of Chief Minister in a few weeks.[6]
Historians have noted that Amin's government was not strong enough to administer the provincial state; it was completely under the control of the central government of Nazimuddin.[6] His government did not enjoy enough power, and lacked vision, imagination and initiatives.[6] Amin failed to counter theCommunist Party's influence in the region, which widely took the credit for turning the language movement in 1952 into a large unified mass protest.[6]
During Amin's term as Chief Minister, Governor General Nazimuddin (also from East Bengal but bilingual) reiterated the federal government's position that whileBengali was the language of virtually all East Pakistanis as well as the majority of Pakistanis as a whole, it was not to be considered a national language on a par withUrdu.[7] In response, theBengali Language Movement developed, and the ruling Muslim League lost popularity in East Pakistan. Both Nazimuddin and Amin failed to integrate the East Pakistani population with that of West Pakistan, and eventually the East Pakistan Muslim League lost significant administrative control of the province.[7] Amin on the other hand, held Communist Party responsible for this failure, accusing them of provoking the language movement.[7]
Public dissatisfaction with Amin had grown since October 1951, when Nazimuddin became prime minister. Amin expelled dissidents from within the ranks of the Muslim League, but doing so simply strengthened opposition to the party.[8] In early 1952, students protested against Prime Minister Nazimuddin's declaration in the provincial capital Dacca (nowDhaka) that Urdu would be the sole national language. During the unrest, theEast Pakistan Police opened fire, killing student activists. This raised more opposition in the region to the Muslim League.[9] PMMohammad Ali Bogra (also a Bengali) visited East Bengal in early 1954 in an attempt to rally support for the League, but it was too late.[8] Leading politicians in West and East Pakistan called for Amin's resignation, and new elections were soon held.
In the 1954 provisional elections, the Muslim League was defeated by the United Front, an alliance between theAwami League (led byHuseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy), theKrishak Sramik Party (chaired byA. K. Fazlul Huq), the Nizam Islam Party (headed by Maulana Athar Ali), and theGanatantri Dal (led byHaji Mohammad Danesh andMahmud Ali), eventually becoming more and more influential in Pakistani politics.[10] It was in this turnover that Amin lost his assembly seat to a veteran student leader of East Pakistan,Khaleque Nawaz Khan, who had also been active in the Language Movement.[11] The Muslim League was effectively eliminated from the provincial political landscape.[12]
Amin served as the president of the East Pakistan Muslim League, and worked to improve its standing. During this time, the Pakistani authorities made reforms, including granting official status to the Bengali language in 1956 alongside Urdu.[13] But afterArmy CommanderGeneral Mohammad Ayub Khan imposed martial law following the successful October1958 Pakistani coup d'état against the government of PresidentIskander Mirza, Amin's political career was halted as Ayub Khan disbanded all political parties in the country.[12]
Amin ran as a candidate in the1965 presidential elections in East Pakistan, winning the majority vote in theParliament of Pakistan. He declined working with Ayub Khan. The same year, after the death ofFatima Jinnah, Amin succeeded Jinnah asLeader of the Opposition, which he held until 1969, after GeneralYahya Khan imposed martial law again.[14][citation needed]
Amin in June 1969 merged hisNational Democratic Front with a dissident group of the Awami League led byNawabzada Nasrullah Khan, theNizam-e-Islam Party, and Air Marshal (Retd.)Asghar Khan's Justice Party to form thePakistan Democratic Party (PDP). The new party wasideologically moderate. It strongly supported a united Pakistan. Amin was elected president of the PDP at its first convention.[15]
In the1970 Pakistani general election, the PDP fielded 21 candidates in West Pakistan and 81 in East Pakistan. Of all of them, only Amin won his seat,[15] NE-83-Mymensingh-VIII.[16] He was one of only two non-Awami League candidates elected to theNational Assembly that year from East Pakistan.[17]
In March 1971, theBangladesh War of Independence broke out. Amin, long dedicated to a united Pakistan, opposed the separatist movement in his home province ofEast Pakistan.[18]
As an anti-war and principalPakistan Movement activist, Amin is considered in Pakistan as a patriot who worked to retain Pakistan as a united nation, however he is considered by manyBangladeshis as a traitor who collaborated with an occupying force accused ofgenocide and other war crimes.[19]
Yahya Khan appointed Amin asPrime Minister on 6 December 1971.[20] On 20 December 1971, however, Amin's term as prime minister was cut short as Khan resigned, leaving the deputy prime minister (and foreign minister)Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to be sworn in as the new president. Two days later, Amin was appointed asVice President of Pakistan, the only person to have held this post. He was sworn into the post again on 23 April 1972 after the interim constitution came into effect andmartial law was lifted. He continued to hold the post until the office was abolished with the entry into force of the new constitution on 14 August 1973.
Amin stayed in West Pakistan, while his home region achieved independence as thePeople's Republic of Bangladesh. He died of cardiac arrest aged 81 inRawalpindi on 2 October 1974 and was given a public state funeral by Prime MinisterZulfikar Ali Bhutto.[21] He was buried inJinnah Mausoleum, next to Jinnah. His tomb was specially designed, made of Italian white marble, with golden letters for his name and contributions.[21]
Nurul Amin was a trusted lieutenant of Quaid-i-Azam and a valiant fighter for the Pakistan Movement, and for Pakistan. He proved himself to be a crusader of (Pakistan's) solidarity and earned for himself the highest pedestal by dint of his efforts, intelligence, and his struggle...
— Malick Meraj Khalid, minister of law and parliamentary affairs, tribute to Nurul Amin, atninth parliamentary session, 1976,[5]
Amin had written an unpublished autobiography. His second-eldest son,Anwarul Amin Makhon, was the former general manager ofBCCI Bangladesh and openedBangladesh Bank's first branch abroad (inLondon).[22] Anwarul Amin Makhon was married to theEkushey Padak-winning writer and poetRazia Khan, the daughter ofPakistan Assembly SpeakerTamizuddin Khan, and had two children: bankerKaiser Tamiz Amin and journalistAasha Mehreen Amin.[23][24]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief Minister of East Bengal 1948–1954 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of the Opposition 1967–1970 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Pakistan 1971 | Succeeded by |
| New office | Vice President of Pakistan 1971–1973 | Position abolished |
 |  | ||
