Sir Malik Feroz Khan Noon was born in the village of Hamoka, located in the Khushab District on 7th May 1893. He came from an aristocratic landowning family that was known for their wealth and reputation in social circles and belonged to the Punjabi Jat family of the Noon clan.
He got his early education from Aitchison College, Lahore and then went to London for higher education, where he completed his master’s degree in 1916.
FEROZ KHAN NOON
Born on 7 May 1893
Died on 9 Dec 1970
7th Prime Minister of Pakistan
After his initial schooling, he attended Aitchison College in Lahore before being sent to England for higher studies in 1912. The India Office arranged for him to stay with the family of a Reverend Lloyd in Ticknall, South Derbyshire. From there he applied to study at Oxford University, initially being rejected by Balliol College, he was then accepted by Wadham College. He stayed with Lloyd’s family until 1913 and had a close relationship with them until he went to Oxford. At Wadham College, he studied History and Persian, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in history in 1916. He was a keen Soccer player and played collegiate field hockey for Isis Club. Soon after, he moved to London to sit the Law examination. He qualified as a Barrister-at-Law from the Inner Temple in 1917.
Upon his return to the sub-continent, he set up a practice as a Lawyer in the District Courts of Sargodha. He stood for the 1920 Lahore Legislative Council elections and won with a majority of nearly 10,000. He subsequently moved to Lahore, where he practised at the High Court and established his reputation in civil law until 1927. He was a member of the Provincial Legislative Council of the Punjab from 1920 to 1936 and a Minister for 10 years. He was appointed High Commissioner for India in London in July 1936, a position he held for five and a half years.
In 1920–21, he entered into national politics and was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly on the platform of the Unionist Party. During this time, he formed a close acquaintance with Jogendra Singh. From 1927 until 1931, he joined the cabinet of the Governor of Punjab, Malcolm Hailey and held the portfolio of Provincial Minister of Local Government until 1930.
Between 1931 and 1936, Noon was in the cabinets of Governors Geoffrey Fitzhervey de Montmorency, Sir Sikandar Hayat, and Herbert William Emerson where he held provincial portfolios of Ministries of Health and Education.
In December 1932, he was appointed as an Officer of the Venerable Order of Saint John. In 1933, he was knighted in the 1933 New Year Honours List. He was appointed as Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) in the 1937 Coronation Honours List and appointed as Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in October 1941.
In 1936, he resigned from his public service in Punjab when he was appointed as the High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom.
Over the issue of the Immigration Act of 1924 in the United States, the British Government directed Noon to Washington D.C. He was accompanied by Nevile Butler of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1941 to address issues of American exploration in Baluchistan, and the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status between the United States and the United Kingdom, in light of the Anglo-American Trade Agreement signed in 1938. He showed great reluctance to grant American Petroleum Company access to Baluchistan due to the Indian government’s difficulty maintaining control in remote areas adjacent to Iran and Afghanistan, especially when Indians were being barred from entering the United States.
After the start of World War II in 1939, Noon, who had pro-British views, supported British efforts against the Axis powers, lobbying for the deployment of the British Indian Army in Africa and the Middle East. In 1940, he strongly supported Egyptian plans to establish the grand mosque in London. During the height of the anti-British Quit India Movement in India, Noon played a crucial role by convincing Prime Minister Churchill of the support of Indian Muslims for continued British control there.
In 1941, he left his diplomatic post when he was asked to join the Churchill cabinet, being appointed first as his Military Adviser by the Secretary of State for India of India Office on the affairs of the Indian Army. He later joined the Viceroy’s Executive Council’s cabinet as a Labour Minister, and played a crucial role in advising against the Independence of India, without addressing the push of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other leaders for the Muslim question.
In 1944–45, Churchill appointed him to the War Department, leading his own department alongside Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar who provided representation for British India in the Pacific War Council. In 1945, he was appointed as Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, attending the first UN session in San Francisco, California.
In 1946, he joined the Muslim League, led by Jinnah. He merged his faction of the Unionist Party into the Muslim League and garnered public support for the cause of Pakistan amidst opposition from Khizar Hayat Tiwana, who wanted to remain as Premier of the Indian Punjab.
During the 1945 Indian General Election, his merging of the Unionist Party into the Muslim League played a decisive role. The Muslim League won by a landslide victory in the Punjab.
In 1947, he retained his constituency and became a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan (MNA) of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, following the establishment of Pakistan as a result of the Partition of India. In October 1947, Jinnah, now Governor-General of Pakistan, appointed him as a Special Envoy and dispatched him to Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world to introduce Pakistan and explain the reasons for its creation, to familiarize the Muslim countries with its internal problems, and to get moral and financial support from the brother countries. Noon performed the role assigned to him in a successful manner.
In 1950, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan removed him from the Foreign Ministry and appointed him as the Governor of East Bengal. However, he was less interested in the politics of East Bengal and focused towards the provincial politics of Punjab in Pakistan, contesting with Mumtaz Daultana for the post of Chief Minister. He had little interest in strengthening the political program of the Muslim League in Bengal and offered no political action when the popular Bengali Language Movement took place in 1950–51. On 25th July 1952, he returned to Punjab in Pakistan and left the post to Abdur Rahman Siddiqui, returning to his post on 10th November 1952. He left Dhaka to become the Chief Minister of Punjab on 26 March 1953.
After the 1953 religious riots in Lahore that resulted in Daultana’s resignation, he finally achieved his goal when he convinced Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin to appoint him as the third Chief Minister of Punjab.
In 1955, he parted from the Muslim League when he helped to establish the Republican Party, supporting the cause of the One Unit programme that laid the establishment of the West and East wings of Pakistan. He took over the Presidency of the Republican Party and joined the coalition of the three-party government composed of, the Awami League, the Muslim League, and the Republican Party that endorsed Iskander Mirza for the Presidency. He had been ideologically very close to Mirza and was appointed to the coalition cabinet of Prime Minister Hussain Suhrawardy.
In 1956–57, he attempted to hold talks with India over the Kashmir issue, and insurgency in Eastern India but was unable to make any breakthrough.
After the resignations of the Awami League’s H.S. Suhrawardy and the Muslim League’s I.I. Chundrigar, he was the last candidate from the three-party coalition Government and started his support for the premiership on a conservative-Republican Party agenda. He successfully forged an alliance with the Awami League, the National Awami Party, the Krishak Sramik Party, and the parliamentary groups in the National Assembly that allowed him to form the government as its Prime Minister.
On 16 December 1957, he was elected as the seventh Prime Minister of Pakistan. He held this post until 7th October 1958, when martial law was enforced for the first time in Pakistan’s history by Iskander Mirza. Noon took an oath from Chief Justice M. Munir and formed a coalition Government. During this time, he entered into complicated but successful negotiations with the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman for the cession of Gwadar, which was taken into the Federation of Pakistan on 8th September 1958, for the price of US$3 million. His ability to get Gwadar into the Federation, and settlement of political issues in the country generally, threatened President Mirza who saw him as an obstacle to Mirza obtaining absolute power. He tried to obtain a compromise with India regarding the Kashmir problem.
He had not endorsed the presidential re-election of Mirza as the three-party coalition had been negotiating with their President to replace Mirza in 1958. At midnight on 7/8 October 1958, Mirza imposed martial law in a coup against his own party’s Government, effectively dismissing his own appointed Prime Minister to usurp all political power into his own hands.
Soon after, he retired from national politics and became a political writer. He authored five books “Wisdom From Fools (1940), Scented Dust (1941), India (1941), Kashmir (1957) and From Memory (1966)” on the history of India and issues pertaining to law and politics in Pakistan.
He was married to Viqar-un-Nisa Noon, an Austrian, who was a prominent politician and a social worker by profession.
He died on 9th December 1970 in his ancestral village of Nurpur Noon, Sargodha District, where he is buried.