He was born on 19th July 1894 at Dacca (now Dhaka) into a wealthy Bengali family of the Nawabs of Dhaka. His father was Khwaja Nizamuddin and his paternal grandfather was Khwaja Fakhruddin. His family hailed from Kashmir and was long settled in Dacca. He was the maternal grandson of Nawab Bahadur Sir Khwaja Ahsanullah. He had a younger brother, Khwaja Shahabuddin, who would later play a vital role in national politics onwards. His family spoke Persian, Urdu, and Bengali. They were the first cousin of Nawab Khwaja Habibullah son of Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur who helped lay the foundation of the Muslim League in 1906.
KHAWAJA NAZIMUDDIN
Born on 19 Jul 1894
Died on 22 Oct 1964
Pakistan’s Second Prime Minister and Politician
He was educated at the Dunstable Grammar School in England but returned to India following his Matriculation where he enrolled to attend the MAO College of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in India. He secured his Graduation with a BA degree in Sociology from AMU and returned to England to pursue his higher education. During his time at AMU, he was known to be an avid tennis player and excelled in this sport when he represented his university in collegiate games.
Later he went to England and attended Trinity Hall at Cambridge University. He was granted his MA degree in English by Cambridge University.  His training in England enabled him to practice law and become a Barrister-at-Law from Middle Temple in London. He was knighted in 1934. In 1947–49, he was granted the degree of Doctor of Laws by the Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University, Dr. Mahmud Hasan.
After returning to India, he joined his brother Khwaja Shahabuddin and started taking an interest in civil and public affairs which led him to join Bengali politics. Both brothers joined the Muslim League and Nazimuddin successfully ran for the municipality election and was elected as Chairman of Dhaka Municipality from 1922 until 1929. During this time, he was appointed as the Education Minister of Bengal. He remained minister of Education till 1934. Later he was appointed to Viceroy’s Executive Council in 1934 where he served until 1937. In the former capacity he successfully piloted the Compulsory Primary Education Bill; removing the disparity that existed in education between the Hindus and the Muslims. As Minister for Agriculture in 1935, he piloted the Agriculture Debtors Bill and the Bengal Rural Development Bill which freed poor Muslim cultivators from the clutches of Hindu moneylenders.
He also participated in regional elections held in 1937 on a Muslim League’s platform but conceded his defeat in favour of Fazlul Haq of Krishak Praja Party (KPP) who was appointed as Prime Minister of Bengal, while assuming his personal role as member of the legislative assembly.
Upon the formation of the coalition government in an agreement facilitated between the Muslim League and the Krishak Praja Party, Nazimuddin was appointed as the home minister under Haq’s premiership, which he continued until 1943.
In 1943, he took over the Government from Premier Haq when the latter was dismissed by the Governor, John Herbert, amid controversies surrounding his political campaigns. During this time, he played a crucial political role in the cause of the separate Muslim homeland, Pakistan. About his role, he was asked about the “Pakistan question” by British Governor Richard Casey in 1945 but he showed very little and no interest in discussing the existence of the movement and reportedly quoted: he did not know what Pakistan meant and nobody in Muslim League knew. His premiership lasted until 1945 when a motion of no confidence and faced defeat in the assembly hall by 160 to 97 votes effectively ended his premiership. He relinquished the office to Nausher Ali, an Indian nationalist Muslim and a prominent member of the Congress Party who was the speaker of the assembly, but the administration was taken over by Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy.
From 1945 to 1947, he continued to be served as the Chairman of the Muslim League in Bengal, ardently supporting the political cause for Pakistan against the Congress Party.   During this time, he had been in brief conflict with Premier Suhrawardy and strongly opposed the United Bengal Movement and led a strong parliamentary opposition in the assembly against Suhrawardy’s Administration in April 1947. The conflict between the two men mainly existed because Suhrawardy represented the middle class while Nazimuddin represented the aristocracy in the assembly.
In 1947, he again contested in the party elections in the Muslim League against Suhrawardy’s platform and secured his nomination as the party Chairman for the Muslim League’s East Bengal chapter.  His success in the party election eventually led him to the appointed as the first Chief Minister of East Bengal after the Partition of India in 1947 and effectively gained control of the Muslim League in the province.  As the Chief Minister, he led the motion of confidence that ultimately voted in favour of joining the Federation of Pakistan and reorganized the Government of East Pakistan by delegating conservative members in his administration.
On 14th August 1947, Governor-General Muhammad Ali Jinnah relinquished the party Presidency of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) to Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin who took over the party of the President of Pakistan Muslim League (PML), due to his party electoral performance.  On 1st November 1947, he was appointed as Acting Governor-General in the absence of Jinnah due to worsening health and eventually appointed as Governor-General after the passing of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in crucial support provided by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on 14th September 1948 to Nazimuddin. His oath of office was supervised by Chief Justice Sir Abdul Rashid of the Federal Court of Pakistan, in attendance with Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. As Governor-General, he set a precedent of neutrality and non-interference in the Government, and provided his political support to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s Government, which was seen as essential to the working of the responsible Government at that time.  His role as Governor-General reflected a conservative mindset and he spoke against secularism in the country.
In 1949, Governor-General Nazimuddin established the parliamentary committee, the Basic Principles Committee, on the advice of Prime Minister Ali Khan to underlying basic principles that would lay the foundation of the Constitution of Pakistan.
In 1950, Nazimuddin released an official policy statement and declared that: “Pakistan would remain incomplete until the whole of Kashmir is liberated.
In 1951, after the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, the Muslim League leaders asked him to take over the business of the Government as well as the party’s Presidency as there was no other person found suitable for the post.  He appointed Finance Minister Sir Malik Ghulam Muhammad to the Governor-General’s post. Nazimuddin’s government focused towards promoting political programs aimed towards conservative ideas. During his time in office, a framework was begun for a constitution that would allow Pakistan to become a republic, and end its British Dominion status under the Crown. His administration took place during a poor economy and the rise of provincial nationalism in four provinces and East Bengal which made him unable to run the country’s affairs effectively. By then, the Muslim League had split into two different factions dominated by the Bengali chapter and Punjab-Sindh chapter, as those were the two largest ethnic demographics, but were separated by India. The same year his Government conducted the country’s first nationwide Census where it was noted that 57% of the population of Karachi were refugees from India, which further complicated the situation in the country.
In January 1952, he publicly announced in Dacca’s meeting that for the sake of Pakistan’s national unity, Urdu must be the official language of Pakistan–East and West.  On 21 February 1952, a demonstration in the Bengali Language movement demanding equal and official status to the Bengali language turned bloody, with many fatalities caused by police firings. This demonstration was held when he declared Urdu the National Language of Pakistan, following the previous statement of Quaid-e-Azam that Urdu shall be the ‘one and only’ language of Pakistan.
In 1953, a violent religious movement led by far-right Jamaat-e-Islami began to agitate for the removal of the Ahmadi religious minority from power positions and demanded a declaration of this minority as non-Muslims. He was held morally responsible for riots being spread and resisted such pressures but mass rioting broke out in Punjab against both the Government and followers of this religious minority.  He responded to the violence by dismissing the Chief Minister of Punjab, Mumtaz Daultana, to Feroze Khan, but the decision came late.  He declared martial law, with approval coming from Governor-General Malik Ghulam Muhammad, and enforced through Lieutenant General Azam Khan who successfully quelled the agitation. The agitations and violence spread through the successful Bengali Language Movement and the riots in Lahore proved the inability of his Government as he was widely seen as weak in running the Government administration.  In view of attempting to improve the economy and internal security, Malik Ghulam Muhammad asked him to step down in the wider interest of the country.  He refused to oblige and Malik Ghulam Muhammad used reserve powers granted in the Government of India Act 1935 and dismissed him. Later he requested the Federal Court of Pakistan’s intervention against this action but the Chief Justice, Muhammad Munir did not rule on the legality of the dismissal, but instead forced new elections to be held in 1954. Malik Ghulam Muhammad appointed another Bengali politician, Muhammad Ali Bogra who was then serving as the Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, as the new Prime Minister until the new elections to be held in 1954.
A few years later he moved back to Dhaka and lived there in quiet life after retirement. However, in 1962 the aged leader came out of retirement at the request of Ms Fatima Jinnah and assumed the President-ship of the Council Muslim League, the faction of the party which opposed the Ayub dictatorship and his king’s party, the Convention Muslim League. Although a heart patient and nearly 70 years of age, he toured the length and breadth of Pakistan to rally public support against the Ayub regime. The reception given to him in the various cities of West Pakistan was particularly unprecedented, both in the huge numbers which turned out to receive him and the gushing adulation with which the public heralded his arrival.
It was thanks to his untiring efforts that the opposition parties formed an electoral alliance and the Combined Opposition Parties, had fielded Ms Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan in the Presidential election. However, before the election was held, over-exertion and fatigue took their toll on him and on 22nd October 1964 a sudden heart attack robbed the nation of this faithful lieutenant of the Quaid-e-Azam. Later he was buried beside the graves of Fazlul Haq and Suhrawardy in Dhaka. Their mausoleum is known as the ‘Mazar of Three National Leaders.
He was an enthusiastic sportsman and sports organizer. He was the President of the Mohammedan Sporting Club in Calcutta from 1935 to 1946 and President of the Indian Hockey Federation from 1938 to 1940. During his stay in England as a student, he earned a reputation as a good Tennis and Football player. He was the President of Salimullah Muslim Orphanage. Under his auspices, Star of India, the first English newspaper from Calcutta under Muslim ownership was published in 1932. He founded the City Muslim Traders Council in Calcutta.
The titles of CIE and KCIE were conferred on him in 1926 and 1934 respectively and he gave up these titles in 1946 on political considerations. In 1958 he was awarded the title of Nishan-i-Pakistan. He was extremely polite and profoundly religious. He married Shah Banu, daughter of Khwaja Ashraf in 1924.
His nephew, Khwaja Wasiuddin, was an Army General He rose to the rank of Lieutenant General in the Pakistan Army, having held various senior appointments including that of Director of Artillery and Corps Commander, Multan and later repatriated to Bangladesh in 1974. His younger brother, Khwaja Shahabuddin, remained active in politics and eventually ascended as Information Minister of Information and Broadcasting in President Ayub Khan’s Administration.
