Shaukat Hayat Khan was born in Amritsar, India on 24th September 1915. His family hailed from the famous Hayat Jatt Khattar clan of Wah in Attock, and he was the eldest son of Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, the famous Punjabi Statesman and feudal lord, from his first wife Begum Zubaida Khanum, a lady from a prominent Kashmiri family settled in Amritsar, India.
SHAUKAT HAYAT KHAN
Born on 24 Sep 1915
Died on 25 Sep 1998
Pakistani Politician
After his mother’s early demise in 1919, he and his siblings were taken care of by their aunt and in due course, he was sent to study at the Aitchison College in Lahore and the Aligarh Muslim University, briefly, before he was sent, in keeping with family tradition, to join the British Indian Army, upon passing the qualifying examinations.
Upon completing his military training or cadetship at the Indian Military Academy, he was formally commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on the Special List with effect from 15 July 1937. He was then attached to the 1st Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment for a year then in August 1938 joined the 16th Light Cavalry. After some service on the North West Frontier, when the Second World War broke out, he volunteered to go abroad for active service with any cavalry regiment being sent out to the Front and was therefore seconded to Skinner’s Horse. He thereafter served in Somalia, the Middle East and North Africa from 1940 to 1942, first promoted to Captain from April – July 1941, after that as a temporary Major until after his father’s death in December 1942, when he quit military service to take up his political role in the Punjab. Upon taking his release he was regularized with the rank of major.
On taking up his late father’s political mantle, he was duly elected to the Punjab Assembly and made a member of the cabinet under the new Punjab premier, Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, and subsequently served as Minister for Public Works in the Unionist Muslim League government. Dismissed in 1944 for his increasingly pro-Muslim League and pro-Jinnah ideals and policies, he was subsequently elected Deputy Leader of the Punjab League. Re-elected to the Punjab Assembly in 1946, he became one of the most prominent activists in the Muslim League’s “Direct Action” campaign and the most famous and popular of the League’s young leadership, winning the title of “Shaukat-i-Punjab “(Shaukat of the Punjab) from Jinnah himself. He played a significant role in eventually winning over the Punjabi Muslims in large numbers, to the cause of the League and of an independent Pakistan.
After partition, he left the Muslim League party amidst conflicts with Mian Mumtaz Daultana and briefly joined the Pakistan Azad Party along with Mian Iftikharuddin. Between the 1950s and 1970s, in his own words, he was ‘an unlucky witness to the gradual destruction of the Quaid’s (i.e. Jinnahs) Pakistan’, at the hands of greedy and corrupt politicians and the Martial Law regimes.
Elected again from Attock in the 1970 general elections, he played a key role in the opposition negotiations with Zulfiqar Bhutto which led to the passage of Pakistan’s first interim constitution. He was also one of the few Pakistani statesmen in 1970–71, who tried to negotiate amicably with the Awami League, to try to salvage former East Pakistan, which seceded and became Bangladesh soon afterwards. Disillusioned, Khan soon afterwards resigned permanently from political life.
He died on 25 September 1998 and his burial took place at his ancestral Graveyard in Wah Cantt. He is survived by two sons and four daughters. His son Sikander Hayat Junior has twice fought provincial elections from the PPP ticket.
