Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (13 May 1905 – 11 February 1977) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the fifth president of India from 1974 to 1977.

Ahmed was born in Delhi on 13 May 1905.

Ahmed's grandfather, Kaliluddin Ali Ahmed, was an Islamic scholar and his father, Col. Zalnur Ali was a doctor who belonged to the Indian Medical Service and is thought to be the first medical graduate from Assam.

Ahmed's mother, Sahibzadi Ruqaiyya Sultan, was a daughter of the Nawab of Loharu.

Ahmed was one of ten children, including five sons, of Colonel Ali.

He attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi during 1921–22, before leaving for England.

He passed his history tripos from St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1927.

Born in Delhi, Ahmed studied in Delhi and Cambridge and was called to the bar from the Inner Temple, London in 1928.

Returning to India, he practiced law in Lahore and then in Guwahati.

He was called to the bar from the Inner Temple, London in 1928.

Beginning a long association with the Indian National Congress in the 1930s, Ahmed was finance minister of Assam in the Gopinath Bordoloi ministry in 1939.

He returned to India the same year and practiced law at the Lahore High Court before moving to Guwahati in 1930 where he worked initially as a junior lawyer under Nabin Chandra Bardoloi.

Ahmed joined the Indian National Congress as a primary member in 1931 and was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, the Working Committee of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee and the All India Congress Committee from 1936 onwards, except for short breaks.

Ahmed was elected to the legislative assembly of Assam in the provincial elections of 1937 which were held in accordance with the Government of India Act, 1935.

He was one of three Muslim ministers in the Congress government headed by Gopinath Bordoloi, serving as Minister for Finance, Revenue and Labour from 20 September 1938 to 16 November 1939.

In his budget for 1939–40, Ahmed introduced several new taxes, including an agricultural income tax, taxes on amusements and betting and a tax on sale of goods in an effort to eliminate the state's revenue deficit.

The 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.

This, and the pro-labour stance he took during the strike in the Assam Oil Company, was deemed inimical to British commercial interests in Assam but won much public support for the Bordoloi Ministry.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Congress governments across India resigned in protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's action of declaring India a belligerent without consulting them.

In 1940, Ahmed was arrested and imprisoned for a year when he performed a satyagraha on Gandhi's behest.

After the launch of the Quit India Movement, Ahmed was arrested on 9 August 1942, along with several other leaders of the Assam Provincial Congress Committee.

He was detained as a prisoner for a further three years at the jail in Jorhat.

Ahmed was opposed to the Muslim League's demand for the creation of Pakistan and to the Partition of India along communal lines.

He became the Advocate General of Assam in 1946, and was finance minister again from 1957 to 1966 under Bimala Prasad Chaliha.

He was a member of the Working Committee of the All India Congress Committee in 1946–47 and again from 1964 to 1974 during which period he was also a member of the Parliamentary Board of the party.

However, in the elections of 1946, while the Congress won the majority of seats to form a government in Assam under Gopinath Bordoloi, Ahmed was defeated in the North Kamrup constituency by the Muslim League's Moulvi Abdul Hye.

Although the Congress Party under Gopinath Bordoloi spent much money and effort in order to try and secure victory for Ahmed, he won only 844 votes against the 7,265 votes polled by Hye.

At Guwahati, Ahmed, who later became the Advocate General for the state, was the founding president of the Bar Association of the Assam High Court after its formation in 1948.

He was made a national cabinet minister by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1966 and was in charge of various ministries including Power, Irrigation, Industries and Agriculture.

He was elected president of India over Tridib Chaudhuri in 1974.

As president, Ahmed imposed The Emergency in August 1975 and gave his assent to numerous ordinances and constitutional amendments that severely restricted civil liberties and allowed Indira Gandhi to rule by decree.

He supported the Emergency in public speeches.

Lampooned in an iconic cartoon by Abu Abraham, Ahmed's reputation was tarnished by his support for the Emergency.

He has been described as a rubber stamp president.

Ahmed died in February 1977 of a heart attack.

He was accorded a state funeral and is buried in a masjid near Parliament House in New Delhi.

Ahmed, who was the second Muslim to become the president of India, was also the second president to die in office.

Ahmed was succeeded by B. D. Jatti as acting president and by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as the sixth president of India in 1977.

In 2018 it emerged that several of Ahmed's relatives were left out of the National Register of Citizens for Assam as they could not produce documents to prove their antecedents.

Ahmed attended government high schools in Gonda, United Provinces and in Delhi.