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Chaudhri Muhammad Ali

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This article is about the fourth prime minister of Pakistan. Not to be confused with the third prime minister of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Bogra. For other people with similar names, see Mohammad Ali (disambiguation).

Chaudhri Muhammad Ali
چوہدری محمد علی
4th Prime Minister of Pakistan
In office
12 August 1955 – 12 September 1956
MonarchElizabeth II (1952–1956)
PresidentIskander Mirza
Governor GeneralIskander Mirza (1955–1956)
Preceded byMohammad Ali Bogra
Succeeded byHuseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy
Minister of Defence
In office
12 August 1955 – 12 September 1956
DeputyAkhter Husain (Defence Secretary)
Preceded byGeneral Ayub Khan
Succeeded byHuseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy
2nd Minister of Finance
In office
24 October 1951 – 11 August 1955
DeputyMumtaz Hasan (Finance Secretary)
Preceded byGhulam Muhammad
Succeeded byAmjad Ali
Federal Secretary
In office
14 August 1947 – 24 October 1955
Finance Secretary of Pakistan
In office
14 August 1947 – 12 September 1948
Serving with Sir Victor Turner
MinisterGhulam Muhammad
In office
2 September 1946 – 14 August 1947
MinisterLiaquat Ali Khan
Preceded byGhulam Muhammad
Succeeded bySir Victor Turner
President of Pakistan Muslim League
In office
12 August 1955 – 12 September 1956
Preceded byMohammad Ali Bogra
Succeeded byI. I. Chundrigar
Personal details
Born
Chaudhry Muhammad Ali

(1905-07-15)15 July 1905
Jalandhar, Punjab, British India
Died2 December 1982(1982-12-02) (aged 77)
Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Citizenship
Political partyNizam-e-Islam (until 1969)
Other political
affiliations		Muslim League (1936–1956)
Children5, including Khalid
Alma materPunjab University (BSc and MSc)
Occupation
  • Civil servant
  • politician

Chaudhri Muhammad Ali[a] (15 July 1905 – 2 December 1982) was a Pakistani politician and statesman who served as the fourth prime minister of Pakistan from 1955 until his resignation in 1956. His government transitioned Pakistan from a British Dominion to an Islamic Republic.

He resigned from the position of Prime Minister in 1958, and from the Muslim League as well, when he failed at healing rifts with Muslim League, and a new party, named as Republican Party. His credibility is noted for promulgating the first set of the Constitution of Pakistan lost political endorsement from his party when failing to investigate the allegations on vote rigging and the secret defections in favour of the Republican Party.[1]

Biography

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Muhammad Ali was born in Jullundar, Punjab on 15 July 1905 into an Arain Punjabi Muslim family.[2][3][4]

After his matriculation, Muhammad Ali showed great aptitude for science, first moving to attend the Punjab University in Lahore where he read and graduated with BSc degree in chemistry in 1925.[5] In 1927, Muhammad Ali attained MSc in chemistry from Punjab University, and lectured at the Islamia College until 1928.[6][5][1][7]

In 1928, Muhammad Ali went to join the Indian Civil Service, first working as an accountant at the Audit and Accounts Service and was deputed to audit the Bahawalpur state.[2] In 1936, Muhammad Ali was moved as Private Secretary to James Grigg, the Finance Minister of India, who later appointed him as the First Indian financial adviser when Grigg was appointed as the War Secretary in 1945.[2] In 1946–47, Muhammad Ali was selected to serve as one of two secretaries to the Partition Council presided over by Lord Mountbatten, later appointed as Finance Secretary at the Ministry of Finance.[2] Over this issue of partition, Muhammad Ali worked with H.M. Patel and Walter Christir to prepare a document titled The Administrative Consequences of Partition.[8]

At the time of the India's partition in 1947, Muhammad Ali opted for Pakistan.[9]

After the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, Muhammad Ali was moved as the Finance Secretary under Finance Minister Sir Ghulam Muhammad, along with Victor Turner, but this appointment lasted until 1948 due a cabinet reshuffle.[2] He was appointed as the Federal Secretary at the Establishment Division, and aided greatly in setting up the civil bureaucracy and preparing the nation's first federal budget presented by Finance Minister Sir Ghulam Muhammad in 1951.[2]

Prime Minister of Pakistan

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In 1951, Muhammad Ali was appointed as the Finance Minister by Prime Minister K. Nazimuddin and was announced to be kept in the Finance ministry in Bogra's Talent ministry in 1953.[10]

On 11 August 1955, Muhammad Ali was appointed as the Prime Minister of Pakistan by then-Governor-General Iskandar Mirza, upon the dismissal of the Bogra's Talent administration.[1] Prime Minister Ali placed a great emphasis on drafting the Constitution of Pakistan, and implemented the One Unit scheme despite regional opposition.[11]

He favored French architect Michel Ecochard over Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis for the planning of the new capital in 1955, though the project nonetheless went Doxiadis in the 1960s.[12]

It was during his term that the first Constitution of Pakistan was promulgated, on 23 March 1956, where the nation-state was declared as Islamic republic with a parliamentary form of government.[13] His premiership was endorsed by President Iskandar Mirza and the three-party coalition government composing of Awami League, Muslim League and the Republican Party at the National Assembly.[1] In 1955, Prime Minister Ali took over the party presidency.[1]

In July 1956, Muhammad Ali met with the Indian Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru of India in an attempt to settle the key issue that was preventing the normalization of relations between Pakistan and India. This was the issue of Kashmir that had been divided between India and Pakistan in 1948. That issue remains unsettled to this day.

Despite his feat, Prime Minister Muhammad Ali proved to be a poor politician who failed to maintain control over his party when he reached a compromise to dismissed the cabinet members of his own party in favor of appointing the cabinet composing of Republican Party and Awami League in 1955–56.[1] After appointing Abdul Jabbar Khan as the Chief minister of West-Pakistan who subsequently helped in secret trading in favor of Republican Party that made the Republicans in majority in the National Assembly, the Muslim League demanded its president to investigate the matter but Prime Minister Ali refused to support the parliamentary resolution in the National Assembly by believing that "he was responsible only to the Cabinet and the Parliament, not the party."[1]

On 8 September 1956, the parliamentary leaders of the Muslim League under A.Q. Khan, successfully brought the motion of no confidence at the National Assembly that effectively removed him from the party's presidency.[1] Despite support from President Mirza, Prime Minister Ali eventually resigned when Huseyn S. Suhrawardy gained support from the Muslim League for the premiership.[9]

Post resignation

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After his resignation, Ali joined the National Bank as an advisor. He tried playing a role in national politics in the 1960s,[9] but was ostracized by the Muslim League due to his political role played in 1950s.[citation needed]

His son, Khalid Anwer, served as the law and justice minister in Nawaz Sharif's administrations while his younger son, Amjad Ahsan Ali, is a medical doctor. In 1967, he wrote his memoir, The Emergence of Pakistan. He died due to a cardiac arrest on 2 December 1982 in estate in Karachi where he was buried.[14]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Chaudhry Muhammad Ali Becomes Prime Minister". storyofpakistan.com. Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan: Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust. 1 June 2003. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Chaudhry Muhammad Ali–Former Prime Minister of Pakistan". storyofpakistan.com. Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan: Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust. 1 June 2003. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  3. ^ Burki, Shahid Javed; Baxter, Craig; LaPorte, Robert; Azfar, Kamal (1991). Pakistan Under the Military: Eleven Years of Zia Ul-Haq. New York City: Westview Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780813379852. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  4. ^ Naz, Huma (1990). Bureaucratic Elites & Political Developments in Pakistan, 1947-58. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. p. 157. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  5. ^ a b Kumarasingham, H. (2016). Constitution-making in Asia: Decolonisation and State-Building in the Aftermath of the British Empire. Cambridge, UK: Routledge. p. 106. ISBN 9781317245100. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  6. ^ Blattner, Elwyn James; Blattner, James Elwyn (1955). Who's who in U.A.R. and the Near East (in French). Paul Barbey Press. p. 294. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  7. ^ "Chaudhri Mohammad Ali—prime minister of Pakistan". Encyclopædia Britannica. London, Eng. U.K. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  8. ^ John Christie Morning Drum BACSA 1983 ISBN 0-907799-04-3 pp95-102
  9. ^ a b c Lyon, Peter (2008). Conflict Between India and Pakistan: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-57607-712-2. In 1947 he became secretary-general to the government [of Pakistan] ... Mirza did not want Suhrawardy to replace him [Choudhury Muhammad Ali] as prime minister and tried energetically but unsuccessfully to dissuade Choudhury Muhammad Ali from resigning. But Suhrawardy's appointment as prime minister was nonetheless forthcoming ... During the early years of the Mohammed Ayub Khan regime, Ali acted as an adviser to the National Bank of Pakistan. In 1962 he joined the opposition, but soon increasing frailty prevented him from playing an active or formal role.
  10. ^ Khuhro, Hamida (1998). Mohammed Ayub Khuhro: a life of courage in politics. Karachi, Pakistan: Ferozsons. p. 405. ISBN 9789690014245. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  11. ^ Wynbrandt, James (2009). A Brief History of Pakistan. Facts On File. p. 178. ISBN 9780816061846. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  12. ^ Bates, Crispin; Mio, Minoru (2015). §Cities in South Asia. Routledge. p. 72. ISBN 9781317565130.
  13. ^ "The Constitution of 1956". storyofpakistan.com. Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust. 1 June 2003. Archived from the original on 25 November 2015. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  14. ^ Asian Recorder. K. K. Thomas at Recorder Press. 1981. Retrieved 29 January 2018.

Notes

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  1. ^ Urdu: چوہدری محمد علی
[edit]
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Finance
1951–1955 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prime Minister of Pakistan
1955–1956 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of Defence
1955–1956
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