Zakir Hussain (politician)

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Zakir Hussain (politician) : biography

8 February 1897 – 3 May 1969

Dr. Zakir Hussain ( Telugu: జాకీర్ హుస్సైన్), ; February 1897 – 3 May 1969) was the 3rd President of India, from 13 May 1967 until his death on 3 May 1969. An educationist and intellectual, Hussain was the country’s first Muslim president. He previously served as Governor of Bihar from 1957 to 1962 and as Vice President of India from 1962 to 1967.

Zakir Hussain was also co-founder of Jamia Milia Islamia, serving as its Vice Chancellor from 1928. Under Hussain, Jamia became closely associated with the Indian freedom movement. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest national honour, in 1963.

Early life

Zakir Hussain was born in Hyderabad, India.];Sharma, Vishwamitra (2007). Famous Indians of the 21st century. Pustak Mahal. p. 60. ISBN 81-223-0829-5. Retrieved 18 September 2010 his ancestor Hussain Khan migrating from Kohat to Kaimganj, Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, in 1715.Zia-ul-Hasan Faruqi (1999) APH Publishing, India His own family too migrated from Hyderabad to Kaimganj, where Hussain grew up. Hussain’s father, Fida Hussain Khan, died when he was ten years old; his mother dying in 1911 when he was fourteen. He attended Islamia High School, Etawah, and was then educated at the Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College, now Aligarh Muslim University, where he was a prominent student leader. He received his doctorate in economics from the University of Berlin in 1926.

Family

Zakir Hussain was born the third of seven children, all boys, to Fida Hussain Khan, a lawyer, and Naznin Begum. In 1915, at the age of 18, he married Shah Jahan Begum. Zakir Hussain’s relatives have also been active in politics and education. His grandson Salman Khurshid, a Congress politician, is the current Foreign Minister of India. Among Hussain’s relatives that migrated after Partition include his brother Dr. Mahmud Hussain, who was Pakistan’s Minister for Education and Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University, and nephew Anwar Hussain who was the eldest son Dr. Mahmud Hussain. He was the famous TV anchor in Pakistan.He was also the Managing Director of the state media of Pakistan. And his close relative General Rahimuddin Khan, Pakistan’s Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Career

Hussain, then only 23, was among the small group of students and teachers who founded a National Muslim University, first founded in Aligarh on Friday 29 October 1920 then shifted to Karol Bagh, New Delhi in 1925, then after shifted again on 1 March 1935 in Jamia Nagar, New Delhi and named it Jamia Millia Islamia (a central university). He subsequently went to Germany to obtain a PhD from the Frederick William University of Berlin in Economics. While in Germany, Hussain was instrumental in bringing out the anthology of arguably the greatest Urdu poet Mirza Assadullah Khan "Ghalib" (1797–1868).Zakir Saheb by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Zakir Sahab Zatti Yadain, Edited by Dr. Abid Raza Bedar, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library, Patna, 1993, p. 165-168

He returned to India to head the Jamia Millia Islamia which was facing closure in 1927. He continued in that position for the next twenty-one years providing academic and managerial leadership to an institution that was intimately involved with India’s struggle for freedom from the British Rule and experimented with value-based education on the lines advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and Hakim Ajmal Khan.Zakir Sahab Aur Hakim Ajmal Khan by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Dr. Zakir Hussain Khan – Hayat, Fikr Aur Aman, Edited by Professor Abdul Ghaffar Shakil & Dr. Khaliq Anjum, Karnataka Urdu Academy, Bangalore, 1999. p. 157-174 During this period he continued to engage himself with movements for educational reforms in India and was particularly active in the affairs of his old alma mater the MAO College, now the Aligarh Muslim University. During this period Hussain emerged as one of the most prominent educational thinkers and practitioners of modern India. His personal sacrifice and untiring efforts to keep the Jamia afloat in very adverse circumstances won him appreciation of even his arch political rivals like Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Soon after India attained independence, Hussain agreed to be the Vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University which was facing trying times in post partition India because of active involvement of a section of its teachers and students in the movement for creation of Pakistan. Dr Hussain, again, provided leadership during a critical phase of the history of the University at Aligarh from 1948–1956. Soon after completing his term as Vice Chancellor he was nominated as a member of the Upper House of Indian Parliament in 1956, a position he vacated in 1957 to become Governor of the State of Bihar.

Hussain died on 3 May 1969, the first Indian President to die in office. He is buried on the campus of the Jamia Millia Islamia (or Central University) in New Delhi.