Liaquat Ali Khan
Prime Minister of Pakistan
Years: 1895 - 1951
Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan (October 1, 1895 – October 16, 1951), often simply referred as Liaquat, is one of the leading Founding Fathers of modern Pakistan, statesman, lawyer, and political theorist who becomes and serves as the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, in addition, is also the first Defence minister.
He is the first Finance Minister of India, and minister of Commonwealth and Kashmir Affairs and from 1947 until his assassination in 1951.
Born in Karnal, East Punjab, Ali Khan is educated at the Aligarh Muslim University in India, and Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
Well educated, he is an Islamic democratic political theorist who promotes parliamentarism in India.
After being invited by the Congress Party, he opts for the Muslim League led by the influential Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who is determined to eradicate the injustices and ill treatment meted out to the Indian Muslims by the British government.
He pushes his role in the independence movements of India and Pakistan, while serving as the first Finance minister in the interim government of the British Indian Empire, prior to partition.
Ali Khan assists Jinnah in campaigning for the creation of a separate state for Indian Muslims.
Ali Khan's credentials secure him the appointment of Pakistan's first Prime Minister, but his government faces imminent challenges and ongoing regional conflict with India, forcing Ali Khan to approach his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru, to reach a settlement to end the religious violence, but Nehru pushes for the referral of the problem to the United Nations.
Generally anticommunist, Ali Khan's foreign policy sides with the United States and the West, though his foreign policy is a part of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Facing internal political unrest, his government survives a coup hatched by the leftists and communists.
His influence grows after Jinnah's death, and heis responsible for promulgating the Objectives Resolution.
In 1951, at a political rally in Rawalpindi, Ali Khan is assassinated by a hired assassin, Sa'ad Babrak.
He is Pakistan's longest serving Prime Minister, spending 1,524 days in power, a record which has stood for 63 years to the present.
