Zakir Husain
Zakir Husain Khan was an Indian educationist and politician who served as the vice president of India from 1962 to 1967 and president of India from 13 May 1967 until his death on 3 May 1969.
Born in Hyderabad in an Afridi Pashtun family, Husain completed his schooling in Etawah and went on to study at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh and the University of Berlin from where he obtained a doctoral degree in economics. A close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, Husain was a founding member of the Jamia Millia Islamia which was established as an independent national university in response to the Non-cooperation movement. He served as the university's vice-chancellor from 1926 to 1948. In 1937, Husain chaired the Basic National Education Committee which framed a new educational policy known as Nai Talim which emphasized free and compulsory education in the first language. He was opposed to the policy of separate electorates for Muslims and, in 1946, the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah vetoed a proposal by the Indian National Congress to include Husain in the Interim Government of India.
Following Independence and the Partition of India Husain stayed on in India and, in 1948, was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University which he helped retain as a national institution of higher learning. For his services to education, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1954 and was made a nominated member of the Indian Parliament during 1952 to 1957. Husain served as Governor of Bihar from 1957 to 1962 and was elected the Vice President of India in 1962. The following year, he was conferred the Bharat Ratna. He was elected president in 1967, succeeding Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and became the first Muslim to hold the highest constitutional office in India. He was also the first incumbent to die in office and had the shortest tenure of any Indian president. His mazar lies in the campus of the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi.
An author and translator of several books into Urdu and a prolific writer of children's books, Husain has been commemorated in India through postage stamps and several educational institutions, libraries, roads and Asia's largest rose garden that have been named after him.
Early life and family
Husain was born in Hyderabad in 1897 and was of Afridi Pashtun descent, his forefathers having settled in the town of Qaimganj in the Farrukhabad district of modern Uttar Pradesh. His father, Fida Husain Khan, moved to the Deccan and established a successful legal career in Hyderabad where he settled in 1892. Husain was the third of seven sons of Fida Khan and Naznin Begum. He was homeschooled in the Quran, Persian and Urdu and is thought that he had his primary school education at the Sultan Bazaar school in Hyderabad. Following his father's death in 1907 Husain's family shifted back to Qaimganj and he was enrolled at the Islamia High School in Etawah. Husain's mother and several members of his extended family died in a plague epidemic in 1911.Having matriculated in 1913, he joined the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh and later, in preparation for a medical degree, at the Lucknow Christian College enrolling for a Bachelor of Science degree. A bout of illness led to him having to discontinue his studies and a year later he rejoined the college at Aligarh. Husain graduated in 1918 with philosophy, English literature and economics. He was elected vice president of the college's students' union and won prizes for his debating skills. Husain pursued the disciplines of law and economics for his post-graduate studies. Having obtained his master's degree in 1920, he was appointed as a lecturer at the college.
In 1915, while still pursuing his graduation, Husain married Shahjahan Begum with whom he had two daughters, Sayeeda Khan and Safia Rahman. Safia married Zil-ur-Rahman, a professor of physics at the Aligarh Muslim University while Sayeeda married Khurshed Alam Khan who served as a Union Minister and Governor. Their son Salman Khurshid became India's External Affairs Minister in 2012.
Of Husain's six brothers, Yusuf Husain became a historian and a winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award who served as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University. Mahmud Husain was closely associated with the Pakistan Movement, becoming Minister of Education in the Government of Pakistan and Vice-Chancellor at Dhaka and Karachi Universities. His nephew, General Rahimuddin Khan went on to become Pakistan's Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and later Governor of Balochistan and Sindh. Masud Husain, the nephew from his eldest brother, became Professor Emeritus in Social Sciences at the Aligarh Muslim University and later Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia.
Career
Sheikh-ul-Jamia, Jamia Millia Islamia (1926–1948)
In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi visited the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh where he urged non-cooperation with the British Raj. In response to Gandhi's appeal, a group of students and faculty joined the Non-Cooperation Movement. In October 1920 they established the Independent National University aimed at imparting education free from colonial influence. Later renamed the Jamia Millia Islamia, it shifted in 1925 from Aligarh to Delhi. Husain was one of the founders of this private university which had Maulana Muhammad Ali as its first "Sheikh-ul-Jamia" and Hakim Ajmal Khan as the first "Amir-i-Jamia". Jamia, as the Turkish educationist Halide Edib noted, had two purposes: "First, to train the Muslim youth with definite ideas of their rights and duties as Indian citizens. Second, to coordinate Islamic thought and behaviour with Hindu. The general aim is to create a harmonious nationhood without Muslims losing their Islamic identity. In its aim, if not always in its procedure, it is nearer to Gandhian Movement than any other Islamic institution I have come across." In its early years, Jamia faced shortage of funds and its continued existence was uncertain especially after the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Khilafat Committee closed down.Husain left for Germany in 1922 to do a doctorate in economics from the University of Berlin. Supervised by Werner Sombart, his thesis on the agrarian structure in British India was accepted summa cum laude in 1926. During his time in Berlin, Husain collaborated with Alfred Ehrenreich to translate into German thirty-three of Gandhi's speeches which were published in 1924 as Die Botschaft des Mahatma Gandhi. Husain got published the Diwan-e-Ghalib in 1925 and the Diwan-i-Shaida, a collection of poetry by Hakim Ajmal Khan in 1926. He returned to India in 1926 and succeeded Abdul Majeed Khwaja as "Sheikh-ul-Jamia". He was joined by Mohammad Mujeeb and Abid Hussain – the latter becoming the university registrar. Husain travelled across India soliciting funds for the Jamia and got financial support from Mahatma Gandhi, the Bombay philanthropist Seth Jamal Mohammed, Khwaja Abdul Hamied the founder of the pharmaceutical firm Cipla and the Nizam of Hyderabad among others.
In 1928, a National Education Society was established to manage the affairs of the Jamia. Zakir Husain became its secretary. To be a life member of the society, members pledged their services to it for 20 years with a salary that could not exceed Rs.150. Husain was one of the 11 initial members who took the pledge. The society adopted a constitution for the university which stipulated that the Jamia would neither seek nor accept any help from the colonial administration, and that it would treat all religions impartially. Husain himself identified the aim of the Jamia as being to "keep alive Islamic culture and education and also help in the realization of the ideal of a common nationhood and the achievement of the freedom of the country the Jamia's objectives are Islamic education, the love of independence and service to Urdu".
Husain remained the Jamia's vice chancellor until 1948. In the 1940s he built his home, the Zakir Manzil, on the Gulmohar Avenue in Jamia Nagar. Husain was opposed to the policy of separate electorates for Muslims and was a political opponent of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, who vetoed the Congress proposal to include Husain as a member of the Interim Government in 1946. Husain however convinced Jinnah to attend the Jamia's silver jubilee celebration on 17 November 1946. At a time of rising animosity between the Congress and the Muslim League and worsening inter-communal relations, the celebration was attended by Jinnah, his sister Fatima and Liaquat Ali Khan from the Muslim League and Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad and C. Rajagopalachari of the Congress. In a plea to the assembled leaders, Husain said
"You, gentlemen, are the stars of the political firmament. You have a secure place in the hearts of millions of people. Taking advantage of your presence here, I wish to submit in great sorrow a few words for your consideration on behalf of the educational workers. The fire of hatred is fast spreading which makes it seem mad to tend to the garden of education. This fire is burning in a noble and humane land. How will the flowers of nobility and sensibility grow in its midst? How will we be able to improve human standards which lie today at a level far lower than that of the beasts? How shall we produce new servants devoted to the cause of education? How can you protect humanity in a world of animals?.... An Indian poet has remarked that every child who comes to this world brings along the message that God has not yet lost faith in man. But have our countrymen so completely lost faith in themselves that they wish to crush these innocent buds before they blossom?
For God's sake sit together and extinguish this fire of hatred. This is not the time to ask who is responsible for it and what is its cause. The fire is raging. Please extinguish it. For God's sake do not allow the very foundations of civilised life in this country to be destroyed."