Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

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Ahmed attended Government High Schools in Gonda, United Provinces and in Delhi and attended St. Stephen’s College, Delhi during 1921-22, before leaving for England where he passed his history tripos from St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1927. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple, London in 1928. 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. At Guwahati, Ahmed, who 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.

Electoral career in pre-Independence India

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. Congress Ministries across India resigned in protest against the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's action of declaring India a belligerent in the Second World War 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 along with several other leaders of the Assam Provincial Congress Committee was arrested on 9 August 1942. He was detained as a security prisoner for a further three years at the jail in Jorhat.

Ahmed was opposed to the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan and to the Partition of India along communal lines. 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 to secure Ahmed’s victory, he won only 844 votes against the 7,265 votes polled by Hye. Ahmed was thereafter appointed the Advocate General of Assam, a post he held until 1952.

Career in independent India

Although he was offered a seat in the legislative assembly elections of 1952, Ahmed refused to contest the elections due to disagreements with the leadership of the Congress party and the Chief Minister Bishnuram Medhi. In April 1954, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha and was its member until he resigned in March 1957. He contested and won the 1957 Assam Legislative Assembly election from Jania winning 66.13% of the votes cast and was re-elected to the seat in the 1962 Assam Legislative Assembly election improving his majority by winning 84.56% of the votes. Under the governments headed by Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha, Ahmed served as Minister of Finance, Law, Community Development, Panchayats and Local Self Government during 1957-1962 and was the Minister of Finance, Law, Community Development and Panchayats during 1962-66.

Ahmed facilitated the entry of Muhammed Saadulah, the Muslim League leader who preceded Gopinath Bordoloi as Assam's Prime Minister, into the Congress Party in 1951. Ahmed played a role in frustrating Chief Minister Chaliha’s attempts at enforcing the Prevention of Infiltrators Plan which, based on the National Register of Citizens, 1951, sought to identify and deport illegal migrants to Assam. He argued that if the Congress Party were to continue with this plan, it would lead to its loss of support among Muslims in Assam and across the rest of India. He has been accused of thus allowing the steady influx of Muslims from East Pakistan who became a votebank for the Congress Party. Salman Khurshid has identified this strategy, which he attributes to Ahmed, as one of the factors that led to the Nellie Massacre.

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