Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was born in Delhi on 13 May 1905. The Lok Sabha biographical record names his father as Col. Z. A. Ahmed and states that he was educated at the Government High School in Gonda, the Government High School in Delhi and St Catherine’s College, Cambridge. Britannica records that he studied history at Cambridge, graduating in 1927. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple, London, and practised as a lawyer. He married Begum Abida Ahmed on 9 November 1945. The President’s Secretariat names St Stephen’s College, Delhi, as his college; the Cambridge account is used here because the Lok Sabha record and Britannica agree.

Ahmed joined the Indian National Congress as a primary member in 1931 and was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee and the All India Congress Committee from 1936, with short breaks. According to the Lok Sabha record, he was imprisoned for a year for offering individual satyagraha in 1940 and, immediately after release, was detained as a security prisoner until April 1945. Britannica gives a similar account. The President’s Secretariat also records his arrest in 1942 in connection with the Quit India Movement. He was a member of the Congress Working Committee in 1946 and 1947.

Ahmed was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly in 1935 and served as Assam’s Minister of Finance and Revenue in 1938 and 1939. He was Advocate-General of Assam from 1946 to 1952. He returned to the Assembly in 1957 and held finance, law, community development and panchayat portfolios in the state government until 1966. The Lok Sabha record lists Rajya Sabha membership in 1952–53 and in 1966; the Rajya Sabha Secretariat’s own list gives different years, so only the official Lok Sabha dates are cited here. Alongside politics he was president of the Assam Football Association and Assam Cricket Association and, from April 1967, of the All India Lawn Tennis Association.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi included Ahmed in her cabinet in January 1966. He was Union Minister of Irrigation and Power until November 1966 and Union Education Minister until 12 March 1967. He was elected to the Fourth Lok Sabha and, from 13 March 1967 to 26 June 1970, was Minister for Industrial Development and Company Affairs. From 27 June 1970 he was Minister for Food, Agriculture, Community Development and Co-operation. The Lok Sabha record lists him as member for Barpeta, Assam, in 1971.

Ahmed became the fifth President of India on 24 August 1974. According to the President’s Secretariat, in 1975 he proclaimed a state of emergency on the advice of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He died in office on 11 February 1977, the first Indian President to do so; Britannica records that the cause was a heart attack. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy assumed the office on 25 July 1977.