Liaqat ALI khan, also known as one of the founding fathers of Pakistan was the first minister of Pakistan until he was assassinated in 1951. He was also the lawyer by profession, statesman and a political theorist. Khan is known popularly with the title of Shaheed-e-Millat. He, besides being the Prime Minister, held several other offices in the cabinet of the newly borne country .He extended his services for his country as the first foreign, defense, and the frontier regions minister.
Khan was born in an influential Muslim family in East Punjab on 1st October 1895. He secured his early education from Aligarh Muslim University and then moved to London to secure his degree in law from the University of Cambridge. Even before coming back to the Indian Subcontinent, he became a popular figure. He was determined to achieve a separate homeland for Muslims. He returned to his homeland in 1923 and upon returning he was called up on the Congress to join them however he opted for the All India Muslim League to start his political career.
Liaquat Ali khan married his cousin in 1918, Jehangira Begum. In 1932, he married for the second time to Begum Rana, who proved to be his close aide in the struggles of Pakistan.
In 1926, he began his political career as an elected member of the United Provinces Legislative Council from the rural Muslim constituency of Muzzafarnagar. In 1932, he was unanimously elected Deputy President of UP Legislative Council.
Khan worked closely with Jinnah over the following years. In 1928, the two men decided to discuss the Nehru Report and in 1930, they attended the First Round Table Conference. The conference proved to be a disaster following which Jinnah moved from British India to Great Britain.
Jinnah returned to British India after a few years and began re-organizing the Muslim League. In 1936, Jinnah moved a resolution, proposing Khan as the Honorary General Secretary, which was accepted. In 1940, Khan was made the deputy leader of the Muslim League Parliamentary party.
He was a democratic by theorist and promoted parliamentarianism in British India. He served as the Finance Minister in the interim government during Brits rule. He along with Jinnah and other Muslim leaders strived vigorously towards the Iqbal’s dream of a separate homeland for Muslims. As a political worker, he worked vehemently to unite the Muslims under the flag of Muslim league, to emancipate them from the repressive state policies against them. If Jinnah founded Pakistan, Liaquat established it, laying down the main lines of policy, domestic and foreign, that afterward guided the country. Ali Khan’s foreign policy sided with the United States and the West
As the prime minister, he envisioned a glorious future for the country and took initiatives to develop educational infrastructure, science and technology in Pakistan. He asked the much-learned political theorist, educationist and scholar Ziauddin Ahmed to draft the educational policy, which was later, adopted as the roadmap for the establishment of the educational system in Pakistan. It was during his tenure that the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) was established in 1949. It was followed by the installation of a paper currency mill in Karachi. On 1951, when he was addressing a huge crowd in Company Bagh in Rawalpindi, he was assassinated.