Nurul Amin
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nurul_Amin".

Nurul Amin (Bengali: নূরুল আমীন, Urdu: نورالامین, July 15, 1893 - October 2, 1974) was a prominent Bengali leader of the Pakistan's Muslim League, and served as Chief Minister of East Pakistan and both Prime Minister and Vice President of Pakistan.

Early life

Born in the village of Shahbazpur, in what was then undivided Bengal's Brahmanbaria District, Amin grew up in Mymensingh District. He passed entrance examination in 1915 from Mymensingh Zila School, I.A and B.A from Mymensingh Ananda Mohan College in 1917 and 1919 respectively. Having obtained his B.L degree from Calcutta University he joined the Mymensingh Judge Court Bar in 1924.

Political career

Nurul Amin started his public career as a member of Mymensingh Local Board (1929). He became a member of Mymensingh District Board (1930), commissioner of Mymensingh Municipality (1932), and had been the chairman of Mymensingh District Board from 1937 to 1945. For a long time, Nurul Amin was the president of Mymensingh district unit of muslim league, and was elected the vice president of Bengal Provincial Muslim League in 1944. Nurul Amin was elected a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1946 and was elected its Speaker. He took active part in Pakistan Movement. He was the Minister of Civil Supply in the provincial cabinet headed by Khawaja Nazimuddin. He was also a member of the Pakistan National Assembly (1947-1954).

Language Movement

Nurul Amin was elected as the Chief Minister of East Pakistan in September 1948 when Khawaja Nazimuddin was appointed Governor General on the death of Qaid i Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. During Amin's term as Chief Minister, Governor General Nazimuddin reiterated the federal government's position that Bengali, the language of the overwhelming majority of East Pakistanis in addition to the majority of Pakistanis as a whole, was not to be considered a national language on par with Urdu. This position was highly unpopular in East Pakistan, and subsequently led to what is now known as the Language Movement, as well as a general loss of power for the ruling Muslim League.

In the 1954 elections, the Muslim League was comprehensively defeated by the United Front, an alliance between the Awami League (led by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy), the Krishak Sramik Party (led by A. K. Fazlul Huq), the Nizam i Islam Party (led by Maulana Athar Ali), and the Ganatantri Dal (led by Haji Muhammad Danish and Mahmud Ali Sylheti). Nurul Amin lost his assembly seat, and the Muslim League was effectively eliminated from the provincial political landscape.

Pakistan Democratic Party

Nurul Amin joined National Democratic Front (NDF) headed by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in 1962, and was thus associated with the movement against autocratic rule of President General Ayub Khan. After the death of Suhrawardy he was elected president of NDF in 1964. He was elected member of the National Assembly in 1965, and was the leader of the combined opposition Parliamentary Party (1965-1969). Nurul Amin was made the chairman of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) formed in 1967 as an united platform of National Democratic Front, Jamaat-e-Islami, Nezam-e-Islam, Council Muslim League, and Awami League (pro 8-point). He played an important role in floating the Democratic Action Committee (DAC) in 1969, and as one of the top leaders of the forum participated in anti-Ayub movement. As a representative of NDF he attended Round Table Conference at Rawalpindi (1969) convened by President Ayub Khan with a view to mitigate the political crisis between the government and the opposition parties. A new political party was floated by him as Pakistan Democratic Party (PDP) in 1969, and he was made its president. Nurul Amin was elected member of the National Assembly in 1970.

Bangladesh Liberation War

In the 1970 elections, Nurul Amin was elected to the National Assembly as one of only two non-Awami League members from East Pakistan. During this time, the Pakistani authority in East Pakistan had already become highly unpopular as the struggle to promote Bengali as a national language was further suppressed. Civil unrest ignited by the Language Movement and fuelled by alleged discriminatory practices against Bengalis eventually led to East Pakistan's declaration of independence.

The Bangladesh Liberation War, as it is now known, further escalated as India formally declared war on Pakistan in 1971. As the situation in his home district of East Pakistan worsened under civil war, Amin was appointed Prime Minister by President General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan on December 6, 1971. On December 20, 1971, however, Yahya Khan resigned, leaving the Deputy Prime Minister (and Foreign Minister) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to be sworn in as the new President. Two days later, Nurul Amin was appointed as Vice President of Pakistan, the only person to have held this post. He continued to hold this post until the lifting of martial law on April 21, 1972.

Post-liberation

While his political career lasted through war and civil unrest, Nurul Amin is considered by many Pakistanis to be a patriot, as he opposed the movements that eventually led to the severing of ties between his Bengali people and the concept of a Muslim homeland in South Asia. Many Bangladeshis, however, view him as a traitor and collaborator with a genocidal occupation force.

Disappointed and frustrated with the apparent indifference portrayed by the Pakistani government when it was clear that East Pakistan had been lost, Amin is said to have remarked to President Yahya and his military advisers, "So Dhaka has fallen, and East Pakistan is gone, and you are enjoying yourselves..."¹

Amin continued to deliberately stay in West Pakistan, while his home region of East Pakistan won its independence as the People's Republic of Bangladesh following a bloody civil war and the deaths of between 1 and 3 million people.² Following the war, Amin did not return home and died in Rawalpindi on 2nd October 1974, less than three years after the dissolution of the united Pakistan.

References

1. ^ Nurul Amin - The story of Pakistan
2. ^ http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0221.htm Nurul Amin