CHAUDHRY FAZLUL HAQUE

Chaudhry Fazlul Haque

(1873-1962)

Chaudhry Fazlul Haque was an advocate par excellence for Muslims in India, especially those in Bengal, as well as for the Pakistan movement. He is credited with inclusion of Bengal in the vision for Pakistan.

The Saturia, Bengal-born Islamic scholar and political activist pushed for the cause of education and political empowerment of Muslims, as well as the rights of Muslim peasants in Bengal.

He was a unique blend of Islamic scholarship and Western education at a time when the two worlds were poles apart. He obtained his Islamic education at home through private tutors and studied law at the University Law College in Calcutta. In 1900, he was enrolled as an advocate in the Calcutta High Court.

A firm believer that education was the passport to a better future for Muslims in Bengal, he started the Central National Mohammedan Educational Association in 1912 to help poor and deserving Muslim students obtain the resources to further their education. He also contributed to the establishment of the Muslim University at Aligharh in 1920.

Haque established Krishak Proja Samities, a movement for the rights of the Muslim peasants of Bengal who were often at the mercy of usurious Hindu middlemen. In 1936, he successfully pushed for the enactment of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors’ Act, through which millions of Muslim peasants were relieved from millions of rupees of debt incurred by doing businesses with the Hindu middlemen.

A strong advocate for Muslim rights in India, he served as a joint secretary on the four-man drafting committee for the constitution of the All-India Muslim League, as well as the general secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League in 1913. A year later, became the organization’s president.

Haque was a major participant in the historic session of the Muslim League at Lahore between March 22 and March 24, 1940, when the Pakistan Resolution was passed. He, like others at the session, was clearly wary of how India would be ruled, and more importantly, how Muslims would be treated in a post-British India. Haque, like Jinnah, did not trust the Indian National Congress, the party that was likely to lead the country after independence. Haque believed that the establishment of Pakistan was the only way to truly guarantee the political empowerment and rights of Muslims on the subcontinent.

It is critical to note that during the March 1940 session, Haque pushed for the inclusion of Bengal to be part of Pakistan. Allama Iqbal’s vision for Pakistan, which he had developed well before his death in 1938, included only northern and western sections of India. Haque’s suggestion was accepted and seven years after that critical March day, Pakistan, the East and West wings, came into being.

He migrated to Pakistan at the age of 74 in 1947 and continued to play an active role in the country’s political affairs. In 1951, he accepted the Advocate-Generalship of East Pakistan and was later elected its Chief Minister. He also served as its Governor.