Mian Iftikharuddin

Mian Iftikharuddin (8 April 1907 – 6 June 1962) was a Pakistani politician and newspaper founder from Lahore, known for his left-wing politics: president of the Punjab Congress who joined the Muslim League in 1945, then founder of The Pakistan Times, the Urdu daily Imroze and the magazine Lail-o-Nahar.¹ The English article gives his birth as 8 April 1907; the Urdu article's text gives the year 1908, a variant preserved in his record.²

He was born at Baghbanpura, Lahore, to the wealthy Arain Mian family, custodians of the Shalimar Gardens; his relations included Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi and Sir Mian Abdul Rashid.¹ He was educated at Aitchison College and the University of Oxford.¹

He joined the Indian National Congress in 1936, was elected to the Punjab Provincial Assembly in 1937, and presided over the Punjab Provincial Congress from 1940 to 1945, close to Jawaharlal Nehru; in 1937 he introduced the Kashmir leader Sheikh Abdullah to Nehru.¹ He had opposed the Lahore Resolution, but in September 1945 he resigned from Congress and joined the Muslim League, was elected again in 1946, and led the civil disobedience movement against the Unionist government of Khizar Hayat Tiwana.¹

In the first Kashmir conflict he carried Pakistan's soundings to Srinagar: he met Sardar Ibrahim in Lahore in August 1947, travelled to Srinagar to assess the Maharaja's intentions, asked General Akbar Khan to prepare a plan for aiding Kashmir's Muslims, and took part in the 12 September 1947 meeting under Liaquat Ali Khan at which the Kashmir plans were approved.¹ After Sheikh Abdullah refused to be brought to Jinnah, he concluded that Kashmir was lost, and took no further part.¹

He was the first president of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League after independence and served briefly as Punjab's minister for the rehabilitation of refugees; his 1949 proposal of radical land reforms provoked the feudal leadership of his own party, he resigned the ministry in 1949 and was expelled from the League in 1951.¹ He was the only Muslim member of the Constituent Assembly to oppose the Objectives Resolution as vague — though he voted for it after assurances that minorities would enjoy full rights in an Islamic state — and he later founded the Azad Pakistan Party, committed to liberal secularism.¹ No source names a religion or school for him personally, and his record states none.³

Through Progressive Papers he owned The Pakistan Times, edited first by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, which promoted social justice and agrarian reform; in 1959 the military government of Ayub Khan took the newspaper over, and his legal challenge recovered neither the paper nor compensation.¹

He died of a heart attack at Lahore on 6 June 1962, aged 54; Faiz Ahmad Faiz, his friend and ally, paid tribute to him in verse.¹

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