| Jogendranath Mandal যোগেন্দ্রনাথ মণ্ডল |
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| Born | 29 January 1904 Bengal, British India |
| Died | 5 October 1968 (aged 64) Bangaon, West Bengal, India |
| Ethnicity | Bengali Hindu |
| Religion | Hinduism |
Jogendra Nath Mandal (Bengali: যোগেন্দ্রনাথ মণ্ডল) (1904–1968) was an Indian and later Pakistani statesman who served as the first minister of law and labour in Pakistan. As leader of the Scheduled Castes, Jogendranath had made common cause with the Muslim League in their demand for Pakistan, hoping that the Scheduled Castes would be benefited from it and joined the first cabinet in Pakistan as the Minister of Law and Labour. He, however, realized his folly in 1950 when thousands of lower caste Hindus were massacred in East Bengal generating a wave of refugees to India. He himself fled to India and submitted his resignation to Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Following the partition of India on August 15, 1947 Mandal became a member and temporary chairman of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, and agreed to serve as the new state's first Minister for Law and Labour - becoming the highest-ranking Hindu member of the government. From 1947 to 1950 he would live in the port city of Karachi, which became Pakistan's capital. Mandal strongly supported Jinnah's ideal of a secular state in Pakistan.
However, Mandal grew increasingly disillusioned with Pakistan following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and a communal crisis in East Pakistan, where his origins lay, and where close to 4 million Hindus were forced to flee into India within the space of a few years. When Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan publicly supported a proposal to make Islam the official state religion, Mandal denounced it as a rejection of Jinnah's secular vision for Pakistan. Mandal continued to attack the proposed Objectives Resolution, which outlined an Islamic state as completely disregarding the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. He grew increasingly isolated, and came increasingly under verbal and physical attack; fleeing to Kolkata, he sent his letter of resignation in October 1950(dated 8 October 1950). In his resignation letter, he openly assailed Pakistani politicians for disregarding the rights and future of minorities, as well as the vision of Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.But his efforts to re enter political arena as late as 1967 failed owing to his past reputation as one of the founders of Pakistan.His last attempt to contest Barasat constituency in 1967 resulted in defeat.He died next year on 5 October 1968 at Bongaon. He was the last amongst members of Pakistan's first cabinet to die but first to leave the cabinet and country.
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