Syed Ali Zaheer
Syed Ali Zaheer was an Indian politician and a minister in the first cabinet formed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Early and family life
Zaheer was born one of the four sons of Sir Syed Wazir Hasan, sometime Chief Justice of the Oudh Chief Court. The family belonged to the Shia sect of Islam and were an off-shoot of a land-owning family of the region. Zaheer's younger brother, Sajjad Zaheer, was a Communist leader, whose daughter Nadira Babbar is a theatre artist and the first wife of Raj Babbar, the film actor and MP.
Zaheer was married at a young age to Aliya, a distant cousin, in a match arranged by their parents. After Zaheer achieved prominence as a Muslim leader within the Congress Party, his wife was appointed chairperson of the Central Social Welfare Board. The couple had a son, Karim Zaheer, and a daughter, Sakina Hasan, who was a communist and a member of the Committee of the Status of Women appointed by Indira Gandhi under the chairmanship of Vina Mazumdar.
ali zaheer born in kalanpur jaunpur
Career
Zaheer began his career as a barrister in the Chief Court of Oudh (Awadh), based in Lucknow. He took interest in politics at an early age and joined the Congress party. He selected this party for two reasons: firstly, the Congress was leading India's struggle for independence from Britain; and secondly, its main opponent at the local level in Avadh, the Muslim League, was dominated by Sunni Muslims, whereas the Zaheer family belonged to the Shia sect.
Municipal politics
In the 1930s and 1940s, actively encouraged by the British policy of Divide and Rule, communal politics (Hindus versus Muslims) was at its peak in India. The Awadh region, dominated by vastly rich Muslim landlords ruling an overwhelmingly Hindu peasantry, was a hotbed of Muslim separatism, and indeed the main source of funding for the Muslim League, which was intent upon partitioning India and creating Pakistan.
Since many of the land-owners of the region were Muslims, much of provincial politics in Awadh during the days of the British Raj was dominated by them. Lucknow's traditional strife between the Shia and Sunni sects of Islam was represented (and exacerbated) by the political rivalry between Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-zaman, a Sunni Muslim League leader, and Syed Ali Zaheer, a Shia Leader and member of the Congress party. Both fought elections for the Lucknow Municipal Board and the Congress Party won. Zaheer thus became Municipal Commissioner of Lucknow in the early 1940s. Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-zaman later migrated to Pakistan where he became Governor of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Later career
Since he held an important position as a member of the Congress party, Zaheer did not jump ship and join the Muslim League as many of his colleagues did. In 1946, with independence imminent, the struggle between the Congress Party and the Muslim League reached a flash-point. In order to demonstrate its inclusiveness, the Congress party made much of communal situation reached a flash-point. He was rewarded for this expedient loyalty in 1946.
In 1946, when the provisional government of India was formed as a prelude to independence, Zaheer was appointed Law Minister. Later, he was appointed India's ambassador to Iran, again by Jawaharlal Nehru. However, his tenure in Tehran proved to be brief, and on his return, he resumed his legal practice. for a short while and again became the Law Minister of Uttar Pradesh for two terms.
Later he became Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Pay Commission.
Though he was a lifetime Congressman, Ali Zaheer briefly left Congress and joined Babu Jagjivan Ram's Congress for Democracy (CFD) during the general elections of 1977.
Mr. Ali Zaheer remained the President of the Shia Degree College Management Committee and was succeeded by his son Kazim Zaheer. Dr. Sakina Hasan, a member of the Committee on the Status of Women, was the eldest child of Syed Ali Zaheer. She married Dr Ammar Hasan, Professor of Orthopaedics at AMU. Syed Ali Zaheer was buried in Daliganj Karbala, in close vicinity to the Shia College.