About Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (Assamese pronunciation: [ɸɔkʱɹudːin ali aɦmɛd]; 13 May 1905 – 11 February 1977) was an Indian lawyer and politician who served as the President of India from 1974 to 1977. Born in Delhi, Ahmed studied in Delhi and Cambridge and was called to the bar from the Inner Temple, London in 1928. Returning to India, he practised law in Lahore and then in Guwahati. Beginning a long association with the Indian National Congress in the 1930s, Ahmed was finance minister of Assam in the Gopinath Bordoloi ministry in 1939. He became the Advocate General of Assam in 1946, and was finance minister again from 1957 to 1966 under Bimala Prasad Chaliha. He was made a national Cabinet Minister by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1966 and was in charge of various central ministries including Power, Irrigation, Industries and Agriculture. He was elected President of India in 1974, securing a greater confidence than his contestant Tridib Chaudhuri. As President, Ahmed imposed The Emergency in August 1975 and gave his assent to numerous ordinances and constitutional amendments drafted by Indira Gandhi to rule by decree. Lampooned in an iconic cartoon by Abu Abraham, Ahmed's reputation was tarnished by his support for the Emergency. His Presidency had been described as a rubber stamp. Ahmed died in February 1977 of a heart attack. He was accorded a state funeral and is buried in a mosque near Parliament House in New Delhi. Ahmed, who was the second Muslim to become the president of India, was also the second president to die in office. Ahmed was succeeded by B. D. Jatti as interim president and by Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as the sixth president of India in 1977. This, and the pro-labour stance he took during the strike in the Assam Oil Company, was deemed inimical to British commercial interests in Assam but won much public support for the Bordoloi Ministry. At Guwahati, Ahmed, who later became the Advocate General for the state, was the founding president of the Bar Association of the Assam High Court after its formation in 1948. However, in the elections of 1946, while the Congress won the majority of seats to form a government in Assam under Gopinath Bordoloi, Ahmed was defeated in the North Kamrup constituency by the Muslim League's Moulvi Abdul Hye.
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