Akhter Husain (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

HPk Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho (HPK) is a professional ice hockey team in the Liiga, the top men's ice hockey league in Finland. Their home ice is the Ritari-areena in Hämeenlinna. HPK was established in 1929. The parent club of the team is HPK Edu ...

, OBE, (1 August 1902 – 15 July 1983) was a senior statesman and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

of Pakistan. He was appointed

Governor of West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial Enclave and exclave, exclaves created during the One Unit, One Unit Schem ...

in September 1957 succeeding

Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani Nawab Mian Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani ( ur, ; (1905 – 1981) was a Pakistani politician who served as the Diwan of the Bahawalpur State. He was from Sinanwan. After the partition of India and the accession of Bahawalpur, he served as a 'Minist ...

and then continued in this office during the regime of General

Muhammad Ayub Khan Muhammad Ayub Khan (Urdu: ; 14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974), was the second President of Pakistan. He was an army general who seized the presidency from Iskander Mirza in a coup in 1958, the first successful coup d'état in the country's ...

until April 1960.

Early life

Akhter Husain was born on 1 August 1902 at

Burhanpur Burhanpur'' is a historical city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative seat of Burhanpur District. It is situated on the north bank of the Tapti River and northeast of city of Mumbai, southwest of the state's capi ...

( Central Province India) and received his early education from Hakimia High School, Burhanpur before proceeding to MAO College at Aligarh (which later became

Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a Public University, public Central University (India), central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Orie ...

), graduating later from Allahbad University. He was selected for the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

in 1924 and completed his education and training at St. John's College, Cambridge, England. Upon return from England, he was posted to serve in the province of Punjab in 1926. He served in various administrative positions in different districts of the province, before being appointed as Under Secretary in the Government of India in 1930. He returned to Provincial administration in 1936. Akhter Husain received a British government award of

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE) on 1 January 1944 for his groundbreaking work of settlement in the district of Gurgaon in Punjab in 1943. He was appointed Chief Secretary in the undivided Punjab in 1946, a position he occupied during the partition of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Pakistan Government Service

He continued to serve as the Chief Secretary of

West Punjab West Punjab ( pnb, ; ur, ) was a province in the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955. The province covered an area of 159,344 km2 (61523 sq mi), including much of the current Punjab (Pakistan), Punjab province and the Islamabad Capital Te ...

in the newly formed

Dominion of Pakistan Between 14 August 1947 and 23 March 1956, Pakistan was an independent federal dominion in the Commonwealth of Nations, created by the passing of the Indian Independence Act 1947 by the British parliament, which also created the Dominion of I ...

in 1947.

Governor

Akhter Husain was appointed Governor on 28 August 1957 and remained in this position following the imposition of Martial law in Oct 1958. In the same year he was appointed Chairman of the Land Reforms Commission and provincial administration committee. In 1958, he was awarded the highest civil award of

Hilal-i-Pakistan The Pakistan Civil Awards were established on March 19, 1957, following the proclamation of Pakistan as an independent republic on March 23, 1956. The announcement of civil awards is generally made once a year on Independence Day, August 14, an ...

. He was responsible for raising money for the construction of the Pakistan Day Memorial Monument (now known as

Minar-e-Pakistan Minar E Pakistan ( ur, , literally "Tower of Pakistan") is a tower located in Lahore, Pakistan. The tower was built between 1960 and 1968 on the site where the All-India Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution (which was later called the Pak ...

) and laid its foundation stone in the then Minto Park

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

on 23 March 1960.

Later years

In 1960 after his governorship, he was appointed as minister in the Presidential cabinet successively holding the portfolios of Information and Broadcasting and then Education and Kashmir Affairs. In order to hold these quasi-political positions, he retired from the Civil Service. He was also the recipient of the honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the

University of the Punjab The University of the Punjab (Urdu, pnb, ), also referred to as Punjab University, is a public, research, coeducational higher education institution located in Lahore, Pakistan. Punjab University is the oldest public university in Pakistan. ...

. He was subsequently appointed

Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan The Chief Election Commissioner is the authority and the appointed chair of the Election Commission of Pakistan— an institution constitutionally empowered to conduct free and fair elections to the national and provincial legislatures. Befor ...

and served in that position between 1962 and 1964. He also held the office of President of

Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu ( ur, ; ''Organisation for the Progress of Urdu'') was an organisation working for the promotion and dissemination of Urdu language, literature and culture in British India. After the partition of India, the separated ...

(The organisation for the promotion and development of the

Urdu language Urdu (;"Urdu"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ur, , link=no, ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, In ...

) from 1962 to 1983 and was Chairman of Pakistan Burmah Shell from 1968 until his death in 1983.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Husain, Akhter 1902 births 1983 deaths Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Governors of West Pakistan Pakistani civil servants Defence Secretaries of Pakistan Officers of the Order of the British Empire Aligarh Muslim University alumni People from Burhanpur Muhajir people Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge