Malik Meraj Khalid ( ur, ; 1 February 1916 – 13 June 2003), was a Pakistani advocate, left wing
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
and
Marxist philosopher who served as
Caretaker prime minister of Pakistan
The Caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan ( ur, ) is the acting head of government in Pakistan following the Dissolution of parliament, dissolution of the National Assembly of Pakistan, National Assembly. The purpose of this post is to ensure free ...
from November 1996 until February 1997.
He was noted as being one of the original philosophers and founding personalities of the
Pakistan Peoples Party
The Pakistan People's Party ( ur, , ; PPP) is a centre-left, social-democratic political party in Pakistan. It is currently the third largest party in the National Assembly and second largest in the Senate of Pakistan. The party was founded ...
(PPP).
[
Born in 1916 to a poor farming family in ]Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...
, 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 ...
, he graduated in law from the Islamia College (Lahore)
Government Islamia College Civil Lines ( ur, اسلامیہ کالج ), formerly called Dayanand Anglo Vedic College, is a government college in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded by Arya Samaj as the school of Dayanand Anglo Vedic on June 1, 1 ...
in 1942, starting his legal practices by establishing his own law firm in 1948. Inspired by the communist literature published in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, his initial public community work was aimed towards promoting the literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
in his native village. In 1967, he was one of the founders of the PPP and ascended towards holding the highly important public offices. Responsible for administrating and maintaining the control of the Punjab Province after the war with India in 1971, Meraj Khalid was appointed as law minister
A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, ...
in 1974 and the Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
of the National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
in two non-consecutive terms.["Meraj Khalid passes away"]
''Dawn'' (newspaper), 14 June 2003, retrieved 23 May 2020
However, his tough and rigorous Hard Left
In the United Kingdom, the hard left are the left-wing political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left.*
*
Term
The term was first used in the context of debates within both the Labour Party and the broader left in the 1980 ...
ideas led to developing political differences with Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto ( ur, بینظیر بُھٹو; sd, بينظير ڀُٽو; Urdu ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 t ...
in the 1990s, by whom he was sacked in 1996 after levelling accusations against Asif Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari ( ur, ; sd, ; born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician who is the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and was the co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party. He served as the 11th president of Pakista ...
for the murder of Murtaza Bhutto
Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (; 18 September 1954 – 20 September 1996) was a Pakistani politician and leader of al-Zulfiqar, a Pakistani left-wing militant organization. The son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, he earne ...
. Being appointed as caretaker prime minister, Meraj Khalid then worked to rally the anti–Benazir Bhutto forces, and his efforts contributed to Nawaz Sharif
Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi language, Punjabi: ; born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms. He is the longest-serving prime ...
and the conservatives' landslide victory in the 1997 parliamentary elections.
Early life and career beginnings
Malik Meraj Khalid was born in Dera Chahal, a small village near Burki District. Lahore, to a poor and farming family. During his early life, he saw his family struggle with hardship to survive in the feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
spectrum where his family grew crops for a local feudal lord who paid less than the minimum wage set by the British Indian Empire
The British Raj (; from Hindi language, Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Q ...
government. However, Meraj Khalid did not abandon his school, and despite the hardship, Khalid completed his high-school and later went on to work for a feudal lord who agreed to finance his education.
He was educated at Islamia College, Lahore
Government Islamia College Civil Lines ( ur, اسلامیہ کالج ), formerly called Dayanand Anglo Vedic College, is a government college in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded by Arya Samaj as the school of Dayanand Anglo Vedic on June 1, 1 ...
and gained an LLB degree in 1944, from Punjab University Law College, Lahore, followed by an Associate degree
An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree.
The fi ...
in public works.[ Profile of Malik Meraj Khalid on The Story of Pakistan website](_blank)
Published 1 June 2003, Retrieved 23 May 2020 In 1948, he began to practice law. He was elected to the Provincial Assembly of West Pakistan for the first time in 1965. In 1968, he joined the Pakistan Peoples Party
The Pakistan People's Party ( ur, , ; PPP) is a centre-left, social-democratic political party in Pakistan. It is currently the third largest party in the National Assembly and second largest in the Senate of Pakistan. The party was founded ...
(PPP) and was appointed President of its Lahore chapter. It was on the PPP ticket that he was successfully re-elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan
The National Assembly ( ur, , translit=Aiwān-e-Zairīñ, , or ur, قومی اسمبلی, Romanization, romanized: ''Qaumi Assembly'') is the lower house, lower legislative house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Pakistan, which al ...
in 1970.[
]
Statesmanship
Malik Meraj Khalid, famous for his gentleness and honesty, was a favourite of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and Politician, statesman who served as ...
, the flamboyant Prime Minister of Pakistan during the 1970s. It was he who played a major role in the political career of Meraj Khalid by first appointing him as his Minister for Food and Agriculture and Under-Developed Areas in December 1971. Afterwards he was appointed Chief of the Party's Parliamentary Affairs in November 1972, and Minister of Social Welfare, Local Government and Rural Development in 1975.[
]
Member and Speaker of National Assembly
After the execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in April 1979, he was nominated member of the PPP's Central Committee, but he eventually resigned from this position in January 1988. After once more successfully returning to the National Assembly in 1988, he was once again appointed as Speaker of the National Assembly in 1988. However, he lost the subsequent elections in 1993, and remained aloof from politics for some time. During this period of solitude, he served as the Rector of International Islamic University in Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...
in 1997.
Interim Prime Minister
President Farooq Leghari
Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari ( ur, ; 29 May 194020 October 2010), was a Pakistani politician who served as the eighth president of Pakistan from 14 November 1993 until resigning on 2 December 1997. He is the first Baloch to have been elected a ...
, using the powers granted him by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan
The Constitution of Pakistan ( ur, ), also known as the 1973 Constitution, is the supreme law of Pakistan. Drafted by the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, with additional assistance from the country's Pakistani political parties, opposition ...
, dismissed the government of Benazir Bhutto in November 1996 again, for corruption and politically motivated killings. Malik Meraj Khalid was asked to officiate the interim government before new elections, but as prime minister Meraj Khalid continued to live his simple life and his Lahore home too remained as accessible as ever.
Death and legacy
Malik Meraj KhalidI peacefully died on 13 June 2003 at age 87 in his residence in Lahore, and was buried with full state honour in a local cemetery. He was survived by his widow and an adopted son.[
His obituary in ''The Guardian'' noted that "Meraj was perhaps the one Pakistani politician intensely engaged with community work while in high office, and whenever out of office, or out of favor with his party, he returned to grassroots activism, gaining respect and affection across the spectrum. Amid political extremists and Bonapartist generals, he was a model of reason".]
References
External links
Chronicles Of Pakistan
A profile of Malik Meraj Khalid
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalid, Meraj
1916 births
2003 deaths
Punjabi people
Lawyers from Lahore
Government Islamia College alumni
Pakistani Marxists
Pakistani communists
Pakistani socialists
Marxist writers
Pakistan People's Party politicians
Chief Ministers of Punjab, Pakistan
Agriculture ministers of Pakistan
Food ministers of Pakistan
Law Ministers of Pakistan
Pakistani sports executives and administrators
Caretaker prime ministers of Pakistan
Speakers of the National Assembly of Pakistan
Government of Benazir Bhutto staffers and personnel
Pakistani MNAs 1988–1990
Pakistani MNAs 1977
Punjab MPAs 1972–1977
Central Model School, Lahore alumni
20th-century Pakistani lawyers