Khawaja Nazimuddin

For other people with the same or similar name, see Liaqat Ali (disambiguation)

Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin, KCIE (Urdu: خواجہ ناظم الدین; Bengali: খাজা নাজিমুদ্দীন) ( Khajyäħ Nazim-üddeen; July 19, 1894 - October 22, 1964), was one of the notable Bengali Founding Fathers of modern-state of Pakistan, career statesman from East-Pakistan, serving as the second Governor-General of Pakistan from 1948 until the assassination of Prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951. Afterwards, Nazimuddin took the office of Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the second Prime minister as well the first Bengali prime minister of that country.

His government lasted only two years but saw the civil unrest, political differences, foreign challenges, and threat of communism in East Pakistan and socialism in West Pakistan, that led the final dismissal of his government. As in response to Lahore riots in 1953, Nazimuddin was the first one to have declared the Martial law in Punjab Province under Major-General Azam Khan and Colonel Rahimuddin Khan, initiating a massive repression of the Right-wing sphere in the country. His short tenure also saw the quick rise of socialists in West-Pakistan after failing to enforce to alleviated poverty reduce expenditure programme, and failed to counter the communist influence in the East-Pakistan (his native province) after the successful demonstration of the Language Movement— in both states the Muslim league was diminished in public circle. At foreign events, the relations with United States, Soviet Union, and India, gradually went down, and was failed to reduce the anti-Pakistan sentiment in those countries.

On April 17, 1953, Nazimuddin was dismissed and forced out of the government, and conceded his defeat in 1954 general elections, and was succeeded by another Bengali statesman Muhammad Ali Bogra. After a long illness, Nazimuddin died in 1964 at the age of 70, and was given a state funeral and now buried at Suhrawardy Udyan, in his hometown of Dhaka, his home town.