Yusuf Ali Chowdhury - Political Life

Political Life

When Mohan Mia was at Ishan School, he was one of 25 or 30 Muslim students out of a total of a thousand. Undeterred, he fought and succeeded in establishing their right to hold annual Milad in the school in the same way as the Hindu students observed Saraswati puja. He showed good leadership ability all through school life and held captaincy in all sports teams and school activities.

He always supported his elder brother Lal Mia in all his political activities from an early age and developed an interest in politics. Finally in 1937, on the encouragement of his elder brother and other politicians, he stepped into mainstream politics by contesting in the Legislative Assembly Elections. He gave away his own safe and secure constituency within his zamindari in favour of Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan (the speaker of Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly), regarded by him as his political guru. He chose for himself the Shibchar-Sadarpur-Bhanga constituency to challenge powerful Zamindar Choudhury Shamsuddin Ahmed, known as Badshah Mia of matborchor, who also was related to their family. Mohon Mia won the seat. A.K. Fazlul Huq formed the government in Bengal in coalition with the Muslim League. In the years that followed, Mohon Mia became legendary in the field of politics.

But in 1941 Fazlul Huq severed his ties with the Muslim League and formed a new government in association with the Congress. Mohan Mia stayed on in the League and played a significant role in the party. Fazlul Huq was angry but Mohan Mia did not budge from his stand. Mohon Mia was involved in the meetings where the demand for a new and separate country for Muslims, known as the Pakistan Declaration, had been raised and had in fact been one of the most vocal leaders calling for Independence.

After independence of the country, he found the central government to be exploitative and not as cooperative towards the East Pakistan Province as he had hoped. Thus, he joined the Ooposition by becoming an active leader of the Krishok Proja Party and thereby of the Jukta Front coalition. In the decisive election of 1954, Mohon Mia had played a vital role in suggesting and selecting candidates for the Jukta Front across whole of East Pakistan. It so happened that in the election, the candidates of Jukto Front landed a landslide victory winning in almost all the seats but a few. Mohon Mia was largely credited for this success as most of the victors were relatively new to politics as compared to their competitors. So, the fact that they were shortlisted so cleverly, and the accuracy of the winning probability assessment gained Mohon Mia the nickname of the "King Maker of East Pakistan". During this time he also worked closely with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as well and the two became rather good friends. Mohon Mia had also become a Provincial Minister in the coalition Provincial Government at that time. However that unity in the coalition quickly eroded away due to inter party conflicts and that ended up causing embitterment in his relations with Bangabndhu as well. But Mohon Mia continued to remain in the opposition, though not with the mainstream opposition which was gradually being led by the Awami League.

With his close association with A.K. Fazlul Huq and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Mohan Mia could have become a central cabinet minister of Pakistan but did not, due to remaining in the opposition most of the time. He was elected as a Member of the National Assembly in the 1960s.

He also believed strongly in the cause of democracy and was active in the anti-Ayub Khan movement in the late 1960s, from a platform different from that of Awami League. At a later point he had also joined the Pakistan Democratic Party (PDP) of Nurul Amin. He had also campaigned for Fatima Jinnah, sister of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in her bid to defeat Ayub Khan at the presidential elections. However during the 1970 elections, Mohan Mia withdrew his candidacy to allow Obaidur Rahman of the Awami League to easily sail to victory. In many ways, he tacitly continued to support his old friends and comrades of the Awami League, and supported their call for autonomy.

Upon assuming the governorship of East Bengal, Iskander Mirza, in 1954, had threatened to use substantial force to quell the rising political sentiment against oppression of Bengalis. With the blessings of the Governor-General of Pakistan he arrested the government's fiercest critics in the province- Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Yusuf Ali Chowdhury Mohan Mia. The arrests were followed by the detention of 319 East Bengali politicians and intellectuals. Later amind growing public anger and protests the government arrested nearly 1500 people from all walks of life. The arrests of 1954 were seen as one of the initial repressions of Bengali rights in the early days of the new country along with the 1952 Language Movement. Mohon Mia's detention helped him gain significant popularity in that time period. He did in fact become one of the most fire-brand and well reputed political figures of then East Pakistan, and specially in the social circles of Dhaka.

He had also launched a newspaper called The Millat in which he abraided the Pakistan regime mercilessly, which eventually resulted in the closure of the paper.