Zakir Hussain

Zakir Hussain زاکِر حسین
3rd President of India
In office May 13, 1967 – May 3, 1969
Prime Minister	Indira Gandhi
Vice President	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
Preceded by	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Succeeded by	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
2nd Vice President of India
In office May 13, 1962 – May 12, 1967
President	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Preceded by	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Succeeded by	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
11th Governor of Bihar
In office July 6, 1957 – May 11, 1962
Preceded by	R.R Diwakar
Succeeded by	Madabhushi Ananthasayanam Ayyangar
Born	February 8, 1897(1897-02-08) Hyderabad, India
Died	May 3, 1969 (aged 72) New Delhi, India
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Shahjehan Begum
Religion	Islam

Dr. Zakir Hussain (February 8, 1897 - May 3, 1969) (Urdu: زاکِر حسین), was the third President of India from May 13, 1967 until his death on May 3, 1969. He was the first elected Muslim president of India.

He was awarded the highest Indian national honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1963.

Early life and background

Hussain was born in Hyderabad (India). His Pashtun father had migrated to Hyderabad from Kaimganj, district Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh. He was educated at Islamia High School, Etawah and at the Anglo-Muhammadan Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University, where he was a prominent student leader).

Career

Hussain, then only 23, was among the small group of students and teachers who founded a National Muslim University near Delhi and named it Jamia Millia Islamia. He subsequently went to Germany to obtain a PhD from the University of Berlin in Economics. While in Germany, Hussain was instrumental in bringing out the anthology of arguably the greatest Urdu poet Mirza Assadullah Khan "Ghalib" (1797-1868).

He returned to India to head the Jamia Millia Islamia which was facing closure in 1927. He continued in that position for the next twenty-one years providing academic and managerial leadership to an institution that was intimately involved with India's struggle for freedom from the British Rule and experimented with value base education on the lines advocated by Mahatma Gandhi. During this period he continued to engage himself with movements for educational reforms in India and was particularly active in the affairs of his old alma mater the MAO College, now the Aligarh Muslim University. During this period Hussain emerged as one of the most prominent educational thinkers and practitioners of modern India. His personal sacrifice and untiring efforts to keep the Jamia afloat in very adverse circumstances won him appreciation of even his arch political rivals like Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Soon after India attained independence, Hussain agreed to be the Vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University which was facing trying times in post partition India because of active involvement of a section of its teachers and students in the movement for creation of Pakistan, where incidentally Hussain's relatives brother Dr. Mahmood Hussain and nephew General Rahimuddin Khan would migrate to and achieve eminence. Dr Hussain, again, provided leadership during a critical phase of the history of the University at Aligarh from 1948-1956. Soon after completing his term as Vice Chancellor he was nominated as a member of the Upper House of Indian Parliament in 1956, a position he vacated in 1957 to become Governor of the State of Bihar.

After serving as the Governor of Bihar from 1957 to 1962, and as the Vice President of India from 1962 to 1967, Hussain was elected President of India on May 13, 1967. In his inaugural speech he said that the whole of India was his home and all its people were his family.

Hussain died on May 3, 1969, the first Indian President to die in office. He is buried on the campus of the Jamia Millia Islamia (or Central University) in New Delhi.

References

External links

• Dr. Zakir Hussain Biography

v • d • e Presidents of India Rajendra Prasad · Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan · Zakir Hussain · V.V. Giri† · Muhammad Hidayatullah† · V.V. Giri · Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed · Basappa Danappa Jatti† · Neelam Sanjiva Reddy · Zail Singh · R. Venkataraman · Shankar Dayal Sharma · K.R. Narayanan · Abdul Kalam · Pratibha Patil "†" indicate acting or caretaker officeholders.

v • d • e Vice Presidents of India Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan · Zakir Hussain · V. V. Giri · Gopal Swarup Pathak · Basappa Danappa Jatti · Muhammad Hidayatullah · R. Venkataraman · Shankar Dayal Sharma · K. R. Narayanan · Krishan Kant · Bhairon Singh Shekhawat · Mohammad Hamid Ansari

v • d • e Bharat Ratna laureates Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1954) · C. Rajagopalachari (1954) · C. V. Raman (1954) · Bhagwan Das (1955) · Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya (1955) · Jawaharlal Nehru (1955) · Govind Ballabh Pant (1957) · Dhondo Keshav Karve (1958) · Bidhan Chandra Roy (1961) · Purushottam Das Tandon (1961) · Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1962) · Dr. Zakir Hussain (1963) · Pandurang Vaman Kane (1963) · Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966) · Indira Gandhi (1971) · V. V. Giri (1975) · K. Kamaraj (1976) · Mother Teresa (1980) · Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1983) · Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) · M. G. Ramachandran (1988) · B. R. Ambedkar (1990) · Nelson Mandela (1990) · Rajiv Gandhi (1991) · Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1991) · Morarji Desai (1991) · Abul Kalam Azad (1992) · J. R. D. Tata (1992) · Satyajit Ray (1992) · A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1997) · Gulzarilal Nanda (1997) · Aruna Asaf Ali (1997) · M. S. Subbulakshmi (1998) · Chidambaram Subramaniam (1998) · Jayaprakash Narayan (1998) · Ravi Shankar (1999) · Amartya Sen (1999) · Gopinath Bordoloi (1999) · Lata Mangeshkar (2001) · Bismillah Khan (2001) · Bhimsen Joshi (2008)