Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar was born in 1897, at Ahmadabad. He passed his B. A. and L. L. B. examinations from Bombay University and started practicing law in 1920. In the 1937 elections, he was elected as a member of the Bombay Legislative Council on All India Muslim Leagues’ ticket. A year later, he was elected as the Deputy Leader of the party in the Legislative Assembly. He remained as the President of Bombay Muslim League from 1940 to 1945. When Quaid-i-Azam was asked to nominate the members of Muslim League for the interim government in 1946, the Quaid selected I. I. Chundrigar as one of his nominees.
After the independence of Pakistan, Chundrigar was appointed as the Minister for Trade and Commerce in the first Cabinet of the newly established country. Then he was appointed as the Ambassador of Pakistan to Kabul. He served as the Governor of North West Frontier Province and then of Punjab, from November 1951 to May 1953. In August 1955, he assumed charge of the Law Ministry in the Federal Cabinet and served in this capacity till August 1957.
After Suhrawardy resigned, Iskander Mirza asked I. I. Chundrigar, a leader of the Muslim League, to establish his Ministry in the Center. Chundrigar formed his government on October 18, 1957, with the help of the Republican Party, the Krishak Sramik Party and the Nizam-i-Islam Party. His tenure as Prime Minister lasted for less than two months. He was forced to resign on December 11, 1957. During his short tenure, he raised his voice in favor of separate electorates.
I. I. Chundrigar was more of a lawyer than a politician. He gained a lot of popularity as a constitutional lawyer when he pleaded the case of Maulvi Tamiz-ud-din for the restoration of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
He died on September 26, 1960.
This article was last updated on Sunday, June 01, 2003
