Top 15 Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Quotes

A gentlemen president from the upper strata of society, his upbringing seldom allowed anger and prejudices to get the better of him. He was also staunch Congressman, with a deep sense of commitment to secularism...later in life he had to contend with being called "communal" because he tried to attract young Muslims who had been educated at Aligarh Muslim University – a campus then perceived to be influenced by the communal ideas of the Muslim League – to the Congress.

As President, he put signature to the order on promulgation of Emergence on 25 June 1975 – the most notable decision of the presidential term. This move was widely criticized by the opposition leaders who considered it a servile act, driven more by considerations of being seen as loyal to the Nehru-Gandhi family, rather than of genuine concern for the safety of the government.

As a student in England he had befriended Jawaharlal Nehru whose progressive ideas had influenced him, and who became his close friend and mentor.

He studied at Cambridge University’s Catherine College and became barrister from the Inner Temple of London. He could not complete his parents’ dream of appearing for ICS examination due to severe bout of illness. When he returned to India, he began practicing law in the Lahore High Court in 1928. In October that year, his father took him to Guwahati in Assam to take care of some paternal property, which included a few hundred acres of land in and around Guwahati. Thus the Ahmed family connection to Assam, which had been severed abruptly by his father’s posting to the northwest many years ago was restored... and two years later he returned in 1931 to become a primary member of the Congress, a move which greatly influenced his future development. **In: p. 49

He was the president who proclaimed the two-year period of Emergency that marked such a difficult period in India's political history. This, and his subsequent death in office, marked him in public memory forever as the “Emergency President”.

Elegantly dressed he was always courteous but firm in what he believed to be just and fair and presented himself as a Moghul, as it were, which quality he possibly inherited from his maternal side.

In the Congress hierarchy, he enjoyed an enviable position being a member of the Congress Working Committee for many years.

His initiative in introducing the Assam Agricultural Income Tax Bill, the first of its kind in India, in 1939, that levied taxes on tea garden lands in the State and his pro-labour policy in the British-owned Assam Oil Company Limited at Digboi irked the European planters and their henchman who considered that the measures of the Congress Coalition Government were radical and, therefore, constituted a danger signal tot eh interests of the British commercial community.

As a Congressman he actively participated in the freedom movement...offered personal satyagraha in 1940 and was imprisoned for a year….Again in the Quit India Movement he was detained as a security prisoner for three and half years until April 1945.

He was one of those few Muslims who by virtue of his service to the country under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi reached the pinnacle of honour as the President of the Indian Republic, the fifth in the roll.

He was a close friend of Zakir Husain, the third President of India. It was a coincidence and a tribute to their friendship that both occupied the highest position of the land, died in harness of heart failure and collapsed in the same bathroom of the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

He was a man with modest habits, he was fond of light music, he had neither smoked nor even took ‘pan’ but he was fond of good dress.

No religion has one single language. Muslims are spread all over the world and all Muslims do not speak one language. For instance the Turk Muslims speak Turkish, the Iranian Muslims speak Persian, the Indonesian Muslims speak Bhasha Indonesia; the Punjabi Muslims speak Punjabi, the Maharashtrian Muslim speaks Marathi, and like wise. He was against imposing any language on any people and he spoke a language which is known as Hindustani.

A son of a "kazi", he was elected to the highest office, which he, or any member of the family could ever think of these pleasant incident is the proof, that destiny has a great role to play in one’s life.

He continued in the council of Minister till July 1974 and resigned as he was proposed for the office of the President of India. He was the second person who had been selected by the Party High Command, particularly Indira Gandhi, for the August Office. This was the highest example of national integration and communal harmony of the Indian Democracy.