One of the great sons of Assam and India. His contribution to the Indian freedom struggle was invaluable. A firm believer in the ideals of Mahatma Ga… - Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

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”.

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 very close to Jawaharlal Nehru. He could have joined the Central Cabinet much earlier but the Chief Minister of Assam, wanted him to work with him and resisted his going to the centre.