Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar

Biography

Early life and law practice Ismail Ibrahim Chundrigar was born in Godhra, Gujarat, in British India on 15 September 1897. He was an only child.

Chundrigar moved to Bombay for his higher studies. He attended the University of Bombay where he earned a BA degree, and later the LLB degree in 1920. From 1929 till 1932, Chundrigar was a lawyer for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

From 1932 until 1937, Chundrigar practiced civil law, and moved to practice and read law at the Bombay High Court in 1937, where he established his reputation.

From 1937 till 1946, Chundrigar practiced in the Bombay High Court.

In 1946, he was elected to the assembly from a Muslim urban constituency in Ahmedabad. He was appointed Commerce Minister under the presidential administrations of the Viceroys of India, Archibald Wavell (1946) and Louis Mountbatten (1946-47).

Public service in Pakistan

Diplomacy and governorships

After the partition of India by the act of the British Empire that established Pakistan, Chundrigar endorsed Liaquat Ali Khan's bid for the premiership and was retained as the commerce minister in the administration of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on 15 August 1947.

In May 1948, Chundrigar left the Commerce Ministry and was appointed Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan. Although his appointment was favorably received in Afghanistan, Chundrigar was at odds with the Afghan government (supported by India as early as 1949) over the issue of Pakistan's north-west border with Afghanistan.

Chundrigar's tenure as ambassador was short. He was recalled to Pakistan by the Foreign Office, which viewed his inability to understand the Pashtun culture as a possible factor in fracturing Afghan-Pakistan relations. In 1950, Chundrigar was appointed governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, a position he held until 1951. During this time, he also acted as a leader of the opposition.

At the National Assembly, he established his reputation as more of a constitutional lawyer than a politician, and gained a lot of prominence in public for his arguments in favour of parliamentarianism when he pleaded the case of "Maulvi Tamizuddin vs. Federation of Pakistan". However, this coalition of mixed parties weakened Chundrigar's authority to run the central government, and divisions within the coalition would soon hamper his efforts to amend the Electoral College.