Category Our Presidents

            Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was born in a peasant family at Illuri village in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh on 19th May 1913. Sanjiva Reddy had his early education at the Theosophical High School at Adyar in Madras. He later joined the Arts College at Anantapur.

           Young Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was greatly influenced by the ideologies of Mahatma Gandhi. He gave up his studies to take part in the freedom movement. In 1931 Neelam Sanjiva Reddy joined the Indian National Congress.

            He participated in a student Satyagraha, which brought him into the limelight. He was also jailed for participating in the Quit India Movement.

            In 1946, he was elected to the Madras Legislative Assembly. He became a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1947. In 1951, he was elected as the president of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, and subsequently, he became member of the Rajya Sabha.

            He also served as the president of the Indian National Congress from 1959 to 1962. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy became Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1953 and then the first Chief Minister of the state in 1956.

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              Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was the sixth President of India. He held the office from 1977 to 1982. He was a veteran statesman and administrator. He was also the first to be elected unopposed.

               Reddy was 64 when he was elected as the youngest President of India. He proved his humbleness through two notable gestures; one was him renouncing the residency at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the other was him allowing a 70 per cent cut in his salary, considering the poor economic condition of the nation in 1977.

              Besides being the President of India, he held many eminent positions in public life, both before, and after independence. Reddy served as Union Minister of Transport, Civil Aviation, and Shipping and Tourism, from January 1966 to March 1967 in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Hindupur constituency in Andhra Pradesh. He was chosen as the speaker of the Lok Sabha on March 17th, 1967. This won him immense recognition. He served his term with such dedication and passion that he is remembered as the best ever Lok Sabha speaker.

 

 

               Though politics was Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s forte, he always showed keen interest in sports and many extracurricular activities.

                Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was an excellent tennis player and golfer. He was the president of the Assam Football Association. He was also elected as the president of the Assam Cricket Association for several terms. He also held the position of vice president of the Assam Sports Council.

                In April 1967, he was elected as the president of the All India Cricket Association. Other than these, he was also a member of the Delhi Golf Club and the Delhi Gymkhana Club since 1961.

               Though he was basically a sports enthusiast, he had excellent taste in music and fine arts too. He enjoyed the music of Ghaleb.

               A medical college, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College, has been named after him at Barpeta in Assam.

 

               During his stint in England, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed met Jawaharlal Nehru in 1925. Nehru’s progressive ideas influenced him very much. At Nehru’s request, Ali Ahmed joined the Indian National Congress. He actively participated in the Indian freedom struggle.

               He was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee from 1936. He was later selected as a Minister of Finance, Revenue and Labour in Assam. In 1942, he supported the Quit India Movement, for which he was arrested in August.

               After India gained independence, Fakhruddin was elected to Rajya Sabha in 1952. He eventually became the Advocate-General of the Government of Assam. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1967 and again in 1971. He handled various portfolios, including food and agriculture, cooperation, education, industrial development and company laws.

              Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was chosen by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as the President of India. He was sworn in on 24th August 1974.  He was a multifaceted personality. His interest in sports was extremely popular.

              Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed’s tenure in the office was cut short by his sudden death due to a heart attack which he suffered on his return from a tour of the South-East Asian countries only a day before. He died on 11th February, 1977.

            Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was very much inspired by his father, who was a great patriot.

            Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed was in the Indian Medical Service and served as an army doctor. Col. Ahmed opposed the bad treatment towards the Indians by the British. Ali Ahmed’s father Col. Zalnur Ali had to leave Assam while he was a bachelor doctor following an incident in Shillong.  

            Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed and one of his Assamese contemporaries, Col. Sibram Bora, were allotted seats at a function in the Shillong Club away from the European guests.

The two Assamese Colonels boycotted the function in protest against the British behaviour towards the Indians.

This naturally provoked the British heads. They transferred Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed to the distant North-West Province.

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed grew up hearing stories like these from his father, which made him bold enough to take the right decision of serving the nation and its people. He was always inspired by his father’s integrity and boldness.

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                 Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was born on 13th May 1905, at the Hauz Qazi area of Old Delhi, India. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and always lived in luxury.

                His father, Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed, was the first Assamese person, and the first person from northeast India to have an MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree. His mother was a daughter of the Nawab of Loharu. Ahmed’s grandfather, Khaliluddin All Ahmed, was from Kacharighat near Golaghat, Assam, and hailed from a well-known Assamese family.

                 Ahmed was educated at the Government High School in Gonda district, United Provinces, and matriculated from the Delhi Government High School. He attended St. Stephen’s College and St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and subsequently became an active member of the Congress Party.

               Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was picked for the presidency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Thus, in 1974, he became the second Muslim to be elected President.

               Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed is known to have issued the proclamation of the Emergency by signing the papers at midnight during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as the Prime Minister.