NAWAB
MOHSIN-UL-MULK
Date
of Birth: 9th December, 1837 and Date of Death: 7th
October, 1907
Nawab
Mohsin-ul-Mulk whose original name was Syed Mehadi Ali was born on 9th December, 1837 in
Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. His father was
Mir Zamin Ali. He joined Government
service at the age of 17 and was promoted to several higher posts. He appeared for the Provincial Civil Services
Examination in 1867, secured the top rank and became Deputy Collector. While working as an officer in the East India
Company, he had tried to create political consciousness among the Muslims. He resigned from the job in the in 1874 and
joined in the service of the Hyderabad state as he was invited by the
Nizam. The Nizam honoured him with the titles
of ‘Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk’ and ‘Munir Nawab Jung’. He withdrew from the service of Nizam in 1893
and settled down at Aligarh. Later on,
he dedicated himself to the development of the ‘Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental
College’ which was run by Sri Syed Ahmed Khan.
When Sir Syed passed away in 1899, he took over the entire
responsibility of the College. He
convinced the people who opposed the ideology of Sir Syed and collected funds
for the development of the college by meeting the elites. He opposed the British orders meant to
degrade the status of Urdu language and organised several protest programmes
establishing ‘Urdu Defence Committee’ in 1900.
This irked the British officials who threatened to stop funding the
Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College. As a
result, he withdrew himself from the direct activities and strived for the
protection of Urdu language by establishing the ‘Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu’. He recognised the need of a separate
political organisation for Muslims and garnered support for the same from
fellow Muslim leaders. As a result, the
All India Muslim League was founded in 1906 at East Bengal-Assam Provincial
Educational Conference in Dhaka in1906.
He also fought for the separate constituencies for Muslims, his efforts
gave fruitful results in Minto-Morley reforms and thus, Muslims could get
separate electorates for them. He did
not even care for his health while he was busily engaged in his mission. Though he succeeded in his mission, his
health deteriorated much. After
prolonged illness Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk passed away on 7th October, 1907 in Simla.
