Mumtaz Daultana

Mian Mumtaz Daultana (20 February 1916 – 30 January 1995) was a Pakistani politician and independence activist. He was the second chief minister of West Punjab, from 1951 to 1953, and resigned within days of the imposition of martial law at Lahore during the anti-Ahmadi riots of 1953. He later served as minister of defence in 1957 and as Pakistan's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1972 to 1979. No Arabic Wikipedia article exists for him; this account is written from the English and Urdu articles and the Wikidata item. ^{1 2 3}

Daultana was born at Luddan in 1916, the son of Ahmad Yar Khan Daultana, a wealthy Punjabi landowner and Unionist politician; the English article gives his birth date as 20 February 1916, while Wikidata carries 20 January 1915, and the variant is preserved in his data record. He belonged to the Daultana clan of the Johiya tribe. The article also names Chaudhry Sir Shahab-ud-Din, the first Speaker of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, as his uncle. He studied history at Government College, Lahore, graduating in 1933, then completed a Master of Arts at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was elected president of the Indian Society; he was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1939. ¹

Daultana joined the Punjab Muslim League in 1942, despite coming from a leading Unionist family. In 1944 he assisted in drafting the League's manifesto, and in 1946 he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly. As the article records his position, he held that the unity of India could not be preserved and that the Muslims of the Punjab should unite with their co-religionists across India in the demand for Pakistan. ¹

After the 1951 elections in West Punjab, Daultana was chosen as parliamentary leader of the Muslim League in the Punjab Assembly and invited to form a government; his cabinet, which contained just one migratee politician, was characterised as a cabinet of landlords. As chief minister he banned the Urdu daily Nawa-i-Waqt and introduced agrarian reforms; he regarded the reforms — which in theory gave tenants full security of tenure as long as they paid their rent and cared for the land — as the most progressive in the world, while critics labelled them merely cosmetic, since they set no ceiling on large estates. His government also proposed the abolition of all jagirs made in the Punjab since 1857, a proposal that was heavily amended and finally narrowed to grants made under the Unionist government of 1945–1947. These positions are reported as the sources record them; the museum gives no verdict on them. ¹

During his tenure, anti-Ahmadi sentiment intensified, stoked by groups such as the Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, which demanded that Ahmadis be declared non-Muslims for legal purposes and that the foreign minister, Zafarullah Khan, resign. The English article records that during the 1953 Lahore riots Daultana lent the protesters his support although the central government had rejected their demands; when he was unable to control the rioters, the central government called in the army and imposed martial law in Lahore, and within days of Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin's arrival Daultana had resigned. He was succeeded as chief minister by Feroz Khan Noon. These events are reported as the sources record them. ^{1 2}

He was minister of defence in the short-lived government of Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar from October to December 1957, succeeding Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in that portfolio. He served as Pakistan's high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1972 to 1979. He died at Lahore on 30 January 1995. ^{1 3}

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