Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana

Major General Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana (5 October 1874 – 24 March 1944) was a soldier of the Indian Empire, one of the largest landholders in the Punjab, and an elected member of the Council of State of India. He served in the Somaliland, Tibet, First World War and Third Anglo-Afghan War campaigns, acted as honorary aide-de-camp to three British kings, and was the father of Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the last Premier of the undivided Punjab. No Arabic or Urdu Wikipedia article exists for him; this account is written from the English article and the Wikidata item. ^{1 2}

He was born at Megha, Jhawarian, in the Punjab, the son of Sir Malik Sahib Khan Tiwana; his family, from Khushab, were part of the Rajput Tiwana family of Shahpur. He was educated at Aitchison Chiefs College, Lahore, between 1888 and 1893. The Wikidata item gives his birth year as 1875 at year precision; the English article, on its cited references, gives 5 October 1874, and that reading is followed here. ^{1 2}

He served in the Somaliland War of 1902–1904, receiving the Jidballi medal and clasp, in the British expedition to Tibet of 1903–1904, for which he was mentioned in despatches, in the European theatre of the First World War between 1914 and 1915, during which he was mentioned in despatches a further six times, and then in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. He was attached to the 18th King George's Own Lancers and later the 19th. He acted as honorary aide-de-camp to George V, Edward VIII and George VI, and rose through honorary ranks to honorary major general in 1935. ¹

In 1907 he became an attaché to the Amir of Afghanistan, Habibullah Khan, and he served as a member of the Governor-General of India's Imperial Council from 1910 to 1944. At the Delhi Durbar of 1911 he acted as Assistant Herald to the Delhi Herald Extraordinary. In December 1913 he was elected one of the seventeen officers of the All-India Muslim League at its seventh session at Agra, and he was instrumental in ensuring ex-servicemen were enfranchised in the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms of 1919. He was a member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India from 1924 to 1934, an elected member of the Council of State, and a member of the Punjab Legislative Council for two terms. ¹

A court deposition of 1924, quoted in the article, describes him as a zamindar of forty-eight thousand bighas at Shahpur and Rawalpindi and an honorary magistrate of the first class. ¹

From 1929 to 1934 he spent most of his time in London, joining the Carlton Club and becoming president of the British Falconers' Club; he is credited with taking the talented chess player Sultan Khan to London and promoting his career there. Choudhry Rahmat Ali was a regular guest at his London residence, and his "Now or Never" Pakistan declaration was partly penned there. ¹

In 1924 he appeared as a significant witness in the O'Dwyer v. Nair libel case in the High Court in London, which concerned the Amritsar massacre, the Punjab disturbances of 1919 and alleged recruiting abuses. He stated that there had been a recruiting quota of one third of all villagers of military age, and admitted under cross-examination that "white" and "black" books had listed village headmen who met recruitment targets and those who did not. O'Dwyer won the case. ¹

He died on 24 March 1944 at the Kalra Estate, Jhawarian. His son Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana went on to become the last Premier of the Punjab. ¹

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