Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was the fifth President of India from 1974 to 1977 and also the 2nd President of India to die in office. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was born on 13 May 1905, at the Hauz Qazi area of Old Delhi, India. His father, Col. Zalnur Ali Ahmed, was the first Assamese person to have an M.D. (Doctor of Medicine) degree and also the first one from North-East India.His mother was a daughter of the Nawab of Loharu. Ahmed's grandfather, Khaliluddin Ali Ahmed, was from Kacharighat near Golaghat, Assam, and hailed from a well-known Assamese Muslim family.

Ahmed was educated at the Government High School in Gonda district, Uttar Pradesh, and matriculated from the Delhi Government High School. He attended St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple of London and began legal practice in the Lahore High Court in 1928.

He met Jawaharlal Nehru in England in 1925. He joined the Indian National Congress and actively participated in the Indian freedom movement. In 1942 he was arrested in the Quit India movement and sentenced to 3 1/2 years' imprisonment. He was a member of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee from 1936 and of AICC from 1947 to 74, and remained the Minister of Finance, Revenue and labour in the 1938 Gopinath Bordoloi Ministry.

After Independence he was elected to the Rajya Sabha (1952-1953) and thereafter became Advocate-General of the Government of Assam. He was elected on Congress ticket to the Assam Legislative Assembly on two terms (1957-1962) and (1962-1967) from Jania constituency.

Chosen for the presidency by the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in 1974, and on 20 August 1974, he became the second Muslim to be elected President of India.  He was the second Indian president to die in office, on 11 February 1977. He was 72. Today his grave lies right across the Parliament of India next to the Sunhari