Malik Ghulam Muhammad

Sir Malik Ghulam Muhammad (20 April 1895 – 29 August 1956) was a Pakistani politician and economist who served as the third governor-general of Pakistan from 1951 to 1955. Educated at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), he joined the Indian Civil Service as a chartered accountant at the Indian Railway Accounts Service before being promoted to join the Ministry of Finance under Liaquat Ali Khan in 1946. After the Independence of Pakistan in 1947, he joined the Liaquat administration as the country's first Finance Minister where he helped draft the first five-year plans to alleviate the national economy. He co-founded Mahindra & Mohammed in 1945 (later Mahindra & Mahindra in 1948) with Jagdish Chandra Mahindra and Kailash Chandra Mahindra. Following the assassination of prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, Malik was invited to be the Governor-General by Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin who himself took over the government as Prime Minister. Nationwide violence in the aftermath of the language movement in East Bengal and religious riots in Lahore made him dismiss the Nazimuddin administration using the reserve powers to restore stability. In 1955, he was forced to resign from the post of Governor-General due to worsening of his health conditions by then-Interior Minister Iskandar Ali Mirza, who himself took control of the office. After resignation, he fought a brief but unsuccessful battle with his illness, that ultimately resulted in his death in 1956. His personal image is viewed negatively by Pakistan's historians, criticized for giving rise to political intrigue, undermining the civilian control of the military by authorizing martial law in Pakistan, and devaluing nascent democratic norms by sacking the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan during Prime Minister Bogra's tenure.