British India’s Prime Minister of Assam, Sir Syed Muhammad Saadulla KCIE, was born on May 21, 1885, and died on January 8, 1955. He also served as the mayor of Gauhati in 1919 and the minister in charge of agriculture as well as education in Assam from 1924 to 1934.
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About Muhammed Saadulah
On May 21, 1885, Syed Muhammad Saadulla was born in Guwahati to a traditional Assamese Muslim family. He arrived in Guwahati in 1878 as Syed Muhammad Tayyabulla’s second son from Kacharihat, a place close to Golaghat. He received his education at Presidency College in Calcutta as well as Cotton College in Guwahati. In the 1928 Birthday Honours, he received a knighthood, and in the 1946 Birthday Honours, he was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE).
Life as an Advocate
At the age of 24, Syed Muhammad Saadulla, M.A., B.L., a tall and active man, joined the Pleaders in Guwahati and established a practice there in 1910. He wed Syed Muhammad Saleh of Kacharihat’s eldest daughter that same year. He quickly became well-known as a lawyer. He was elected chairman of the Guwahati Municipality and nominated in Shillong to serve in the Legislative Council. In April 1912, Assam was made a chief commissioners province. Saadulla actively engaged in the council’s discussions despite being a nominated member and spoke out in favour of issues that the Assamese people found important. Early in his political career, he displayed the characteristics of citizenship that motivated him to make selfless sacrifices for what he felt to be good and patriotic. Saadulla had little free time due to his preoccupation with his legal profession and the civic obligations and duties of a Legislative Councillor. Nevertheless, he frequently participated in cricket and association football games at Judge’s Field for the Town Club. At the former Jubilee Gardens, where Hemanta Kumar Lahiri, Gopinath Bordoloi, and Tarun Ram Phukan were regulars, he played lawn tennis most afternoons.
He quickly rose to prominence in the Assam Province. Saadulla has shown boundless activity, unflappable self-assurance, a perusing and analytical mind, and an extraordinary memory. In ten years, Saadulla’s goals were fully achieved, and he was regarded as Assam’s most prominent advocate. He enjoyed being able to decline two offers of significant work with the government. He started to feel restless and was ready for a change. He sought advice from his 80-year-old father and his younger brother, Syed Muhibulla, an Arabic and Persian professor at Cotton College in Guwahati, before making plans to travel to Calcutta. Saadulla enrolled himself as a lawyer at the Calcutta High Court in 1920 when he was in his mid-thirties. Soon, Assam’s pleadings for the High Court’s appeal started to arrive, and Saadulla was once more preoccupied with crafting complaints. Success came gradually, but as soon as he was comfortable in the new establishment, his wife and three sons came along.
Elections were conducted in November 1920 as a result of Assam becoming a Governor’s province with an expanded Legislative Council under the Government of India Act 1919. Saadulla made the decision to focus on his practice at the Calcutta High Court and refrained from entering Assam politics as a result. To be by the side of his dying father, Syed Tayyabulla, who passed away on November 22, 1922, he and his family travelled to Guwahati. He went to Assam again a year later to run in the Reformed Legislative Council elections and won with a huge majority.
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Early Political Life
Saadulla received a letter from the Governor of Assam, Sir John Henry Kerr, at the end of February 1924, offering him a position as Minister in his Executive Council. Being a man of snap judgments, he wrote to the Governor to accept his offer and assure him that he would arrive in Shillong well before the start of the Council session. All of his coworkers, acquaintances, and family enthusiastically supported his choice. After taking the oath of office, his loving wife passed away in childbirth in the early hours of December 9, 1924. He never fully recovered from the shocking cruelty and overwhelming loss. He never got remarried and dedicated himself to his career, raising a little daughter, and taking care of his three sons. In the November 1926 elections for the third Reformed council, Saadulla received a significant majority of the vote from his district. He received a new ministerial appointment. He received the honour of being made a Knight in 1928. The Governor of Assam, Sir Egbert Laurie Lucas Hammond, extended an invitation to him to become a member of his Executive Council the next year.
After residing in Shillong for eleven years and growing tired of Assam politics, he decided it was time to move on. He had a chance because Sir John Anderson, the governor of Bengal, had personally given him a position as a judge on the high court. In 1935, Sir Syed Muhammad Saadulla travelled to Calcutta. Sir Harold Darbyshire, the Chief Justice, pointed out that he was unable to be nominated as a judge because he lacked the necessary experience of ten years of steady bar practice, much to his dismay. He was appointed as a Government Pleader with the promise of elevation to the Bench within a reasonable amount of time in an effort to relieve his severe disappointment. There was too much pressure from former coworkers and the allure of politics.
In accordance with the Government of India Act of 1935, a general election was held in February 1937. After going back to Assam, Saadulla won a seat in the legislative assembly. He was invited by the Governor to start the Ministry. His position as Assam’s premier was a great stroke of luck. He was a genuinely religious man who supported political and social creeds for nine years with unwavering fidelity, despite depressed intervals. From 1 April 1937 to 10 September 1938, 17 November 1939 to 25 December 1941, and once more from 24 August 1942 to 11 February 1946, he served as the Coalition Ministry’s leader. Years of political unrest plagued Assam, and he handled the difficult work with outstanding courage, devotion, and charity. He was also endowed with a strong constitution. He put the needs of the Assamese people first in all of his official duties. On January 1st, 1946, he received the honorary title of Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE).
Muhammed Saadulah’s Late Political Life
Premier of Assam Muhammad Sadullah also implemented a land settlement scheme to attract immigrants from the former East Bengal. The Line System was a British initiative to increase the productivity of the land in Assam in order to increase revenue (because the local farmers were not willing to work for the Britishers). In the run-up to World War II, it later intensified the migration policy as part of its “produce more food” initiative. In addition, Saadulla was a close friend and associate of Punjab Premier and Chief Minister Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, who ruled the province from 1937 until 1942. Saadulla was also a member of the All India Muslim League’s executive committee, which convened in March 1940 to prepare the Lahore or Pakistan Resolution. Saadulla was chosen by the Assam Legislative Assembly to serve in the Indian Constituent Assembly in 1947 and then on the drafting committee. He, therefore, contributed to the creation of the Indian Republic’s Constitution. The Drafting Committee only elected one representative from North East India, and that was him.
In 1951, he had a critical illness. Death was likely, yet he was unfazed. He dreaded both bodily and mental incapacity with an unutterable gloom. He gradually got better and was made healthy again. After that, he somberly embraced retirement and the comforts of modern life. He used social interactions, such as lavishly showing hospitality, to morosely console himself. He moved down to the plains to avoid the rigours of the cold weather as his health began to deteriorate as winter approached in Shillong. On January 8, 1955, he passed away in his birthplace of Guwahati.
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