Freedom Fighters’ Gallery
Mohsin – Ul – Mulk
by
Isam Hanif Majeed
Mohsin-ul-Mulk, also known as Mehdi Ali Khan, was born on December 9, 1837, in Atawah. He received a thorough education in Persian and Arabic. In 1867, he sat for the Provincial Civil Service examination, topped the list of candidates, and was appointed as Deputy Collector in the North Western Provinces.
In 1864, Mohsin-ul-Mulk met Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and immediately became a supporter of his vision and the Aligarh movement. He later joined the Scientific Society to support Sir Syed Ahmed and wrote articles for “Tahzeebul Akhlaq”.
It is argued that the architect of Sir Syed Ahmed’s success was Mohsin-ul-Mulk.
When Sir Syed Ahmed passed away in 1898, Mohsin-ul-Mulk was made the Secretary of the Muslim Educational Conference. In 1906, when the All India Muslim League was formed, Mohsin-ul-Mulk was one of the founders. He later became the secretary of the All India Muslim League in its founding session in Dhaka.
Mohsin-ul-Mulk was a man of great integrity. He may have spent many years in the West, but he never disowned his culture and roots. He proved this when he came back from England having resigned his post in order to settle permanently in Aligarh.
It is said that he was a forceful writer and a great speaker, he led a campaign in 1900 against Sir Anthony MacDonald’s policy of replacing Urdu with Hindi. Mohsin-ul-Mulk later passed away in Simla in 1907.
“Are you going to wait and allow somebody else to come here and do the job for you or are you going to do it yourselves?” (Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s vision for every Pakistani)
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