Bashir Hussain Zaidi

Who was Bashir Hussain Zaidi?

Sayyid Bashir Hussain Zaidi, CIE, MP was a member of the first Lok Sabha and Vice Chancellor of AMU from 1956-1962. He also served as a member of the Constituent Assembly of India from United Province. He was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour, by Government of India in 1976.

Zaidi was born in 1898. Educated at St. Stephen's College in Delhi, then at Cambridge, he was called to the Lincoln's Inn Bar in 1923. He taught at Aligarh Muslim University from 1923 to 1930, when he entered the service of the Nawab of Rampur, subsequently becoming the state's vizier or chief minister in 1936 and serving in that capacity until Rampur merged with the Dominion of India in 1949. Zaidi married in 1937 to Qudsia Abdullah; the couple had two sons and a daughter. He was appointed a CIE in 1941.

A member of the Indian Constituent Assembly from 1947 to 1949, he became a member of the new Parliament in 1950 and a member of the Lok Sabha in 1952. He left Parliament in 1956 to become Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, returning as a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1964. From 1967-1969, he served on the Indian Committee of Inquiry on Communal Disturbances; also leading a goodwill mission to nine African and Asian nations in 1964 and heading the Indian cultural delegation to Afghanistan in 1965 for its Independence Week celebrations.