Service pays

Sir Liaqat Hayat Khan, became the prime minister of Pakistan

The Weekend feature, “The Mutiny through monuments” accords a prominent place to the grave of John Nicholson, a brigadier general in the British Army, who was killed in Delhi fighting against the mutineers. When the general was on his deathbed, the only person tending him was his faithful orderly, Muhammad Hayat Khan. Touched by Khan’s devotion, the dying Nicholson wrote a letter to the British authorities in his blood, eulogising Khan’s service and recommending that he be adequately rewarded after his (Nicholson) death.

 

The letter led to Khan’s rise to high positions later in life and, after him, of his two sons. One of them was Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, who became the first Indian to become deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and later, in 1937, prime minister of undivided Punjab under the scheme of Provincial Autonomy. The other son, Sir Liaqat Hayat Khan, became the prime minister of erstwhile Patiala, one of the largest princely states of northern India.

               

 

R C Mody   New Delhi

 

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