Kausar Niazi (Urdu: کوثر نیازی), born as Muhammad Hayyat Khan and commonly known as Maulana Kausar Niazi (21 April 1934 – 19 March 1994), was a Pakistani politician and a religious leader in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Niazi, in Bhutto's premiership cabinet, was a most powerful federal minister in Pakistan during 1974 till 1977. Niazi was one of the close aids and trusted confidents of Bhutto who remained loyal to Bhutto until his death. He was born in Musakhel, Punjab, Pakistan. His father Fateh Khan Niazi Luqi-khel and uncle Muzaffar Khan Niazi Luqi-khel were among the leading persons of the area. He was a religious scholar and orator, who made a name for himself in politics, and was a member of Bhutto's Federal Cabinet. He served as a minister and assisted Bhutto for 6 years. He was also a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party.^[3]

Career

Kausar Niazi was an active member of one of Pakistan's leading religious parties, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) in the 1950s and in the 1960s. In 1953, he was arrested and jailed by the Pakistani government for taking part in the violent anti-Ahamdiyya riots in Lahore.^[3] Niazi was also highly vocal in his support for JI's criticism of General Ayub Khan's dictatorship from 1958 to 1969. The JI had accused Ayub of damaging the role of Islamic scholars in Pakistan. However, after Ayub Khan replaced his young foreign minister, Z. A. Bhutto in 1966, Niazi supported Bhutto's rebellious stand against Ayub Khan over the 1965 ceasefire against India. When Bhutto formed his own party in 1967 – Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the JI Party condemned Bhutto and his party of being a party of communists who were being backed by the Soviet Union to destroy the Islamic religion in Pakistan.^[3]

After disagreeing with Jamaat-e-Islami stand against Bhutto, Niazi broke away from the party. He was then asked by Bhutto to join the PPP. Bhutto was looking for an Islamic religious scholar to join his party. Bhutto was looking for someone with some religious knowledge who could blunt the JI attacks against the PPP. PPP's leftist ideologues did not want Kausar Niazi coming into the PPP. But Bhutto intervened and overruled their concerns, suggesting that Kausar Niazi fully supported the party's socialist programme.^[3]

Kausar Niazi contested the Pakistani general election, 1970 from a constituency in Sialkot area even though he was originally from the Mianwali District.^[3]

The constituency in Sialkot where Niazi was contesting had a large Ahmadiyya population. But Niazi, conveniently changing his earlier anti-Ahmadiyya position, painted himself as a 'progressive Muslim scholar' and a strong supporter of the PPP's socialist manifesto. He decided to have many meetings with the leaders of the Ahamdiyya community. He convinced them that the PPP would never allow Pakistan's religious parties to outlaw the Ahmadiyya community from the fold of Islam. He assured them that the PPP would definitely help and support them.^[3]

According to the recently published memoirs of late Barrister Azizullah Shiekh — a famous lawyer and former member of the leftwing National Awami Party (NAP) — the Ahmadiyya community, before getting Niazi's assurances, had already struck a deal with the leaders of NAP. The NAP had also promised the community that it would keep the right-wing / religious parties from reviving the anti-Ahmadiyya campaign.

However, Kausar succeeded in making the Ahmadiyya community choose the PPP over NAP and vote for the PPP across Pakistan. This also helped Naizi to win the election from his Sialkot constituency where he received over 90,000 votes. In December 1971, after the departure of East Pakistan (that became Bangladesh), Bhutto was invited to form the new government because the PPP had won the most seats from West Pakistan.

He served as the minister of Religious and Minorities Affairs until 1976 and was later appointed the Federal Information Minister. Maulana Kausar Niazi said that Zia-ul-Haq had deposed and ultimately destroyed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He later visited India as the goodwill emissary of the acting Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi.

In his later years, Maulana Kausar Niazi was rewarded for his loyalty to the Bhutto clan by being nominated to serve as the Chairman of the Islamic Ideology Council during Ms Benazir Bhutto's second government.^[4]

Death

Niazi's grave at H-8 graveyard Islamabad

Kosar Niazi died in the year 1994 after a prolonged illness and was buried at H-8 Graveyard Islamabad.^[5]

Writings

Some of his publications include:

References