Yusuf Haroon

Muhammad Yusuf Abdullah Haroon (1916 – 12 February 2011) was a Pakistani businessman and politician who served as the 5th Governor of West Pakistan and 3rd Chief Minister of Sindh.[2]

Yusuf Abdullah Haroon
Urdu: یوسف ہارون
5th Governor of West Pakistan
In office
March 1969 – September 1969
Preceded byMuhammad Musa
Succeeded byMalik Nur Khan
3rd Chief Minister of Sindh
In office
18 February 1949 – 7 May 1950
Governors GeneralMuhammad Ali Jinnah
Khawaja Nazimuddin
Preceded byPir Ilahi Bux
Succeeded byQazi Fazlullah Ubaidullah
Personal details
Born1916
Died12 February 2011(2011-02-12) (aged 94–95)
New York City, United States
Political partyMuslim League
SpousePasha Haroon[1]
Parent
RelativesMahmoud Haroon (brother)

Early life and family

Born in 1916 to Abdullah Haroon, Yusuf worked closely with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah as his personal assistant and was active in the Pakistan Movement.[2] He was a witness to All-India Muslim League's 25th session in Allahabad in 1930.[3]

Yusuf married Pasha Haroon, the niece of Aga Khan III who was the 48th Imam of the Ismaili Shias, in 1937.[4]

Career

Yusuf was active in politics spanning nearly seven decades.

From May 10, 1944, to May 8, 1945, he served as mayor of Pre-independence Karachi.[3] After the independence, he became chief minister of Sindh and served as the chief minister between 1949–50 and then as a governor of West Pakistan in 1969.[3]

Yusuf also served as a federal minister and as a high commissioner to Australia. In addition, he worked briefly as chief editor, Daily Dawn newspaper in 1966. After moving to New York, he served as an executive of the now-defunct Pan Am Airlines before retiring.[3]

As chief minister of Sindh, Yusuf Haroon piloted a bill for land reform to abolish large land-holdings. When the bill failed to pass, he resigned from his position as chief minister.[5]

Dawn
Main article: Dawn (newspaper)

Yusuf Haroon was a founding member of the Dawn. In 1946, when Yusuf was in New Delhi to attend a constituent assembly session, Jinnah called him to his residence and asked him to discontinue the newspaper The Herald, then edited by Desmond Young, and instead start the publication of Dawn in Karachi, Pakistan, the soon-to-be independent nation, even though Dawn’s Delhi edition would continue to be published. Jinnah also asked him and his family to buy all the shares of the new newspaper company.[6]

He became the chief editor of the Dawn newspaper in April 1966[5] after the long time editor Altaf Husain decided to join the cabinet of President of Pakistan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan in March 1965. Altaf Husain had been hand-picked by Jinnah to be the editor of Dawn, Delhi before 1947.[5] He was also elected the president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society of Pakistan for the term 1966–67. Yusuf Haroon's independent-looking outlook annoyed the next President of Pakistan General Yahya Khan and he had to leave Pakistan in a hurry to avoid arrest in 1969. He later decided to settle in New York and remained there after the Yahya Khan government fell in December 1971.[5] He provided financial support to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the future President of Bangladesh, who was employed at an insurance company owned by Haroon.[7]

Death

Yusuf Haroon died on February 12, 2011, after a protracted illness, at the age of 95 in New York.[5][2][8]

His funeral was attended by the former Pakistani prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, former Sindh governors Kamal Azfar and Moinuddin Haider, former speaker of National Assembly of Pakistan Illahi Bukhsh Soomro and the veteran politician Sherbaz Khan Mazari.[8]

References
  1. "Pasha Haroon: A tryst with history". 14 February 2016.
  2. Obituary of Yusuf Haroon on The Nation newspaper Published 14 February 2011, Retrieved 17 September 2021
  3. Qazi Asif (15 February 2011). "Yusuf Haroon - a chapter closed". Pakistan Today (newspaper). Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  4. "Pasha Haroon: A tryst with history". 14 February 2016.
  5. Obituary: Former governor of West Pakistan no more Dawn (newspaper), Published 17 February 2011, Retrieved 17 September 2021
  6. The day Dawn became Herald JournalismPakistan.com website, Published 27 April 2013, Retrieved 17 September 2021
  7. Lelyveld, Joseph (4 January 1972). "Rich Pakistani Friend of Mujib Is a 'Refugee' Here". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  8. Yusuf Haroon laid to rest Dawn (newspaper), Published 17 February 2011, Retrieved 17 September 2021
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