# Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar: Muslim League leader from Peshawar, 1899–1958

> Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, a lawyer from Peshawar, sat for the Muslim League in the Interim Government of 1946–47, became Pakistan's first communications minister, governor of the Punjab (1949) and League president (1956). He died in Karachi on 14 February 1958.

- URL: https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/abdul-rab-nishtar
- Subject: Notable people
- Language: English
- Published: 2026-11-04
- Last updated: 2026-11-04
- Author: Pashtunxwa Editors

## At a glance

- Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar was born in Peshawar on 13 June 1899 into a Kakar family and died in Karachi on 14 February 1958. [7] [8]
- He practised law in Peshawar, sat on the Peshawar municipal committee from 1929 to 1938, and was finance minister of the Frontier's Muslim League ministry from May 1943. [7] [8]
- He was one of the League's five members of the Interim Government of India from 26 October 1946, holding Posts and Air, and was one of the League's negotiators in the Cabinet Mission talks and the partition meetings of 1947. [1] [2] [5]
- He was Pakistan's first minister of communications, governor of the Punjab from 2 August 1949, a minister of industries under Nazimuddin, and president of the Muslim League from 1956 until his death. [6] [7] [10]

## A Kakar family in Peshawar

Nishtar was born in Mohalla Rampura, Kocha Kakran, in the old city of [Peshawar](https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/peshawar-history). His father, Abdul Hannan, is described in a 2020 study by Altaf Ullah and Khalid Mahmood as a prominent man of the Kakar who opposed the British. [7] The Story of Pakistan profile, which gives the same account, calls the father *Maulvi* Abdul Hannan. [9] A press note from the Associated Press of Pakistan says the family were Kakars originally from Zhob who had settled in Peshawar. [10] S. A. Hussain, writing in 1999, says the father was a government contractor who wanted his son in the family business. [8]

He went to a mission school and then to Sanatan Dharam High School in Peshawar. [7] [8] He passed an honours examination in Persian, and in 1923 took his B.A. from the Punjab University as a private candidate. [8] [9] He then went to Aligarh, where Hussain says he took an LL.B. in 1925 and became close to Muhammad Ali Jauhar, the leader of the Khilafat movement. [8] On his return he worked with the Peshawar lawyer Khan Bahadur Saadullah Khan. [8] [9] The Story of Pakistan profile says he began his own practice in 1926. [9]

His youngest son, Tariq Nishtar, became professor of medicine at the Khyber Medical College in Peshawar and died in December 2015. The obituary names his eldest brother, Jamil Nishtar, as a banker, and says Tariq married his cousin Farida, the daughter of Nishtar's brother Sardar Abdul Ghani. [14]

## Khilafat, Congress and the League

Ullah and Mahmood write that Nishtar began composing verses at about twenty, expressing his attachment to the Khilafat movement, and that he took part in the Frontier agitations of the 1920s under the local Khilafat Committee: for the extension of reforms to the province, for elected members on local bodies, and against the Simon Commission. [7] In November 1929 he was elected from Ward 5 of Peshawar city and served as a municipal commissioner until the end of 1938. [7]

Both the Story of Pakistan profile and Ullah and Mahmood say he joined the Indian National Congress in 1929 and was a founding member of its provincial committee. [7] [9] The first says he left it for good by the end of 1931. [9] Ullah and Mahmood quote his own reason, taken from Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah's *Muslim League in NWFP*: "Separation from the All India National Congress was because of the fact that I had known that Hindus were prejudiced against the Muslims and would never be sincere to them." [7] The Story of Pakistan profile quotes a different remark of his about the same years: "in spite of my differences with Congress I had all the sympathies with them and I also helped and advised red shirt leaders whenever they came to me." [9] The red shirts were the Khudai Khidmatgar of [Bacha Khan](https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/bacha-khan-and-the-khudai-khidmatgar).

The date he joined the League is given three ways. Hussain says about 1926. [8] Ullah and Mahmood quote a letter in which Nishtar tells Jinnah: "In 1936, I was taken on the council of the League and since then I have been formally connected with it." [7] Their conclusion gives 1937. [7] In the 1937 provincial election he stood as an independent and won, and Jinnah wrote to congratulate him. [7] The Transfer of Power index lists him as a member of the provincial Legislative Assembly from 1937. [2] The Congress ministry of [Dr Khan Sahib](https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/dr-khan-sahib) held office from 1937 to 1939. [7]

When that ministry resigned in November 1939 the governor asked Sardar Aurangzeb Khan to form a government. Nishtar, then still an independent, opposed the idea, and later said so: "I opposed the idea of forming a Muslim League Ministry because of the unfavourable circumstances like high prices and shortage of food and cloth etc." [7] Aurangzeb Khan persuaded him. The ministry was sworn in on 23 May 1943 with Nishtar holding Finance, and it lasted about two and a half years. [7] The editors of The Transfer of Power give the same office and the same years. [2] In 1944 he was named to the League's Working and Planning Committees. [7]

The 1946 provincial election went against him. In June 1946 the British record describes him as a man "who had been defeated in the Frontier elections". [1] The result and its numbers are in [the article on partition and the 1947 referendum](https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/partition-and-the-1947-nwfp-referendum).

## The Cabinet Mission, 1946

In April 1946 the League's Working Committee named four representatives for the talks with the Cabinet Mission: Jinnah, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, Liaquat Ali Khan and Nishtar. [1] On 16 May, the day the Mission published its statement, Nishtar met Lord Pethick-Lawrence and Sir Stafford Cripps with Liaquat and Ismail Khan and asked a string of questions. Would each section of the constitution-making body frame the constitutions of its provinces whether or not all attended? Could a province leave a group after the constitution was made? Did the "Communications" in the list of central subjects mean all communications? Cripps answered that it was not confined to strategic communications and included railways, telegraphs and roads, though not district roads. [1] The League was allowed to take notes from the Mission's record, and Nishtar noticed that a passage on the sovereignty of the constituent assembly had been left out. [1]

The Frontier's governor, Sir Olaf Caroe, had a low opinion of the League in his province. On 13 May, asked for Muslim names who might join the viceroy's council if Jinnah refused, he wrote: "I suppose Nishtar will prove too closely tied to Jinnah to play." [1] In June he reported that his chief minister was "almost extravagant in his praise of Jinnah and Nishtar" and that, "with the exception of Nishtar", the chief minister had no opinion of the Leaguers in the province. [1]

## The Interim Government

The viceroy, Lord Wavell, put Nishtar on his list of fourteen for an interim government in June 1946. Congress objected, and on 17 June C. Rajagopalachari gave the Mission the reason: Nishtar "had been defeated in the Frontier elections", and the objection "came from the Congress Muslims on the Frontier". [1] Wavell told Nehru and Azad on 18 June that he "could not accept the exclusion of Nishtar". Congress said it was waiting for Abdul Ghaffar Khan to arrive and decide. [1] A later record has Rajagopalachari saying the appointment was "no longer objectionable" because Ghaffar Khan had taken no strong objection. [1] That scheme fell through when the League withdrew its acceptance of the Mission's statement. [2]

The League decided to join on 15 October 1946. Jinnah named five members to Wavell on 14 October, describing the third as "Mr Abdur Rab Nishtar, Advocate (N.W.F.P.), Member Working Committee All India Muslim League, Committee of Action and Council". [2] The portfolios went to the League on 25 October: Nishtar received Posts and Air. [2] Wavell recorded the agreement that Nishtar, for the League, would be Leader of the Council of State. [2] Wavell's and Mountbatten's papers often call his department Communications. [3] [4]

His first public task was a mission of peace. After the Calcutta killings and the riots of Bihar, Nehru, Patel, Liaquat Ali Khan and Nishtar went to Calcutta together on 2 November, and Nishtar later went on to Bihar with Nehru. [2] [3] Wavell called it "a great thing" that the four had gone together, and on 13 November wrote that Nishtar, who had visited Patna with Nehru, came back to Delhi in the viceroy's aircraft. [3]

The Interim Government was uneasy. In February 1947 Wavell sent the King a portrait of the League team: Liaquat was the one he valued, and of Nishtar he wrote that he "has about the same moderate degree of ability as Chundrigar, is almost equally wordy, but is less seriously minded and has a sense of humour." [3] In December 1946 a British report noted "an unseemly exchange of public statements by Patel and Nishtar". [3] The British high commissioner, Shone, wrote that Nishtar's "pointed reference to 'those who wish to leave the Commonwealth'" was the first sign any Indian minister had given of wanting India to stay in it. [3] The governor of the Punjab, Sir E. Jenkins, complained to Wavell in January 1947 that Nishtar had made "an inflammatory speech" at Lahore railway station, and in March that he "turned up yesterday and expected us to lay on a programme for him with practically no notice". [3]

## The partition talks, 1947

On 1 April 1947 Patel showed Mountbatten a cutting from *Dawn* reporting that Nishtar and Ghazanfar Ali Khan had attended a meeting of the League's Committee of Action, and complained. [4] On 21 April Mountbatten gave Nishtar the same account of the plan for the transfer of power as he had given Ghazanfar Ali Khan. Nishtar "protested violently" against applying the same rule to provinces as to India. His argument, as Mountbatten recorded it, was that the Hindus already had a central government, while the Muslims would be "in a permanent minority" in one, so that Pakistan needed sovereign status to negotiate on equal terms, and that this did not hold for the Punjab or Bengal. [4] Mountbatten answered that he could not use "such a weak argument" to separate the demand for Pakistan from the demand for partition within provinces. He then asked Nishtar to use his influence with the League on the Frontier, where Dr Khan Sahib's ministry was holding political prisoners. Nishtar doubted that any of the 5,000 prisoners the ministry offered to release would accept, and said that so long as Dr Khan Sahib's government held office "they would continue to make provocative trouble". [4]

After his visit to Peshawar at the end of April, Mountbatten wrote in his personal report that he had received from Nishtar, "Communications Member of my Government", three pages of accusations against the way the ministry had arranged the last election. [4] Jinnah, on 24 April, said publicly: "I am glad that Mr Nishtar is already there and I feel confident that he will guide and help our people in every way he can." [4]

On 23 May a British official, A. C. B. Symon, talked to Nishtar at a party and noted his views: Pakistan would be a permanent independent state, the League would press for undivided provinces but accept a truncated Pakistan, Rawalpindi was likely to be the capital, and Pakistan might remain in the Commonwealth if that fitted "independent sovereignty". [4] At the leaders' meeting of 2 June, Nehru had asked that Kripalani, as Congress president, attend. Jinnah agreed on condition that the League also had a third member, and named Nishtar. [5] In the discussion, Nishtar pointed out that accepting the plan "really implied agreement to make it work", and Mountbatten agreed. [5]

From 12 June Nishtar and Liaquat Ali Khan sat for the League on the Partition Committee, with Patel and Rajendra Prasad for Congress. [5] On the princely states, Mountbatten agreed on 9 July that Nishtar should have access to the secretary of the States Department. [6] On 12 July Jinnah told Mountbatten he was considering making Nishtar governor of Baluchistan, and Mountbatten suggested asking Sir Conrad Corfield whether "a Pathan from the North-West Frontier like Nishtar" would be acceptable to the tribes there. [6] When the Kalat delegation met Mountbatten on 19 July, Nishtar represented Pakistan's States Department. [6]

## Minister and governor

The provisional cabinet of Pakistan listed on 19 July gave Nishtar "Communications, Railways, Transport, Information and Broadcasting, and States". [6] Ullah and Mahmood say the cabinet was sworn in on 15 August 1947. [7] On 10 August, at its first meeting, he moved the rules for electing the president of the Constituent Assembly. [7] He chaired the committee on minorities, and in September 1947 he and Liaquat Ali Khan toured Gujranwala, Sialkot, Ferozepore, Jullundur, Moga and Ludhiana to calm the communal riots. [7] He supported the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, arguing that authority was delegated to the people to be exercised "in an organized manner". [7] The Story of Pakistan profile says he introduced Urdu in the railways and the postal and telegraph departments. [9]

On 2 August 1949 he succeeded Sir Francis Mudie as governor of the Punjab, after the provincial government had been dismissed. [7] [15] He later described the Punjab he found: "The Assembly and Ministry of the province had ceased to exist and Muslim League had also been divided into many groups." [7] He gave much of his time to refugees, set up an anti-corruption department under the home secretary, and warned civil servants to keep out of party politics. [7] [9] In the Friday Times account, elections were held in 1951 without any charge against the governor. [15] At a public meeting in Multan on 31 December 1950 he announced a medical college and hospital for the city, and the college took his name. [12]

## Opposition and the League presidency

After Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated, Nishtar went back to the centre as minister of industries in Nazimuddin's cabinet. [7] [15] When Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the cabinet in April 1953 he refused to join its successor. [9] Both Hussain and Ullah and Mahmood record a verse he is said to have used about it, quoted under Poetry below. [7] [8]

Associated Press of Pakistan says he was elected president of the Muslim League in 1956, against the wishes of President Iskander Mirza and Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohammad Ali. [10] Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, writing in *Dawn* in 2017, describes the quarrel that followed. Chaudhri Mohammad Ali supported Mirza's Republican Party in the new West Pakistan assembly, where the League sat in opposition, and Nishtar asked the League's ministers to resign from the federal cabinet. Mirza then asked the prime minister to resign. [13] Nishtar remained president until he died. [7]

## Poetry

Ullah and Mahmood and the Story of Pakistan both say he wrote verse. [7] [9] According to Hussain, Nishtar took the pen-name *Nishtar* in his school days, and before 1920 Akbar Allahabadi corrected his poetry for three years. [8] Most of the early verse was lost in a house fire, and what survives is devotional in the style of the time, with an echo of Iqbal. [8] No published collection of his poems was found. The two couplets that are quoted come from his comment on the dismissal of 1953. Ullah and Mahmood give them in transliteration with their own English:

> *Bas itni si khata par rahbari chheeni gayi hum se,*
>
> *Ke hum se qafile manzil pe lutwaye nahin jate.*
>
> "the leadership was snatched away from us merely on the ground that we can not abandon the masses at the mercy of dacoits" [7]

> *Nairangi-e-siyasat-e-dauran to dekhiye,*
>
> *Manzil unhen mili jo shareek-e-safar na the.*
>
> "look at the irony of contemporary politics, those who shunned the caravan, have reached the destination" [7]

## Death and burial

Nishtar had suffered from heart disease and high blood pressure since 1953, and died of a heart attack in Karachi on 14 February 1958. [7] [9] Hussain writes that League leaders wanted him buried in the mausoleum complex of Jinnah, that Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon first refused on the ground that it would take from the dignity of the founder's resting place, that there were large demonstrations, and that Noon reversed the decision. [8] The Associated Press of Pakistan says he was laid to rest at the Mazar-e-Quaid near Jinnah's tomb. [11]

## Places named after him

Nishtar Medical College in Multan was named in his honour, and its teaching hospital, Nishtar Hospital, opened in October 1953 with 80 beds. [12] Its foundation stone was laid by Nishtar on 28 April 1951. [12] Ullah and Mahmood also list Nishtar Park in Karachi and, in Peshawar, Nishtar Hall and Nishtar Abad. [7]

## Sources
1. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. VII, The Cabinet Mission, 23 March–29 June 1946 (1977), Nos. 160, 280, 301, 479, 553, 559, 560 and pp. 987–988; index](https://archive.org/details/transferofpower107nich) (Primary source): League nominations of April 1946, Nishtar's questions of 16 May, Caroe's remarks and the June 1946 dispute over his place in the Interim Government.
2. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. VIII, The Interim Government, 3 July–1 November 1946 (1979), introduction, Principal Holders of Office, Nos. 435, 453, 458, 467, 513, 521](https://archive.org/details/transferofpower10008unse) (Primary source): League nominations and portfolios of October 1946, the Calcutta peace mission and his Posts and Air portfolio.
3. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. IX, The Fixing of a Time Limit, 4 November 1946–22 March 1947 (1980), Nos. 179, 460 (Wavell to the King, 24 February 1947, pp. 803–804), the Bengal and Bihar documents, Jenkins's letters pp. 500 and 969–970](https://archive.org/details/transferofpower10009unse) (Primary source): Wavell's portrait of the League ministers, the peace mission, Bihar, and British comments on Nishtar in Delhi and the Punjab.
4. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. X, The Mountbatten Viceroyalty: Formulation of a Plan, 22 March–30 May 1947 (1981), Nos. 186, 214 (appendix), 519, and Mountbatten's personal report of early May](https://archive.org/details/transferofpower10010unse) (Primary source): Mountbatten's interview with Nishtar of 21 April 1947, Jinnah's speech of 24 April, Patel's complaint and Symon's note of 23 May.
5. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. XI, The Mountbatten Viceroyalty: Announcement and Reception of the 3 June Plan, 31 May–7 July 1947 (1982), introduction and the minutes of 2, 3, 7 and 12 June](https://archive.org/details/constitutionalre06nich) (Primary source): His place at the leaders' meeting of 2 June 1947 and on the Partition Committee.
6. [Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 (London: HMSO), vol. XII, The Mountbatten Viceroyalty: Princes, Partition and Independence, 8 July–15 August 1947 (1983), introduction and Nos. 82, 150, 159, 173, 174, 186](https://archive.org/details/indiatransferofp12nich) (Primary source): Pakistan's States Department, the Kalat talks, the proposal to make him governor of Baluchistan and the Pakistan portfolios.
7. [Altaf Ullah and Khalid Mahmood, 'The Role of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar in Pre and Post-Partition Eras: An Analysis', Pakistan Journal of History and Culture 41/2 (2020), pp. 175–190](https://nihcr.edu.pk/Downloads/Dr%20Altaf%20sb/33.%20The%20Role%20Sardar%20Abdur%20Rab%20Nishtar.pdf) (Modern scholarship): Birth and family, politics from Khilafat to 1943, Constituent Assembly, governorship, poetry, death and memorials; it cites Syed Mujawar Hussain Shah's 1985 biography.
8. [S. A. Hussain, 'Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar: A man for all seasons' (Pakistanlink, 3 May 1999; republished on Qissa Khwani, 14 February 2013)](https://qissa-khwani.blogspot.com/2013/02/sardar-abdur-rab-nishtar-man-for-all.html) (News or magazine): Education, law practice, poetry, the verses and the account of his burial.
9. ['Sardar Abdur Rub Nishtar', Story of Pakistan (updated 4 January 2008; Wayback copy of 18 April 2019)](https://web.archive.org/web/20190418011757/https://storyofpakistan.com/sardar-abdur-rub-nishtar) (Reference work): Father's name, Persian honours and law, Congress membership, ministries, Urdu in the railways, 1953 dismissal.
10. [Parvez Jabri (APP), 'Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar remembered', Business Recorder, 13 June 2016](https://www.brecorder.com/news/302437) (News or magazine): Family origin in Zhob and the League presidency of 1956.
11. [APP, 'Remembering Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar on death anniversary', 14 February 2024](https://www.app.com.pk/national/remembering-sardar-abdur-rab-nishtar-on-death-anniversary/) (News or magazine): Burial at Mazar-e-Quaid.
12. ['History of NMU', Nishtar Medical University, Multan](https://nmu.edu.pk/history-nmu) (Reference work): Announcement of 31 December 1950, foundation stone of 28 April 1951 and the opening of the hospital.
13. [Syed Jaffar Ahmed, 'Parliament in Chaos 1951–1958', Dawn, 25 August 2017](https://www.dawn.com/news/1353861) (News or magazine): Nishtar as League president and the quarrel with Mirza and Chaudhri Mohammad Ali.
14. ['Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar's last surviving son passes away', The News, 31 December 2015](https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/85311-Sardar-Abdur-Rab-Nishtars-last-surviving-son-passes-away) (News or magazine): His sons and brother.
15. [Gohar Ali Iftikhar, 'Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar As A Right-Wing Democrat', The Friday Times, 19 February 2024](https://www.thefridaytimes.com/19-Feb-2024/sardar-abdur-rab-nishtar-as-a-right-wing-democrat) (News or magazine): Governorship from 2 August 1949, the 1951 elections and the Industries portfolio.

## Common questions

### Who was Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar?

Nishtar (1899–1958) was a Peshawar lawyer and Muslim League politician of Kakar descent. He sat for the League in the Interim Government of 1946–47, was Pakistan's first minister of communications, governor of the Punjab from 1949 and president of the Muslim League from 1956.

### What did Nishtar do in the Interim Government of India?

He was one of the five League members who joined on 26 October 1946, holding Posts and Air, which British papers also call Communications. He went to Calcutta and Bihar with Nehru, Patel and Liaquat Ali Khan during the 1946 riots.

### When did Nishtar join the Muslim League?

The sources differ. In a letter to Jinnah he wrote that he was taken on the League's council in 1936, and a 2020 study gives 1937 in its conclusion. S. A. Hussain says about 1926. Several sources say he had joined Congress in 1929 and left it.

### Where is Nishtar buried?

He is buried at the Mazar-e-Quaid in Karachi, near Jinnah's tomb, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan. S. A. Hussain says Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon first refused permission and reversed the decision after protests.

### What is named after him?

Nishtar Medical College (now Nishtar Medical University) and Nishtar Hospital in Multan, and Nishtar Park in Karachi. Nishtar Hall and Nishtar Abad in Peshawar are also named after him.

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Cite as: Pashtunxwa, "Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar: Muslim League leader from Peshawar, 1899–1958", https://www.pashtunxwa.com/articles/abdul-rab-nishtar (last updated 2026-11-04).