The Partition of India in 1947 divided not just the country but its society too, and many businesses. One such business was Mahindra & Mohammed, which went on to become an industrial conglomerate now known as M&M.
M&M, or Mahindra & Mahindra, began in British India in 1945 as Mahindra and Mohammed in Ludhiana, Punjab. Kailash Chandra Mahindra and his brother Jagdish Chandra Mahindra (the grandfather of Anand Mahindra, the M&M chairman) founded a steel trading company with Malik Ghulam Muhammad. The company manufactured the Willys jeeps in Bombay and Malik Ghulam Muhammad looked after the company’s finances. Two years later, the Partition happened and Muhammad divested his stake in the company and migrated to Pakistan.
The accountant who became a politician
It wasn’t as if handling the finances at Mahindra & Mohammed prepared him for the big role of the finance minister he would get in Pakistan. Malik Ghulam Muhammad was no ordinary businessman. He was actually a bureaucrat who had joined the colonial government as a chartered accountant and went on to become during the Second World war the chief controller of stores, the controller-general of purchase and then additional secretary to the Department of Supply.
Before he was chosen by Muhammad Ali Jinnah as Pakistan’s finance minister, Muhammad was already a politically well-connected man. Before he joined Mahindra & Mohammed, he had worked as an administrator of Bhopal state under its nawab, Hamidullah Khan, and as an advisor to the Nizam of Hyderabad. His services during the war were recognised by the British government and he was even knighted later on.
More than as an accountant, bureaucrat or industrialist, Muhammad came to be known for his political shrewdness. He is considered one of the early leaders in Pakistan responsible for eroding the state and its institutions and encouraging the military, though he is also credited with the first Five-Year Plan as the finance minister under prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Malik Ghulam Muhammad had served as the cabinet secretary with Khan when he was the minister of finance in British India right before the Partition.
After Khan’s assassination, then governor-general of Pakistan Khawaja Nazimuddin made Malik Ghulam Muhammad the governor-general in his place and nominated himself as the prime minister. But soon Mohammed dismissed Nazimuddin and installed in his place Muhammad Ali Bogra as the PM. When the constituent assembly tried to frame laws to curb the governor-general’s power, Malik Ghulam Muhammad dismissed the constituent assembly. As his health deteriorated he had to go on leave by appointing a minister, Iskandar Ali Mirza, as the acting governor-general. Mirza, with the help of the constituent assembly, dismissed Malik Ghulam Muhammad.
Apart from his power plays, Malik Ghulam Muhammad was also known for making efforts to create an economic bloc of Islamic countries.
