First Prime Minister of Pakistan: Liaquat Ali Khan
The Quaid-e-Azam’s right hand — who held the newborn state together from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. The definitive account. Verified October 2026.
Last updated: 11 October 2026
The man
His Life Before 1947
From an aristocratic UP family to the Quaid’s indispensable deputy.
Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan (1895–1951) was born into a landed family in Karnal (then Punjab, British India), educated at Aligarh, Allahabad and Oxford, and called to the Bar at the Inner Temple. He joined the Muslim League in 1923 and became Jinnah’s most trusted lieutenant — the League’s general secretary, the man who managed the party while the Quaid led it. In the 1946 interim government, Liaquat as finance member presented a budget so radical the Congress called it a ‘poor man’s budget’ — a preview of his politics. When Pakistan was born, there was never any question who would be its first prime minister.
1947–1951
The Premiership: Holding a Newborn State Together
Four years that decided whether Pakistan would survive.
The Objectives Resolution (1949)
Liaquat moved the resolution that became the preamble of every Pakistani constitution — sovereignty belongs to Allah, democracy, equality, and Islamic principles. The founding compromise between modernists and ulema.
Refugees & rehabilitation
Some 7 million refugees crossed into Pakistan in 1947. Liaquat’s government housed, fed and settled them — the largest refugee operation of its time — while building a state from scratch.
Kashmir 1947–48
The first Kashmir war was fought on his watch; the 1949 ceasefire line (today’s LoC ancestor) was agreed under his government. He took Pakistan’s case to the UN himself.
Foreign policy
The famous 1950 choice: Moscow invited him first, but Liaquat chose Washington — the US visit of May 1950 set Pakistan’s Cold War alignment for decades.
16 October 1951
The Assassination at Liaquat Bagh
Two shots in Rawalpindi — and Pakistan’s founding era ended.
On 16 October 1951, addressing a public meeting at Company Bagh, Rawalpindi (renamed Liaquat Bagh for him), Liaquat was shot twice by Said Akbar Babrak, an Afghan national — who was killed on the spot by the crowd. Liaquat died in hospital the same day. He was 56. The assassin’s motives remain debated — theories range from Afghan irredentism to domestic conspiracy — but the effect was unambiguous: Pakistan lost its last founding father in power, 13 months after losing Jinnah. The site is now Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi’s historic political ground (Benazir Bhutto would be assassinated at the same spot in 2007).
What remains
Legacy: The ‘What If’ Prime Minister
Pakistan’s great counterfactual.
Liaquat is remembered as Shaheed-e-Millat (Martyr of the Nation). His legacy: the Objectives Resolution (still the constitutional preamble), the pro-Western alignment, and a reputation for personal integrity — he died with little to his name. The ‘what if’ haunts Pakistani history: had he lived, would the 1958 martial law have happened? Would the revolving door of PMs have spun? No one knows — but every instability since is measured against the steadiness he represented. His successor: Khawaja Nazimuddin, the 2nd PM.
Succession
After Him: The Succession
What happened the day after.
Governor-General Khawaja Nazimuddin stepped down as GG and became the 2nd prime minister (17 October 1951) — the only man to hold both offices. The transition was constitutional and calm — a testament to the institutions Liaquat had helped build. But the stability didn’t last: Nazimuddin was dismissed in 1953, and the revolving door began. The full sequence: Pakistan prime minister list.
Go deeper
Explore the Prime Minister Guides
Every PM question, answered in its own guide.
The record
Liaquat’s First Cabinet
The men around the table in 1947: Liaquat Ali Khan (PM), Zafarullah Khan (foreign affairs), Ghulam Muhammad (finance — the future GG), I. I. Chundrigar, Jogendra Nath Mandal (law — the Dalit Hindu leader whose 1950 resignation letter indicted the new state), and Khawaja Nazimuddin as Governor-General above them. A cabinet of heavyweights — several would become PM or GG themselves. It was the most talented first cabinet in South Asia, and it had the hardest job: inventing a government.
The record
What Liaquat Built
The civil service
The CSP — the ‘steel frame’ inherited and Pakistani-ised; the administrative backbone that still runs the country.
The central bank
The State Bank of Pakistan (1948) — monetary sovereignty from year one.
The armed forces
Division of British India’s military; the Pakistan Army, Navy and Air Force stood up under his government.
The foreign service
Pakistan’s diplomacy — UN membership (1947), the Commonwealth, the early alliances — was built on his watch.
The record
Remembering Liaquat
Liaquat Bagh (Rawalpindi), Liaquatabad (Karachi), Liaquat National Hospital, roads and colleges across the country carry his name. His mausoleum stands beside Jinnah’s in Karachi — the two founders together in death as in life. Every 16 October, official ceremonies mark his martyrdom. Yet he remains oddly under-memorialised for a founding PM — no grand museum, no definitive biography in wide circulation. The ‘what if’ prime minister deserves better from memory.
The record
Premiership Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 15 Aug 1947 | Sworn in as first prime minister |
| Oct 1947 | First Kashmir war begins |
| 11 Sep 1948 | Jinnah dies; Liaquat becomes the state’s anchor |
| Mar 1949 | Objectives Resolution moved |
| May 1950 | State visit to the United States |
| 1951 | Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case — first coup attempt foiled |
| 16 Oct 1951 | Assassinated at Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi |
The record
Liaquat in His Own Words
Three lines that define him: on Pakistan’s purpose — ‘Pakistan was created to ensure that the Muslims could live their lives according to the teachings of Islam’; on democracy — his insistence that Pakistan would be a democratic state, not a theocracy or a dictatorship; and his last public words at Liaquat Bagh, cut short by the assassin’s bullets. His speeches — collected in volumes still cited in parliament — are the founding generation’s clearest statement of what Pakistan was meant to be. The Objectives Resolution remains his most quoted text: the preamble every Pakistani schoolchild learns.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers to the questions readers ask most about this topic.
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See the Full List
From Liaquat to Shehbaz — all 24 prime ministers in order, with terms and parties.
Dates and events per official records and press archives, verified October 2026.