(Image source from: Jammu Links News)
Pakistan's newly elected President Dr. Arif Alvi shares an absorbing connection with India as his father was a dentist to Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, according to the short biography of the President on the website of his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party.
Alvi, a close ally of Prime Minister Imran Khan and one of the founding members of the PTI - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, on Tuesday was elected as the new President of Pakistan.
Alvi, 69, a former dentist defeated Aitzaz Ahsan, Pakistan Peoples Party candidate and the Maulana Fazl ur Rehman, Pakistan Muslim League-N nominee in a three-way contest to become the 13th president.
Being a son of Nehru's dentist is not the lone connection that Alvi has with India. He is so far another Pakistani president whose family migrated to Pakistan from India after partition. Alvi's predecessors Mamnoon Hussain's family came from Agra and Pervez Musharraf's parents migrated from New Delhi.
Before partition, his father, Dr. Habib ur Rehman Elahi Alvi was a dentist to Nehru, according to a short biography of the new president on the website of his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party. "Dr. Elahi Alvi was a dentist to Jawaharlal Nehru and the family has letters from Mr. Nehru to Dr. Alvi in their possession," according to the website.
Dr. Arif ur Rehman Alvi aka Alvi was born in Karachi in 1947 where his father settled after partition. From his father, he inherited the profession of a dentist who practiced dentistry in India before partition and after migration opened a dental practice in Saddar, Karachi. His father was likewise related with the Jinnah family and was made a Trustee of the trust constituted by Shirinbai Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam's sister) to which she gifts all her worldly belongings including the Mohatta Palace in Karachi.
Alvi started his political career about five decades ago when he was a student of de Montmorency College of Dentistry, an affiliate of the University of Punjab in Lahore. He was part of the students' wing of Jamaat-i-Islami and protested against military ruler Ayub Khan. "During one of the protests on the Mall Road in Lahore, he was shot and wounded and still proudly carries a bullet embedded in his right arm as a mark of his struggle for democracy in Pakistan," according to the PTI website.
He was the Secretary-General of the party from 2006 till 2013. Later in 2013, he was elected as a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from Constituency NA-250 Karachi and in July 2018 was re-elected. Alvi, apart from his political struggle, is as well through a professional dentist.
From de Montmorency College of Dentistry, he acquired his dental degree BDS (Dentistry), Lahore and Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan in Prosthodontics, Ann Arbor in 1975 and in 1984 Master of Science in Orthodontics from University of the Pacific, San Francisco.
He has been the elected President of the Pakistan Dental Association and was the primary author of the constitution of the Pakistan Dental Association. He was likewise Chairman of the first Pakistan International Dental Conference in 1981 and likewise elected Chairman of the 28th Asia Pacific Dental Congress.
He also served as Dean of the Faculty of Orthodontics of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan. He was elected as the President of Asia Pacific Dental Federation in 2006 and in 2007, he was elected as a Councillor of the FDI World Dental Federation, the introductory time a Pakistani had been elected. The new President is married to Samina Alvi and the couple has four children.
By Sowmya Sangam
