The Tyabji family, also known through its various branches as the Tyabji-Hydari, Tyabji-Fyzee, and Tyabji-Futehally, is an Indian Muslim family distinguished for its contributions to public service, intellectual life, and the Indian independence movement. Members of the family have held influential positions in politics, diplomacy, law, academia, the arts, and the armed forces, and several were among the first Indians to hold senior positions in the civil service, judiciary, and military. Several individuals served as leading figures within the Indian National Congress. Members have often been closely associated with colonial and post-independence governance structures.
Members of the family include individuals who have served as heads of state, state governors, ambassadors, chiefs of the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy, as well as former Olympians. Through marriage and descent, the family has been connected to various princely and aristocratic families, including the royal houses of Hyderabad, Bengal, Wanaparthy, and Janjira.
Origin The Tyabji family is descended from Mullah Tyab Ali Bhoymeeah and his younger brother Feyzhyder, members of the Sulaimani Bohra community, and a scion of an old Cambay emigrant Arab family. Bhoymeeah began his career as a petty trader. In the second half of the 18th century, Bhoymeeah was among the early immigrants who moved to Bombay. Bhoymeeah initially established commercial relationships with British residents, accumulated funds, and invested them by working as a dallal (broker). By 1825, the Tyabjis founded their own business, Tyabji&Co., an import-export company. By the end of Bhoymeeah's life, the family was listed among the shetia, the "Merchant princes" of Bombay. The Tyabjis adopted the -ji suffix as a result of their high social status.
The emergence of the family can largely be attributed to Badruddin Tyabji. Following Partition, the majority of the family remained in India, with some emigrating to Pakistan. Those who stayed in India, especially those traditionally linked with government service and The Indian National Congress, often benefited from the opportunities created by the emigration of other Muslims and Jawaharlal Nehru's policy of ensuring Muslim representation in public sectors. As a result, the Tyabjis showed high representation in all public sectors, including the Indian armed forces.
The Tyabjis were primarily educated at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. With a minority having read at Aligarh Muslim University. Children were often sent to private day and boarding schools in the United Kingdom among which a few notable examples include Rugby School, Highgate School, and The Royal School, Haslemere.
Currently, the lingua franca of the Tyabjis is English.
Governance and diplomacy Major-General Sahibzada Iskander Ali Mirza, , Order of Pahlavi, India General Service Medal (1909) was the first President of Pakistan. He was educated at the University of Bombay and was the first Indian to attend the Royal Military College in Sandhurst. Mirza was appointed as the first Defence Secretary and later as Governor of East Bengal.
Muhammad Akbar Nazar Ali Hydari, , was the Prime Minister of Hyderabad State. He represented Hyderabad at the First round Table Conference. He was later appointed as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Hydari was the first Muslim to pass the examination of the Gazetted Officer for the Finance Department.
Hydari was pivotal in the foundation of the Doon School, working to obtain the former estate of the Forest Research Institute, in Dehradun, from the government on favourable terms for the site of the school. Of the four original houses Hyderabad House was named after Akbar Hydari, who secured a contribution from the Nizam of Hyderabad's government.
Badruddin Faiz Tyabji, , served as the Indian ambassador to Indonesia, Iran, Germany, and Japan. Tyabji graduated from Balliol College, Oxford before joining the ICS. In 1948, he was charged with starting the Embassy of India in Brussels, Belgium. He served as the Deputy Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly of India and as Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee, Padma Bhushan, served as India's second ambassador to Egypt and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jammu and Kashmir. Fyzee was a barrister-at-law and an advocate in the Bombay High Court. Fyzee was appointed as a member of the Union Public Service Commission, New Delhi. Fyzee was a member of the Indian delegation to the Third General Conference of UNESCO, held in Beirut in November 1948.
Agha Hilaly, ICS, Hilal-i-Quiad-I-Azam, Grand Cross of Order of Northern Star, Grand Cross of Order of Gurkha, was one of the first members to join the Civil Service of Pakistan and played a vital role in Pakistan's foreign policy in the years following Partition. Hilaly graduated from the University of Cambridge. Hilaly served as the Pakistani ambassador to the United States of America, Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic, and India. Hilaly represented Pakistan in the United Nations and facilitated the secret visit of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to China.
Shareefa Hamid Ali was the President of All India Women's Conference and a founding member of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1947. Ali could speak Urdu, Gujarati, Persian, Marathi, English and French. She represented India at the Istanbul Congress of the International Alliance of Women and partook in the Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Czechoslovakia. Ali was also a member of the National Planning Commission of the Indian National Congress and the Hindustan Textbook Committee. Ali's work at the United Nations influenced the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on Consent to Marriage, the Minimum Age for Marriage, and the Registration of Marriages.
Dr Alma Camruddin Latifi, CIE, OBE, Kaisar-i-Hind Medal (1937), was a member of Punjab's Legislative Council and Secretary of the Consulting Committee at the Third round Table Conference in London in 1932. Latifi was of Gray's Inn, Barrister-at-Law and Senior Whewell Professor of International Law, Cambridge, 1902. Latifi graduated with a degree from St. John's College, Cambridge, a donation of a Bodhisattva head belonging to Latifi can be found in the British Museum in London. Latifi published several papers that can be found in the American Political Science Review and the Political Science Quarterly. Latifi was also a member of the exclusive Athenæum Club in London, a club that boasts 51 Nobel Laureates as members.
Saif Faiz Badruddin Tyabji was a Congress Member of Parliament in 1957 from Jalna Lok Sabha Constituency in Maharashtra. Tyabji received his degrees from the University of Bombay and the University of Cambridge. Tyabji opposed the purdah system and urged educated Muslims to take part in Indian politics and policymaking.
Danial Alma Latifi was the first Indian to practice as barrister in the Bombay High Court and the first Muslim to rise to position of Senior Advocate in the Indian Supreme Court. Latifi attended Government College Lahore and Rugby School and graduated with a BA and MA from St John's College, Oxford. Latifi was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1939. Among Latifi's well-known cases was the Shah Bano Case, Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum which became household knowledge in India. Latifi presented St John's College with a set of silver pattens in 1958, which remain in the College's silver store.
Nawab Ali Yavar Jung Bahadur, IFS, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, was an Indian diplomat and politician who served as the governor of Maharashtra. Bahadur studied at Queen's College, Oxford where he received a degree in History. Bahadur served as the Indian ambassador to Argentina, Egypt, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the United States of America. His close relationships with Juan Perón, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Josip Broz Tito, Charles de Gaulle, and Lyndon B. Johnson have been noted to have substantially contributed to foreign understanding of independent India's foreign policy. The Western Express Highway in Mumbai and The National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped located there are named after him.
Mohammad Habib was an eminent Indian historian and politician, playing a role in the Indian independence movement. Habib was also a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Habib received his degrees from Aligarh Muslim University and New College, Oxford. In 1926 Habib won the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council election representing the Swaraj Party. He unsuccessfully contested the position of Vice-President of India in 1967, losing to Varahagiri Venkata Giri.
Sir Muhammad Saleh Akbar Hydari, KCIE, CSI, ICS was the last Governor of Assam appointed by King George VI. Hydari graduated from the University of Oxford and served as the undersecretary in the Department of Education, Health and Lands of the imperial government of India. Hydari served as the secretary to the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research. Hydari represented Hyderabad State at the Round Table Conferences in London.
Judeline Kim Mary Tyabji is a former British Columbia politician, who was the youngest elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.
Mohsin Badruddin Tyabji, ICS, completed his degrees from St. Xavier's College and Balliol College, University of Oxford. Tyabji was later Chief Justice of the Baroda High Court. Tyabji was the first Muslim to join the Indian Civil Service in 1885.
Salima Faiz Tyabji was a member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1937. Tyabji completed her degrees from the University of Bombay and the University of Oxford. Tyabji worked with the Oxford University Press in Delhi, specialising in history.
Zafar Hilaly served as the Pakistani ambassador to Yemen, Nigeria, and Italy. Hilaly was educated at Highgate School and later joined the Pakistan Foreign Service.
Hatim Badruddin Tyabji was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and later became the Chief Judge of Sindh High Court in 1947.
Husain Badruddin Tyabji read law at Downing College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar. In 1952 Tyabji wrote a detailed and accurate biography of his father titled Badruddin Tyabji: A Biography that has served as a foundational text on the life of Badruddin Tyabji.
Camruddin Tyabji was one of the first Indians to study in the United Kingdom and in 1858 became the first Indian to be admitted a solicitor in England.
Indian independence movement
Badruddin Tyabji was a founding member and the first Muslim President of the Indian National Congress. Tyabji graduated from University College London a member institution of the University of London and was called to the bar at Middle Temple. Tyabji was the first Indian to hold the post of Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court. Tyabji was nominated to the Bombay Municipal Corporation, he was a member of the University of Bombay and appointed to the Bombay Legislative Council. Tyabji founded Anjuman-i-Islam College in Bombay.
Surayya Tyabji is recognised to have assisted in designing the flag of India. In the weeks leading up to Indian independence Jawaharlal Nehru instructed Tyabji's husband Badruddin Tyabji to present a final design. This involved forming a committee with Dr Rajendra Prasad and contacting several of India's top art schools. English historian Trevor Royle stated in The Last Days of The Raj: "Originally the tricolour was to have contained the spinning wheel symbol (charkha) used by Gandhi but this was a party symbol, which Tyabji thought might strike the wrong note. After much persuasion Gandhi agreed to the wheel because the Emperor Ashoka was venerated by Hindu and Muslim alike. The flag which flew on Nehru’s car that night had been specifically made by Tyabji’s wife".