Jogendra Nath Mandal was a well known Indian freedom fighter, statesman and was amongst the foremost founding members of the present state of Pakistan. He was also a legislator who served as the first minister of law and labor of the country. He was born on 29 January 1904 in the province of Bengal during the rule of British Empire in India. Jogendra Nath Mandal, popularly known as J.N. Mandal, also acted as the 2nd minister of commonwealth and Kashmir affairs. He was also a member of the Muslim League Party. He was appointed as the first minister of law and labour in Pakistan. During his tenure as the leader of the Scheduled Castes, Jogendra Nath supported the demand of the Muslim League for the creation of Pakistan. During the massacre in East Bengal in 1950, he left India and gave his resignation to the then Prime Minister of the state of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan.
After the partition of India in the year 1947, he became a member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. He also served as the first Minister for Law and Labour in the newly formed dominion of Pakistan. J.N. Mandal became disenchanted with the dominion of Pakistan after the Indo Pakistani War in the year 1947. When Liaquat Ali Khan, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, defended the proposal to establish Islam the official religion of the state, Jogendra Nath stigmatized the move as an act of rejection of secular vision of Mohammad Ali Jinnah for the state of Pakistan. He countered the proposed Objectives Resolution that defined an Islamic state which disregarded the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. Later in October 1950, he gave his resignation letter to Liaquat Ali Khan and went to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in independent India.
Mandal tried to enter the political scenario of India in the year 1967 but failed in his attempt as he was one of the founding members of Pakistan. However he contested in Barasat constituency in the year 1967, but was defeated. Jogendra Nath Mandal died on 5 October 1968 at the age of 64 years in Bangaon in the state of West Bengal, India.
