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(PA - 10) Muhammad Ayub Khan (Urdu: Ù?ØÙ?د اÙ?Ù?ب خاÙ?) (May 14, 1907 – April 19, 1974) was a Field Marshal during the mid-1960s, and the political leader of Pakistan from 1958 to 1969. He became Pakistan's first native Commander in Chief in 1951, and was the youngest full-rank general and self-appointed field marshal in Pakistan's military history. He was also the first Pakistani military general to seize power through a coup.
Early years
Khan was born in the village of Rehana near Haripur Hazara to a Hindko and Pashto speaking Pashtun family of the Tareen tribe, the first child of the second wife of Mir Dad Khan, who was a Risaldar Major in Hodson's Horse. For his basic education, he was enrolled in a school in Sarai Saleh, which was about 4 miles from his village. He used to go to school on a mule's back. Later he was shifted to a school in Haripur, where he started living with his grandmother. He enrolled at Aligarh University in 1922, but never completed his studies, as he was accepted into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He did well at Sandhurst, and was given an officer's post in the British Indian Army and then joined the 1st Battalion of the 14 Punjab regiment (Sherdils), later known as 5 Punjab Regiment. During World War II he served as a captain and later as a major on the Burma front.Following the war, he joined the fledgling Pakistani Army as the 10th ranking senior officer (his Pakistan Army number was 10). He was promoted to Brigadier and commanded a brigade in Waziristan and then was sent initially with the local rank of Major General to East Pakistan (modern day Bangladesh) as General Officer Commanding a division that was responsible for the whole East Wing of Pakistan in 1948, for which non-combatant service he was awarded the Hilal-i-Jurat (HJ) and from where he returned in November 1949 as Adjutant General and then briefly was named Deputy Commander-in-Chief.
Ayub Khan was made Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army on January 17, 1951, succeeding General Sir Douglas Gracey, thus becoming the first native Pakistani general to hold that position.
The events surrounding his appointment marked the first precedent of a Pakistani general being promoted out of turn. Ostensibly because he was the least ambitious of the Generals and the most loyal.The rule of seniority
by Kamal Zafar Sunday March 5 2006 The Nation
He would later go on to serve in the second cabinet (1954) of Muhammad Ali Bogra as Defence Minister, and when Iskander Mirza declared martial law on October 7 1958, Khan was made its chief martial law administrator. This would be the first of many instances in the history of Pakistan of the military becoming directly involved in politics.
President of Pakistan (1958–1969)
As a result of his differences with Mirza, Khan gained more and more power, and became President of Pakistan after deposing Mirza on October 27 in a bloodless coup. This was actually welcomed in Pakistan, since the nation had experienced a very unstable political climate since independence. Khan soon adopted the titles of Hilal-e-Pakistan, and the rank of Field Marshal. He was to be Pakistan's second field marshal, if the first is regarded as Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (1884-1981), supreme commander of military forces in India and Pakistan in the lead-up to independence in 1947 and a vocal opponent of Partition.
Khan moved to have a constitution created, and this was done in 1961. The Constitution called for elections, which took place in 1962, when martial law was lifted. Khan's main opponent was Fatima Jinnah, the sister of Pakistan's founding father. Despite Jinnah's immense popularity, Khan won the majority of the vote; whether or not this was done without corruption is debatable.
As President, Ayub Khan allied Pakistan with the global U.S. military alliance against the Soviet Union. This in turn led to major economic aid from the U.S. and European nations, and the industrial sector of Pakistan grew very rapidly, and this in turn improved the economy, as did Khan's educational and land reforms. It was under Ayub Khan that the capital was moved from Karachi to Rawalpindi, in anticipation of the construction of a new capital: Islamabad. In 1960, Khan's government signed the Indus Waters Treaty with archrival India to resolve disputes regarding the sharing of the waters of the six rivers in the Punjab doab that flow between the two countries. Khan's administration also built a major network of irrigation canals, high-water dams and thermal and hydroelectric power stations.
Despite the treaty, Khan maintained icy relations with India. Khan established close political and military ties with Communist China, exploiting its differences with Soviet Russia and its 1962 war with India. To this day, China remains a strong economic, political and military ally of Pakistan.
The turning point in Khan's rule was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, which despite a military stalemate, resulted in higher personnel losses for Pakistan than India. He was reported to have said at the outbreak of hostilies, that he would drink his evening tea in Delhi.Goharâ??s concocted story By Samuel Baid dailyexcelsior The war also adversely affected Pakistan's then rapidly developing economy and it ended in a settlement reached by Khan at Tashkent, called the Tashkent Declaration. The settlement was perceived by many Pakistanis as a failure and led Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to resign his post and take up opposition to Khan.Story of Pakistan The war also increased opposition in East Pakistan where the Awami League headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman sought more autonomy for the province. Government corruption and nepotism, in addition to an environment of repression of free speech and political freedoms increased unrest. Criticisms of his sons and family inpersonal wealth and increased especially his son's actions after his fathers election in the allegedly rigged 1964 Presidential elections against Fatima Jinnah is a subject of criticism by many writers. Gohar Ayub it is said led a victory parade right into the heartland of Opposition territory in Karachi, in a blatantly provocative move and the civil administrations failure to stop the rally led to a fierce clashes between opposing groups with many locals being killed (Mazari 1999). Gohar Ayub also faced criticisms during that time on questions of family corruption and cronyism through his business links with his father in law retired Lt. General Habibullah Khan Khattak. One Western commentator in 1969 estimated Gohar Ayub's personal wealth at the time at $4 million dollars, while his families wealth was put in the range of $10-$20 million dollars. (Pick April 1969)
With publications like Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah's Mirror criticising his regime vociferously, Khan began to increase censorship and his control over the nation even more. These actions only served to further agitate the Pakistani population, which fell into a disarray of protests, strikes and riots, and soon required the presence of the army in the cities. Bhutto used this to his political advantage, while the Awami League also made great political gains in East Pakistan. Attacked both in the press and in cities and villages across both wings of the nation, Khan began to lose both power and popularity.
During Ayub Khan's rule the price of 1 kg sugar was increased by 1 rupee and the whole population took to streets As Ayub's popularity plummeted, he decided to give up rule. Ironically, this was just what Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah, one of the journalists who criticised his rule greatly, said he should do. In 1969 he turned over control of Pakistan to General Yahya Khan, whom he had previously appointed to the post of Chief martial law administrator. In 1971 when war broke out, Ayub Khan was in West Pakistan and did not comment on the events of the war. He died in 1974.
Books
- An autobiography titled Friends Not Masters was written by Ayub Khan.
Footnotes
See also
- Politics of Pakistan
- Prime Minister of Pakistan
- Line of Succession to President of Pakistan
- Cold War
External links
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de:Muhammed Ayub Khan
fr:Muhammad Ayub Khan
no:Ayub Khan
sl:Mohamed Ajub Kan
fi:Mohammad Ajub Khan
ur:اÛ?Ù?ب خاÙ?
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