Muhammad Ayub Khan - Pakistan Army's First Native Commander

Muhammad Ayub Khan (Urdu: محمد ایوب خان), N.Pk., H.Pk., HJ, psc, (May 14, 1907 - April 19, 1974) was a 5-star rank General and later self-appointed Field Marshal in the Pakistan Army and the first military dictator, and Chief Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan, serving as the second President of Pakistan from 1958 to 1969. He became the Pakistan Army's first native Commander in Chief in 1951, and was the youngest full general and self-appointed five-star field marshal in Pakistan.

Appointed Commander in Chief after the death of several senior generals, a combination of ambition and his distate for politicians led to his increased interference in Pakistani politics. Close to President Iskander Mirza, Khan supported the President's decision to declare martial law in 1958 but had ousted him shortly afterwards, becoming increasingly frustrated by the level of corruption, he overthrew the government and declared himself President.[1]

Contents

[hide]

* 1 Early years and personal life

* 2 Military career

o 2.1 Chief of Army Staff

o 2.2 Defence Minister

* 3 President of Pakistan (1958-1969)

o 3.1 Legal reforms

o 3.2 Presidential election of 1965

o 3.3 Government overview

o 3.4 Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

o 3.5 Refusal to expand nuclear programmes

o 3.6 Space programme

o 3.7 Final years in office

* 4 Legacy

o 4.1 Criticism

* 5 Death

* 6 See also

* 7 References

* 8 Further reading

* 9 External links

[edit] Early years and personal life

Ayub Khan was born on May 14, 1907, in Haripur[2] British India, in the village of Rehana near the Haripur District of the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa).[3] He was ethnically a Pashtun[4] (or Pathan[2]) of the Tareen tribe,[5] although a Hindko speaker. He was the first child of the second wife of Mir Dad Khan Tareen, who was a Risaldar-Major (senior regimental non-commissioned officer) in Hodson's Horse, a cavalry regiment of the pre-independence Indian Army.

For his basic education, Ayub was enrolled in a school in Sarai Saleh, which was about four miles from his village and he commuted to school on a mule's back. Later he was moved to a school in Haripur, where lived with his grandmother. He enrolled at Aligarh Muslim University in 1922, but did not complete his studies there, as he was accepted into the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[6]

[edit] Military career

Muhammad Ali Jinnah with GOC East Pakistan Ayub Khan in 1948.

Ayub Khan did well at Sandhurst and was given an officer's commission in the Indian Army on 2 February 1928 and then joined the 1st Battalion of the 14th Punjab Regiment (Sherdils), later known as 5th Punjab Regiment. During the Second World War, he served as a Lieutenant Colonel on the Burma front, commanding the 1st Battalion of 14th Punjab Regiment. 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 in 1948 was sent with the local rank of Major General to East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) as General Officer Commanding of 14th Infantry division responsible for the whole East Wing of Pakistan, for which non-combatant service he was awarded the Hilal-i-Jurat (HJ). He returned to West Pakistan in November 1949 as Adjutant General of the Army and then was briefly Deputy Commander-in-Chief.

[edit] Chief of Army Staff

Further information: Chief of Army Staff (Pakistan)

General Ayub Khan arriving to take command of the Pakistan Army in 1951

Ayub Khan succeeded General Sir Douglas Gracey as Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army on January 17, 1951, becoming the first native Pakistani general to hold that position. Therefore, he superseded two of his seniors, Maj Gen Muhammed Akbar Khan and Maj Gen N.A.M. Raza.[7] Ayub Khan was promoted to C-in-C only due to the death of Maj Gen Iftikhar Khan, who was nominated as the first native C-in-C, but died in an air-crash en route to his C-in-C training in the UK. Iskandar Mirza, Secretary of Defence, was instrumental in Ayub's promotion, commencing a relationship in which Mirza became Governor General of the Dominion of Pakistan and later President of Pakistan, when it became a republic on March 23, 1956. The events surrounding his appointment set the precedent for a Pakistani general being promoted out of turn, ostensibly because he was the least ambitious of the Generals and the most loyal.[8] Three months before the end of his tenure as Commander-in-Chief, Ayub Khan deposed his mentor, Iskandar Mirza, Pakistan's President, in a military coup - after Mirza had declared martial law and made Ayub martial law commander.[9]

[edit] Defence Minister

Further information: One Unit

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, Ayub Khan was made its chief martial law administrator. Azam Khan (general), Nawab Amir Mohammad Khan and Sandhurst trained General Wajid Ali Khan Burki were instrumental in Ayub Khan's Rise to power. This would be the first of many instances in the history of Pakistan of the military becoming directly involved in politics.zaib

[edit] President of Pakistan (1958-1969)

President Ayub Khan and Nawab of Kalabagh with Principal Khan Anwar Sikander Khan.

As a result of his having control of the Pakistan Army, Ayub deposed Mirza on October 27 in a bloodless coup, sending Generals Wajid Burki, Azam, and Sheikh