- Ayub Khan
Infobox President
name = Muhammad Ayub Khan
محمد ايوب خان
imagesize = 200px
office =President of Pakistan
term_start =27 October 1958
term_end =25 March 1969
predecessor =Iskander Mirza
successor =Yahya Khan
office2 = Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army
term_start2 =17 January 1951
term_end2 =26 October 1958
predecessor2 =Douglas Gracey
successor2 =Musa Khan
office3 =Prime Minister of Pakistan
president3 =Iskander Mirza
term_start3 =7 October 1958
term_end3 =28 October 1958
predecessor3 =Feroz Khan Noon
successor3 =Nurul Amin
religion =Islam
party =Muslim League
birth_date = birth date|1907|5|14|df=y
birth_place = Haripur,British India
death_date = death date and age|1974|04|19|1907|05|14|df=y
death_place =Islamabad ,Pakistan Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan (Urdu/Pashto: محمد ايوب خان),GCMG ,MBE , HJ, NPk, (May 14 ,1907 –April 19 ,1974 ) was aField Marshal during the mid-1960s, and the President ofPakistan from 1958 to 1969. He became Pakistan's first native Commander in Chief in 1951, and was the youngest full-rankgeneral and self-appointedfield marshal in Pakistan's military history. He was also the first Pakistani military general to seize power through acoup .Early life
Ayub Khan was born in the village of Rehana in
Haripur District in to aPashtun family of the Tareen tribe, the first child of the second wife of Mir Dad Khan, who was aRisaldar-Major (the senior most non-commissioned rank) in Hodson's Horse, a cavalry regiment of the Royal Indian Army. [ [http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370188] ] 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 atAligarh University in 1922, but he did not complete his studies, as he was accepted into theRoyal Military Academy Sandhurst . He did well atSandhurst , and was given an officer's post in theBritish Indian Army and then joined the 1st Battalion of the14th Punjab Regiment (Sherdils), later known as 5th Punjab Regiment. DuringWorld War II he served as a captain and later as amajor on the Burma front. Following the war, he joined the fledglingPakistani Army as the 10th ranking senior officer (his Pakistan Army number was 10). He was promoted toBrigadier and commanded abrigade inWaziristan and then was sent initially with the local rank ofMajor General toEast Pakistan (present dayBangladesh ) 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.Commander-in-Chief
Ayub Khan was made Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army on
January 17 ,1951 , succeeding General SirDouglas Gracey , thus becoming the first native Pakistani general to hold that position. 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. [The rule of seniorityby Kamal Zafar Sunday March 5 2006 [http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/mar-2006/5/columns5.php The Nation] ]Defence Minister
He would later go on to serve in the second cabinet (1954) of
Muhammad Ali Bogra as Defence Minister, and whenIskander Mirza declaredmartial law onOctober 7 1958 , Ayub Khan was made its chiefmartial law administrator. This would be the first of many instances in thehistory of Pakistan of the military becoming directly involved in politics.President of Pakistan (1958 - 1969)
As a result of his having control of the Pakistan Army, Ayub deposed Mirza on
October 27 in a bloodless coup, sending Generals Azam, Burki and Sheikh in the middle of the night to pack Mirza off to exile in England. This was actually welcomed in Pakistan, since the nation had experienced a very unstable political climate since independence.In 1960, he held an indirect referendum of his term in power, Functioning as a kind of electoral college, close to 80,000 recently elected village councilmen were allowed to vote yes or no to the question: "Have you confidence in the President, Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan?" Winning 95.6% of the vote, he used the confirmation as impetus to formalise his new system.
Ayub moved to have a constitution created, and this was completed in 1961. A fairly secular person by nature, Ayub Khan's constitution reflected his personal views of politicians and the use of religion in politics.
In 1962, he pushed through a new constitution that while it did give due respect to Islam, it did not declare Islam the state religion of the country. It also provided for election of the President by 80,000 (later raised to 120,000) basic democrats—men who could theoretically make their own choice but who were essentially under his control. The government "guided" the press and, while Ayub permitted a national assembly, it had only limited powers.
Legal reforms
Ayub Khan introduced the Muslim Family Laws through an Ordinance on March 2, 1961 under which unmitigated
polygamy was abolished, consent of the current wife was made mandatory for a second marriage, brakes were also placed on the practice of instant divorce where men pronounced it irrevocably by pronouncing talaq thrice in one go. The Arbitration Councils set up under the law in the urban and rural areas were to deal with cases of (a) grant of sanction to a person to contract a second marriage during the subsistence of a marriage; (b) reconciliation of a dispute between a husband and a wife; (c) grant maintenance to the wife and children. [ [http://ghazali.net/book1/chapter_4.htm ISLAMIC PAKISTAN: ILLUSIONS & REALITY by Abdul Sattar Ghazali] ]Presidential Elections
In 1964, Ayub confident in his apparent popularity and seeing deep divisions within the political opposition, called for Presidential elections.
He was however taken by surprise when despite a brief disagreement between the five main opposition parties ( a preference for a former close associate of Ayub Khan General Azam Khan as candidate was dropped), the joint opposition agreed on supporting the respected and popular
Fatima Jinnah , the sister of the founder of PakistanMuhammad Ali Jinnah .Despite Jinnah's considerable popularity and public disaffection with Ayub's government, [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,830952,00.html Trouble with Mother. Time Magazine Friday, Dec. 25, 1964 ] ] Ayub won with 64% of the vote in a bitterly contested election on January 2, 1965. The election did not conform to international standards and journalists. It is widely held, as subsequent historians and analysts, almost uniformly say, that the elections were rigged in favour of Ayub Khan.
Foreign policy
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, improving the economy, but the consequences of cartelization included increased inequality in the distribution of wealth. It was under Ayub Khan that the capital was moved fromKarachi toRawalpindi , in anticipation of the construction of a new capital:Islamabad . In 1960, Khan's government signed theIndus Waters Treaty with archrivalIndia 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. [Khan, Muhammad Ayub, "Friends Not Masters", Oxford University Press, 1967]Despite the Indus Waters Treaty, Ayub maintained icy relations with India. He 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.Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
The turning point in his rule was the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 , Despite many repulsed Indian attacks, the war adversely affected Pakistan's then rapidly developing economy and it ended in a settlement reached by Ayub at Tashkent, called theTashkent Declaration . The settlement was perceived negatively by many Pakistanis and ledZulfiqar Ali Bhutto to resign his post and take up opposition to Khan. [ [http://www.storyofpakistan.com/person.asp?perid=P017&Pg=3 Story of Pakistan] ] According to Morrice James, "For them [Pakistanis] Ayub had betrayed the nation and had inexcusably lost face before the Indians."These were the years when Pakistan in 1963 imprudently allowed US to camp nearPeshawar at Badaber and use its air space and air bases. It was then when that infamous bata bair U2 incident took place, the Red Circle on Pakistan’s map placed by Nikita Khrushev predestined Pakistan into an open conflict with the USSR. While the 1965 conflict with India had to defer the referendum’s public vent, the ceasefire served the vested interests of at least two parties, the US till then was heavily occupied in Vietnam could not spare resources itself, an increased Communist China Influence could have shifted the power influences in this critical region of that time, Vietnam was not a completely lost war till then. The causes of conflict were to be left unresolved, but Gen Ayub sanctioned himself to decorate to the Rank of Field Marshal instead of passing on credits to Gen Musa Khan the then commander in chief of the army.Final Years in office
In 1969, he opened up negotiations with the opposition alliance, except for Maulana Bhashani and Zulfiqar Bhutto. However under increasing pressure from Bhutto and Bhashani who were allegedly encouraged to continue the agitation by elements within the Army and in violation of his own constitution which required him to transfer power to the speaker of the assembly. Ayub turned over control of Pakistan to Commander in Chief General
Yahya Khan on 25 March 1969, He was the President's most loyal lieutenant, and was promoted over seven more senior generals in 1966 to the army's top post.Legacy
Ayub Khan's legacy is mixed, he was opposed to democracy believing like any other dictator that parliamentary democracy was not suited for the people of his country. Like many subsequent military dictators he was contemptuous of politicians and political parties. However, during his early years in office, he sided with the Americans against the Soviets, and in return received billions of dollars in aidFact|date=November 2007, which resulted in enormous economic growth.
He subsidized fertilizers and modernized agriculture through irrigation development, spurred industrial growth with liberal tax benefits. In the decade of his rule, gross national product rose by 45% and manufactured goods began to overtake such traditional exports as jute and cotton. It is alleged that his policies were tailored to reward the elite families and the feudal lords. During the fall of his dictatorship, just when the government was celebrating the so-called "Decade of Development", mass protests erupted due an increasingly greater divide between the rich and the poor.
He shunned prestige projects and stressed birth control in a country that has the seventh largest population in the world: 115 million. He dismissed criticism with the comment that if there was no family planning, the time would surely come when "Pakistanis eat Pakistanis." In foreign affairs, he retained his ties to the West and to the United States in particular, allowing the United States to use the Badaber and Peshawar airbase for U-2 flights over the then Soviet Union.
Criticisms
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's personal wealth increased, especially his son's actions after his father's 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 retiredLt. General Habibullah Khan Khattak . One Western commentator in 1969 estimated Gohar Ayub's personal wealth at the time at $4 million dollars, while his family's wealth was put in the range of $10-$20 million dollars. [(Pick April 1969)]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
