Iskander Mirza
Iskander Ali Mirza was a Pakistani politician and military general who served as the fourth and last governor-general of Pakistan from 1955 to 1956, and then as the first president of Pakistan from the promulgation of the first constitution in 1956 until his overthrow in a coup d'état in 1958, following his declaration of martial law and unilateral abrogation of the constitution.
Mirza was educated at the University of Bombay before attending the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After military service in the British Indian Army, he joined the Indian Political Service and spent the most of his career as a political agent in the Western region of British India until elevated as Joint Secretary to the Government of India at the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi in 1946. Following the independence of Pakistan in 1947 as a result of the Partition of British India, Mirza was appointed the first Defence Secretary by prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan, only to oversee the military efforts in the first war with India in 1947, followed by the failed secession in Balochistan in 1948. In 1954, he was appointed the Governor of his home province of East Bengal by Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra to control the law and order situation sparked by the popular language movement in 1952, but was later elevated as Interior Minister in the Bogra administration in 1955.
Playing a crucial role in the ousting of Governor-General Malik Ghulam Muhammad, Mirza assumed his position in 1955 and was elected as the first President of Pakistan when the first Constitution was promulgated in 1956. His presidency, however, was marked with political instability which saw his unconstitutional interferences in the civilian administration that led to the dismissal of four prime ministers in a mere two years. Facing challenges in getting the political endorsements and reelection for the presidency, Mirza surprisingly suspended the writ of the Constitution by imposing martial law against his own party's administration governed by Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon on 8 October 1958, enforcing it through his army commander General Ayub Khan. Three weeks later, General Ayub ousted President Mirza when the situation between them escalated and sent him into exile. Mirza lived in the United Kingdom for the remainder of his life and was buried in Iran in 1969.
His legacy and image are viewed negatively by some Pakistani historians who believe that Mirza was responsible for weakening democracy and causing political instability in the country.
Origins
Ancestral roots and family background
Sahibzada Iskandar Ali Mirza was born in Murshidabad, Bengal, in India on 13 November 1899, into an elite and wealthy aristocrat family who were titled as Nawab of Bengal and later after 1880, Nawab of Murshidabad. Mirza was the eldest child of Nawab Fateh Ali Mirza and Dilshad Begum. From his grandfather's ancestral roots, he was of Syed Iraqi Arab descent. The Nawab of Murshidabad family was an influential and wealthy feudal family in Bengal, with close ties to the British monarchy. His father, Fateh Ali Mirza, belonged to the ruling house of Murshidabad, grandson of the first Nawab Mansur Ali Khan. He was the descendant of Mir Jafar. Mirza's mother belonged to the Bombay-based Tyabji family of Cambay and was the niece of Congress president Badruddin Tyabji of the Sulaymani Bohra community.Education, military and political service in British India (1920–47)
Education
Mirza grew up and completed his schooling in Bombay, attending the Elphinstone College of the University of Bombay, but left the university to attend the Royal Military College in Sandhurst when he was selected by the British Governor-General for the King's Commission.Military Service
Mirza was the first Indian graduate of the military college, and gained his commission in the British Indian Army as a 2nd Lt. on 16 July 1920. He was commissioned in the 33rd Cavalry. As was customary for newly commissioned British Indian Army officers, he was initially attached for a year to the second battalion of the Cameronians. On 16 July 1921, he was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to command a platoon on 30 December 1921.His military career was spent in the Military Police. In spite of hailing from Bengal, his military career was mostly spent in the violent North-West Frontier Province of India, participating in the Waziristan war in 1920. After the campaign, he was transferred to the 17th Poona Horse, as an army inspector but left active service to join the Indian Political Service in August 1926.
Indian Political Service
His first assignment was a posting in Aligarh in what is now Uttar Pradesh as an assistant commissioner before posting as a political agent in Hazara in the North West Frontier Province. He received his promotion to captain on 17 October 1927.During his time spent fighting for the British Empire against Pashtun Freedom Fighters in Waziristan, he learnt to speak Pashto fluently for his deployment in the North-West Frontier. From 1928 to 1933, Mirza spent time as a political agent in the troubled Tribal Belt, having served as an assistant commissioner in the districts of Dera Ismail Khan in April 1928, Tonk in May 1928, Bannu in April 1930, and Nowshera in April 1931. In 1931, Captain Mirza was appointed a district officer and was later posted as deputy commissioner at Hazara in May 1933, where he served for three years until a posting to Mardan as assistant commissioner from October 1936. Promoted to major on 16 July 1938, he became the political agent of the Tribal Belt in April 1938, stationed at Khyber. He remained there until 1945.
Mirza was appointed and served as the political agent of Odisha and North West Frontier Province from 1945 until 1946. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 16 July 1946. His ability to run the colonial administrative units had brought him to prominence that prompted the British Indian Government to appoint him as the Joint Secretary to the Government of India in New Delhi in 1946. In this position, he was responsible for dividing the British Indian Army into the future armies of Pakistan and India. Around this time, he became closer to Liaquat Ali Khan and began formatting political relations with the politicians of the Muslim League. About him Abdul Ghaffar Khan wrote: ""According to my instructions the mass movement was launched. A Muslim Deputy-Commissioner, Janab Iskander Mirza, avowing his traditional loyalty to the British, excelled his masters, beating to death Syed Akbar, a Khudai Khidmatgar. He went to the extent of poisoning vegetables in a Khudai Khidmatgar camp. Those who ate them were taken seriously ill. I would rather not expose his other crimes but would rather produce him before the Almighty, whom we all have to face on the Day of judgement."
Political career in Pakistan
Defence Secretary (1947–54)
He was appointed as the first Defence Secretary in the Liaquat administration by the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who relied on running the government on the British viceregal model with the close coordination of the civilian bureaucracy, the police, and the military. As Defence Secretary, he oversaw the military efforts in the first war with India in 1947, as well as witnessing the failed secession in Balochistan by Khan of Kalat.In 1950, Mirza was promoted to two-star rank, having skipped the one-star promotion as brigadier, and upgraded his rank to major-general in the Pakistan Army by the promotion papers approved by Prime Minister Ali Khan. He was appointed as colonel commandant of the Military Police while serving as the Defence secretary in the Liaquat administration. In 1951, Prime minister Ali Khan appointed him as the director of the Department of Kashmir and Afghanistan Affairs.
His tenure as defense secretary also saw the deployment of Military Police in East Pakistan as a result of the Bengali language movement, during which the East Pakistan Rifles fatally shot four student activists. Within a short span of time, the Military Police had control of the state and its commanding officer submitted the report of their course of action to Major General Iskander Mirza in 1954.
In 1951, he backed the Liaquat administration's decision of appointing the native chiefs of staff of the army, air force, and navy, and dismissed deputation appointments from the British military. For the four-star appointment, the Army GHQ sent the nomination papers to the Prime Minister's Secretariat that included four-senior major-generals in the race for the army command of the Pakistan Army: Major-General Iftikhar Khan, Major-General Akbar Khan, Major-General Ishfakul Majid, and Major-General N.A.M. Raza.
Initially, it was Major-General Iftikhar Khan who was promoted to four-star rank and selected to be appointed as the first native commander of the army but died in an airplane crash en route after finishing the senior staff officers' course in the United Kingdom. All three remaining major-generals were bypassed including the recommended senior-most Major-General Akbar Khan and Major-General Ishfakul Majid due to Major-General Mirza's lobbying for the army selection when he presented convincing arguments to Prime Minister Ali Khan to promote the junior-most Major-General Ayub Khan to the post despite the fact that his name was not included in the nomination list. Ayub's papers of promotion were controversially approved and was appointed as the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army with a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant General on 17 January 1951 by Prime Minister Ali Khan.
With Ayub becoming the army chief, it marked a change in the military tradition of preferring native Pakistanis and ending the transitional role of British Army officers. Also in 1951, he helped in elevating Commodore M.S. Choudhri to the promotion to two-star rank, rear-admiral, in order to assume the navy command of the Pakistan Navy, but it was not until in 1953 when Admiral Choudhri took over the command.