Gourt Home::Gourt :: Rahimuddin Khan
| Date of Birth: | 21 July 1926 |
|---|---|
| Chiefs of Army Staff, Pakistan | |
| Tenure Order: | 1st Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan |
| Took Office: | February 1978 – May 1984 |
| Chiefs of Army Staff, Pakistan | |
| Tenure Order: | 1st Martial Law Governor of Balochistan |
| Took Office: | February 1978 – May 1984 |
| Successor: | Post terminated after the end of Martial Law in 1985 |
| Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee | |
| Tenure Order: | 6th Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee |
| Took Office: | March 1984 – March 1987 |
| Predecessor: | Muhammad Iqbal |
| Successor: | Akhtar Abdur Rehman |
| Chiefs of Army Staff, Pakistan | |
| Tenure Order: | 16th Governor of Sindh |
| Took Office: | May 1988 – October 1988 |
| Predecessor: | Ashraf Wali Muhammad Tabbani |
| Successor: | Qadiruddin Ahmed |
After retirement both from the military and government in 1987, he holds the unique distinction that he also briefly served as the interim Governor of Sindh following the dismissal of the civilian Muhammad Khan Junejo government by the strongman President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, in May 1988. He resigned shortly after Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who succeeded General Zia as Pakistani President after Zia's assassination on August 17, attempted to limit the vast powers held by Governor Rahimuddin in favor of a more democratic system.
General Rahimuddin is generally credited with the political stabilization of Balochistan during his authoritarian rule, having inherited widespread civil disorder in the province from the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government of the 1970s. Due to Martial Law at the time, he is the longest-serving Governor of Balochistan to date (1978 - 1984) (In 1985, however, Martial Law was lifted following Junejo becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. As Prime Minister, Junejo, and subsequently Benazir Bhutto, significantly reduced the despotic powers Rahimuddin had held as Governor, greatly reducing its status as an independent administrative body to an orthodox government post under the head of state). Additionally, he is the only man to hold all four posts of Corps Commander, Governor of Balochistan, Governor of Sindh, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (having held the first two capacities in simultaneity) in the history of Pakistan.
Early Military Career and Rise to Power
Born 21st July, 1926, in Kaimganj, United Provinces, India, Rahimuddin Khan migrated to Pakistan after the country's independence on the August 14, 1947. Rahimuddin had earlier developed close ties with the reformist Dr Zakir Hussain(who would go on to be the third President of India), and Zakir's brother and intellectual Mahmud Hussain.
Shortly after migration to Pakistan, Rahimuddin enrolled in the Pakistan Army. He became Lieutenant on 20 October, 1950, and before becoming a Major in 1957 was stationed at 1 Baluch Division from 1952 to 1954. He ascended to the higher ranks through the late 1950s to the early 1960s. After his posting at School of Infantry TAC from 1966 to 1968, he became a Brigadier in 1970.
After having suffered a large-scale defeat at the hands of neighboring India in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the then-President of Pakistan Yahya Khan appointed Brigadier Rahimuddin Khan to be the judge of the special-court trial of Bengali leader Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, to take place in Faisalabad. Mujib, who would later become a founding leader of Bangladesh, had been arrested by West Pakistan troops (under President Yahya's orders) for sparking widespread civil disorder in what was then East Pakistan. The court proceedings were never made public, although it is generally believed that the verdict Brigadier Rahimuddin sentenced Mujib to was the death sentence.
On November 23, 2005, Brig AR Siddiqi (retired), commenting on his latest book on the fall of East Pakistan, wrote-:
The morale of the Pakistani troops was extremely low in 1970-1971, but General Rahimuddin had tried East Pakistan’s charismatic leader Mujibur Rehman in Faisalabad and given him death in a special court. General Yahya did not confirm this at the time the proceedings of the case took place.
Whatever the judgment, Pakistan's Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in his efforts to recognize the new state of Bangladesh, decided to rescind the verdict, and Mujib was freed from Pakistani imprisonment in February, 1972.
On January 8 1975, Rahimuddin was promoted to the rank of Major General, before being made Lieutenant General in 1976.
Appointment and Reign as Martial Law Governor of Balochistan
By the mid-1970s, the increasingly autocratic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-headed Pakistan People's Party government was in a violent deadlock with the opposing political party coalition, the Pakistan National Alliance. After widespread civil disorder, Chief of Army Staff General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto's government in a bloodless coup on July 5 1977. Having vacated or dissolved nearly all of the administrative posts that had been held by the Bhutto government, General Zia appointed Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan as Martial Law Administrator and Governor of Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province. Since he had inherited a chaotic and unstable Balochistan from the Bhutto era, General Zia set up an independent military regime within the province, with Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan as Governor, a post that gave Rahimuddin carte blanche over all state matters related to the province, and thus a phenomenally large amount of power for a provincial Governor. Having been appointed the head of an independent absolutist military dictatorship, Rahimuddin would implement administrative and legislative action virtually independently of the central government.
In 1981, a terrorist organization named Al-Zulfiqar, which was led by Murtaza Bhutto, hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines airplane and threatened to murder a hostage a day if Zia-ul-Haq did not accept their demands, which most importantly consisted of the release of political prisoners.
Zia refused, and Al-Zulfikar shot dead Captain Tariq Rahim, a man they mistakenly believed to be the son of General Rahimuddin, who was in fact a former Aide de Camp to the deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and dumped his body on the tarmac. The situation was controlled later on when Zia gave into the hijackers' demands and released the political prisoners (despite Rahimuddin's completely disagreeing with their release) famously commenting on the situation, "We have thrown the bad eggs out and saved innocent lives".
Under Rahimuddin's reign, the province of Balochistan witnessed a period of stabilization which is without precedent in the history of Pakistan. This is widely considered to be due to Rahimuddin's completely isolating feudal families from provincial policy. Also, Rahimuddin used iron-fisted military tactics to subdue areas where armed uprisings were yet to take place. This garnered him much controversy, as many provincial authorities argued that the issues of Balochistan were too sensitive to be handled so forcefully. Despite the naysayers, no civil disobedience or anti-government movements effectively took place throughout Rahimuddin's authoritative rule.
General Rahimuddin pointedly ignored the more prominent feudal families of Balochistan from interfering in the major provincial affairs, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti (who attempted a Baloch uprising as recently as 2005) and Sardar Ataullah Mengal among them. Indeed, not a single political statement was released by any feudal family patriarch during his reign (the length of which is without precedent). Prominent feudal lords, Ataullah Mengal and Khair Baksh Marri among them, left the country and stayed abroad, to come back only after Rahimuddin's retirement from the post. While the Zia government fought a war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union by proxy (during the Soviet-Afghan War), thousands of Aghan refugees crossed the border to neighboring Pakistan. This would have highly negative long-term effects on the nation's economy and society. With the large-scale migration of the Afghans, advanced weaponry and hard narcotics that were easily available in Afghanistan started becoming common in Pakistan.
Recognizing the problem almost immediately, Rahimuddin set up tightly-controlled military camps in Balochistan to accommodate the refugees. This prevented a significant influx of drugs and weapons in the province of Balochistan.
Reign as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee
After his service as Governor of Balochistan during the crucial stages of the Mujahideen movement in Afghanistan, in March 1984 Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan was promoted to the rank of full General, and appointed Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. He completed his three year term in March 1987 and formally retired from the Pakistan Army. His successor was the rampantly corrupt General Akhtar Abdur Rahman and the long serving Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence. Seldom has a successor been appointed to be so glaringly different from the preceding Chairman of the JCSC.
Reign as Governor of Sindh
The relationship between General Zia-ul-Haq and his 1985-appointed, hand-picked Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo started to become increasingly strained. Finally, in May 1988, Zia sacked Junejo's government on several charges (including blatant corruption and flagrant nepotism). Zia then promised elections to be held in the November of that year.
Due to Rahimuddin's previously extraordinarily successful record as Governor of Balochistan, (bringing the province under central and military control at a time when it was highly unstable), he was persuaded out of retirement to become the interim Governor of Sindh, until elections could be held in November. It was the first and, to date, the only time a man has become both Governor of both provinces, Balochistan and Sindh, in Pakistan's history.
Rahimuddin could not enjoy the success of his previous reign as Governor of Balochistan, however, as what was an already projected-to-be short reign was ended prematurely when Pakistan's military and government structure was drastically altered after a C-130 Hercules VVIP airplane exploded in mid-air after it took off from the city of Bahawalpur. President Zia, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman (Rahimuddin's Chairman Joint Chieifs of Staff successor) and several other top-ranking generals, who were all onboard the plane during the air-crash, perished. General Mirza Aslam Beg became the new Chief of Army Staff and Finance Minister Ghulam Ishaq Khan became the new President.
General Zia's death ended his eleven-year military dictatorship. Pakistan was now clear for a return to democracy. With the forecasted winners of the November elections being Benazir Bhutto's PPP, Ghulam Ishaq Khan started to gradually restructure the offices of the interim government so as to more suit a democratic regime, once it took over.
One of Ghulam Ishaq Khan's first moves was to move for the creation the new position of Chief Minister of Sindh. This was to greatly reduce the powers of the Governor, and Rahimuddin, who had enjoyed absolute authority over Balochistan for so long, gradually fell out with the President. With his differences with Ghulam Ishaq Khan increasing, and the government he had been part of for eleven years having been tremendously altered, Rahimuddin quietly resigned as interim Governor of Sindh, before the Chief Minister position could come into effect.
Benazir Bhutto would later go on to sweep the November elections (which were held as planned despite the untimely deaths of many of Pakistan's top military brass) and significantly reform the posts of Provincial Governor, so that no individual since would be able to acquire such concentrated power as Rahimuddin had for so long during his two reigns.
Notable Cabinet Members
Balochistan Cabinet
- Zafarullah Khan Jamali
- Awais Mushtaq
- Iftikhar Sibtain
Sindh Cabinet
- Allah Bux Soomro
- Rahim Bux Soomro
- Sabir Muhammad Tariq
- Asadullah Mubarak
Retirement
Rahimuddin retired from the Pakistan Army in 1987, a year before the fatal air-crash that would kill his relatives President Zia-ul-Haq (Rahim's daughter is married to Zia's son Ijaz ul Haq) and General Akhtar Abdur Rehman (another of Rahim's daughters is married to Akhtar's son) on August 17, 1988. Other than his two daughters, he has two sons, the eldest being Faaiz Rahim, a Lahore businessman. General Rahimuddin now resides in Rawalpindi with his wife Saqiba, an established Urdu author and niece of intellectual and former President of India, Zakir Hussain.
Controversy over Authoritarianism
Throughout his lengthy political and military career as Governor and full General, Rahimuddin remained a controversial figure. He was, and sometimes still is, heavily criticized by the liberal elements of Pakistan's media for his handling of sensitive issues with his trademark undiplomatic and straightforward style. Many of his detractors often point out that Rahimuddin's provincial regime was an unbending dictatorship, and also allege that Zia-ul-Haq had given Rahimuddin free reins to do what he wished.
Inarguably, Rahimuddin enjoyed absolute power concentration over Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, for an unprecendentedly long period.
Despite being a principle member of the military regime, Rahimuddin remained a vocal critic of many of General Zia's policies, heavily contrasting with the mostly silent cabinet members that had characterized much of Zia's rule. Rahimuddin most vehemently disagreed with the government's doing nothing to prevent the mass migration of Afghan refugees to Pakistan, saying that it would greatly upset the country's society and economy in general. He expressed this with the construction and organisation of tightly controlled military camps in Balochistan to accommodate the refugees. However, Rahimuddin agreed with Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization policy, one of Zia's most enduring legacies.
Rahimuddin also maintained a reputation for incorruptability, stubbornness and disliking compromise, traits that were expressed throughout his rule and earning him the title of The Iron Man among many of the opposing Pakistan People's Party members and journalists. He was, and still is, mostly respected by both Pakistan's liberal and conservative elements, despite his controversially authoritarian style of government. The current President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, is also said to be an admirer of his.
Legacy
Rahimuddin's reign as Governor of Balochistan saw the first direct suppression of feudal families in the history of Pakistan. No Governor, before or after, has had the courage, or for that matter, political stability, to defy the feudal forces within the province. Later regimes have preferred an appeasement policy, hoping that by appeasing the feudal lords, they themselves may gain popularity in Balochistan due to the serf system that has characterized the structure of the province's society. This policy has, to date, been unable to accomplish this objective. In actuality, it was Rahimuddin's open disregard for this appeasement policy that probably contributed to his success as Governor. Under Rahimuddin, the province was brought under completely stable conditions that have not been matched by any other government in Pakistan's history.
Also, it should be noted that one of Rahimuddin's main and often overlooked achievements in the province was the prevention of an influx of drugs and weapons (due to Afghan refugees migrating to Pakistan during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan War) that had plagued many other parts of the country during Zia's rule. Rahimuddin did this by keeping the Afghan mercenaries and refugees in tightly-controlled military camps.
After Rahimuddin's retirement, civil unrest has continued to grow in the province. Attempted uprisings have taken place as recently as 2005, with civil disobedience movements lasting throughout the 1990s.
Books
- Breaking the Curfew by Emma Duncan
- Khaki Shadows by Khalid Mahmud Arif
- Journey to Disillusionment by Sherbaz Mazari
See also
1926 births | Past leaders by coup | Chiefs of Army Staff, Pakistan | Pakistani generals | Pakistani politicians | Muslim generals | Muslim politicians | Nishan-e-Imtiaz | Living people | Pakistani people | Governor of Balochistan | Governors of Sindh | History of Pakistan
"Rahimuddin Khan"