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Rahimuddin Khan
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General Rahimuddin Khan (; born 21 July, 1926) was the Martial Law Administrator and longest-serving Governor of Balochistan, the largest province of the Pakistan, from 1978 to 1984. His premier achievement is held to be stabilizing the Baloch insurgency inherited from the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government. However, several of his administrative policies- including the containment of mujahideen through barbed wire concealment during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as well as the construction of nuclear test sites in the Chaghai region- have become enduring geopolitical realities.
He was made full General when he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in March 1984.
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General Rahimuddin Khan (; born 21 July, 1926) was the Martial Law Administrator and longest-serving Governor of Balochistan, the largest province of the Pakistan, from 1978 to 1984. His premier achievement is held to be stabilizing the Baloch insurgency inherited from the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government. However, several of his administrative policies- including the containment of mujahideen through barbed wire concealment during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as well as the construction of nuclear test sites in the Chaghai region- have become enduring geopolitical realities.
He was made full General when he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in March 1984. His retirement in 1987 was interrupted by a brief reign as Governor of Sindh, following the dismissal of civilian government in May 1988 by strongman President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Rahimuddin resigned shortly after President Ghulam Ishaq Khan attempted to limit his vast gubernatorial powers.
He is also remembered for sentencing to death Bangladesh founder Shaikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971, having been appointed judge of his military trial by then-President Yahya Khan, during the Bangladesh Liberation War. 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 (having held the first two capacities in simultaneity) in the history of Pakistan.
Early military career and rise to power
Born 21 July 1926, in Kaimganj, United Provinces, India, Rahimuddin Khan migrated to Pakistan after the country's independence on 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.
Selective Martial law was declared over Lahore in 1953, in response to civil unrest following anti-Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement agitations. Captain Rahimuddin was part of the military deployment heading the army takeover of Lahore, culminating in the arrest of Maulana Maududi. Among Pakistan's military representatives in CENTO, he ascended quickly to the higher ranks through the late 1950s to the early 1960s. He was injured during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 with a broken ankle, and was hospitalized. After his posting at School of Infantry TAC from 1966 to 1968, he became a Brigadier in 1970 due to a distinguished career service record.
Judge of Shaikh Mujib's Trial
Rahimuddin was appointed sub-martial law administrator to Hyderabad following General Yahya Khan's assuming the presidency in 1969 and imposing martial law. Shortly before suffering a large-scale defeat at the hands of neighboring India in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, Yahya Khan appointed Brigadier Rahimuddin 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 the founder of Bangladesh, had been arrested by West Pakistan troops (under President Yahya's orders) for charges of sparking widespread civil disorder in what was then East Pakistan. The court proceedings were never made public, although it is generally held by historians that the verdict Brigadier Rahimuddin sentenced Mujib to was the death sentence.
On November 23, 2005, retired Brigadier A.R. Siddiqi, commenting on his latest book on the fall of East Pakistan, wrote:
Brigadier Rahimuddin conclusively awarded Mujib the death sentence, which was put in abeyance by Yahya Khan. However, Yahya's successor as Pakistani head of state, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in his efforts to recognize the new state of Bangladesh, decided to rescind the verdict. Mujib was freed from Pakistani imprisonment in February 1972. This led to a falling out between Bhutto and Rahimuddin.
On January 8 1975, Rahimuddin was promoted to the rank of Major General, before being made Lieutenant General in 1976.
Appointment and term as martial law governor of Balochistan
By the mid-1970s, the increasingly autocratic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto-headed Pakistan Peoples 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. Nearly all of the administrative posts that had been held by members of the Bhutto government were vacated or dissolved, and Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan was appointed Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province. Following the resignation of Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry from the post of President of Pakistan on September 16 1978, the provincial governorship of the province was simultaneously vacated by the Bhutto-appointed civilian Khuda Baksh Marri, and Rahimuddin assumed the post of Governor.
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.
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.
Controlling Soviet-Afghan War refugees
While the Zia government fought a war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union by proxy (during the Soviet-Afghan War), thousands of Afghan refugees crossed the border to neighbouring 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. Despite many calls on him by the central government to accommodate the refugees in a civil way, General Rahimuddin set up tightly-controlled barbed wire military camps to stagnate any movement of the refugees within his province throughout the duration of the Soviet-Afghan War. In retrospect, this prevented drugs and weaponry from infiltrating Balochistan, despite becoming widespread in several other areas of Pakistan under General Zia's rule.
The Al-Zulfikar airplane hijack
In 1981, a terrorist organization named Al-Zulfiqar (led by Murtaza Bhutto), hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines airplane going to Kabul and threatened to murder a hostage a day if General Zia-ul-Haq did not accept their demands, which most importantly consisted of the release of political prisoners. General Zia refused, prompting Al-Zulfikar to shoot dead Captain Tariq Rahim, a man they mistakenly believed to be the son of General Rahimuddin Khan. Ironically, Captain Tariq, who bore no relation to General Rahimuddin, was in fact a former Aide de Camp to the deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose death drove his son Murtaza to form Al-Zulfikar and destabilize the country. Despite General Rahimuddin's characteristic stand against any concessions to the terrorists, General Zia released the political prisoners and famously commented on the situation, "We have thrown out the bad eggs and saved innocent lives."
Term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
After his service as Martial Law Governor of Balochistan during the crucial stages of the Mujahideen movement in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan was promoted to the rank of full General in March 1984, and was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Following Pakistan's return to civilian government, the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo (and later Benazir Bhutto), significantly reduced the powers of Governor, greatly reducing its status as an independent administrative body to an orthodox government post under the head of state. Rahimuddin completed his three year term in March 1987 and formally retired from the Pakistan Army and simultaneously the military government (this retirement was not final, however, as he would later serve as interim Governor of Sindh in the government of Ghulam Ishaq Khan). His successor was General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, the long serving Director-General of the country's premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.
Term as Governor of Sindh
The relationship between General Zia-ul-Haq and Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo,whom ul-Haq appointed in 1985, started to become increasingly strained. Finally, in May 1988, Zia sacked Junejo's government on several charges (including blatant corruption and flagrant nepotism). In a surprise move, Zia then called for elections to be held in November 1988. Due to his previously successful record as provincial] Governor, General Rahimuddin was persuaded out of retirement to form the caretaker government as interim Governor of Sindh. Despite having scheduled elections in November, Rahimuddin was sworn in till 1990 as a political power move by the military government, to ensure significant leverage over the future civilian victors of the elections.
However, the regime's power structure was drastically altered after a C-130 Hercules airplane with General Zia-ul-Haq and several other senior-most generals onboard fatally exploded in mid-air after it took off from the city of Bahawalpur. General Mirza Aslam Beg became the new Chief of Army Staff and Finance Minister Ghulam Ishaq Khan became the new President of Pakistan. General Zia's death ended the eleven-year military dictatorship. Pakistan was now clear for a return to democracy. With the forecast winners of the November elections being Benazir Bhutto, Ghulam Ishaq Khan started to gradually restructure the offices of the interim government so as to more suit a democratic system once it took over.
Retirement
One of Ishaq's first decisions as acting President 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 (and subsequently Sindh) for so long, gradually fell out with the President. General Rahimuddin quietly resigned as interim Governor of Sindh, before the Chief Minister position could come into effect. Benazir Bhutto won the November elections (which were held as planned despite the plane crash) and 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.
Rahimuddin retired from the Pakistan Army in 1987, before formally retiring from the government after his resignation from the post of Governor of Sindh, holding the Nishan-e-Imtiaz and Sitara-e-Basalat. He now resides in Rawalpindi with his wife Saqiba, an established Urdu author and niece of intellectual and third President of India, Dr Zakir Hussain. He is the father-in-law of former Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq, the son of General Zia.
Controversy over authoritarianism and views
General Rahimuddin Khan's two tenures as Governor, particularly during his time as Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan, remain controversial. After the secession of Bangladesh in 1971, many were of the feeling that provincial civil disobedience could not be subdued through authoritarian government. Rahimuddin's appointment as Governor and Martial Law Administrator was seen with criticism, with the country's liberal politicians often stating that the central government, headed by General Zia-ul-Haq's military dictatorship, had disinterestedly let Rahimuddin assume unprecedented political power. Inarguably, Rahimuddin did enjoy absolute power concentration over Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, for an unprecedentedly long period.
The opinion of the international media was that the sectarian and ethnic violence plaguing Pakistan was to be handled in a sensitive and grassroots manner. General Rahimuddin's rule, however, was characterized with a ceasefire of military action yet dictatorial political administration that stabilized the Baloch insurgency, a move that was criticized by many. Despite this, his reign had met approval earlier in 1978 with the declaration of an amnesty for those prepared to give up arms. His refusal to organize and preside over a political cabinet for the duration of his rule over Balochistan influenced many to denounce his overly despotic style of government.
Rahimuddin Khan was, during his tenure as Governor, a vocal critic of the central government's handling of the Soviet-Afghan War, stating the influx of narcotics and advanced weaponry that would become a consequence of the accommodation of Afghan refugees. Due to his administrative independence, General Rahimuddin, in contrast to the rest of the provinces, set up barbed-wire camps throughout the province of Balochistan. This action, beneficial in retrospect, was met with scepticism amongst the other military members of the cabinet. Despite this, he is mostly respected by Pakistan's conservative elements to the present day, despite his controversially authoritarian style of government. His longtime friend, President of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauss, as well as the former President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, have also stated their admiration for the general on several counts.
Legacy
General Rahimuddin is principally credited with the stabilization of Balochistan, due to his stopping the secession-threatening insurgency of the 1970s. Although major fighting had broken down by the time he had taken power, ideological schisms caused splinter groups to form and steadily gain momentum. Despite the overthrow of the Bhutto government in 1977 by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, calls for secession and widespread civil disobedience remained. Contrary to popular belief, it was General Rahimuddin Khan who initiated the declaration of a general amnesty in Balochistan to those willing to give up arms, and not General Zia, thus effectively ending the insurrection.
Moreover, 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 political base necessary to defy both feudal and political forces within the province. The provincial government under the famously authoritarian Rahimuddin began to act as a separate entity and military regime independent of the central government, allowing Rahimuddin to be the dictatorial head of the province. Rahimuddin then purposefully isolated feudal leaders such as Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and Ataullah Mengal from provincial policy. He also put down all civil disobedience movements (mostly through indirect military action) effectively leading to unprecedented social stability within the province. Due to Martial Law, his reign was the longest in the military history of Pakistan.
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. Also, a generation of conservative politicians from the province would gain prominence under General Rahimuddin, notably Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who would go on to hold the post of Prime Minister of Pakistan under the military government of General Pervez Musharraf, who has also stated his admiration for General Rahimuddin on several counts.
A few weeks after India's second nuclear test (Operation Shakti) on 28 May, 1998, Pakistan detonated five nuclear devices in the Chagai Hills in the Chaghai district, Balochistan. This operation was named Chagai-I by Pakistan, the base having been long-constructed by Rahimuddin. After Rahimuddin's retirement, civil disobedience movements once again mushroomed throughout the 1990s. Attempted uprisings took place as recently as 2006, which culminated in the killing of the anti-government tribal leader Akbar Bugti.
Books and references
- Endgame: East Pakistan; An Onlooker's Journal by Brigadier A.R. Siddiqui
- Breaking the Curfew by Emma Duncan
- Working with Zia by Khalid Mahmud Arif
- Khaki Shadows by Khalid Mahmud Arif
- Journey to Disillusionment by Sherbaz Mazari
- The Terrorist Prince by Raja Anwar
See also
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