I first heard of Iskander Mirza at school, in the mid-1990s. One of his great-grandchildren had enrolled in my batch and the news generated a bit of a buzz. I remember asking, “Who’s Iskander Mirza?” A classmate shrugged and replied, “Some old-time politician.” Being teenagers, we had barely any interest in current politicians let alone old-timers, so the buzz dissipated fairly quickly and we went back to gabbing about pop singers and movie stars.
A teacher then discovered the connection and, to the utmost bafflement of many of us, it made him greatly emotional. I remember this scene distinctly: the 50-something gentleman in a beige shirt, standing in front of the blackboard, overcome with feeling, telling us that Iskander Mirza was one of the most honest men who had ever lived, so honest that when he died, he had only 11 dollars in his bank account.
What I don’t remember is reading much, if anything, about Iskander Mirza in our history lessons. Our Pakistan Studies book was fairly sketchy in detail after the events of 1947: we were informed that Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah passed away a year after the country’s formation, the 1950s were an unremarkable blur that merited little more than a few paragraphs, and then we won the War of 1965. This pretty much brought the history part of the textbook to a close and we moved on to studying Pakistan’s economy.
With these as my own recollections, it appears that Syed Khawar Mehdi, compiler and editor of Mirza’s memoirs written in exile, is accurate when he states in the preface that “Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, remained undefended in Pakistan’s history books where his name is either missing or restricted as a passing reference to the October 7,1958 martial law…”
In the volume titled Honour-bound to Pakistan in Duty, Destiny and Death: Iskander Mirza Pakistan’s First Elected President’s Memoirs from Exile, Mehdi puts together Mirza’s unpublished autobiography, an interview of the former governor-general conducted by Abul Hasan Ispahani, photographs of Mirza in the public and private spheres, and scans of letters, official memos, and newspaper clippings. A large section is devoted to documents pertaining the acquisition of Gwadar from Oman.
The book is an effort by the family — Mehdi is Mirza’s grandson-in-law — to ‘clear’ Mirza’s name. However, as it has been more than 50 years since the major general’s demise, modern readers might not be very knowledgeable about why he is so vilified in the first place.
We will get into that shortly, but it is pertinent to note here that Mirza’s life had a liberal sprinkling of ‘firsts’. As a 19-year-old, he applied for a commission in the army and was selected for the first batch of cadets sent to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1918. According to his memoirs, two of the other four cadets were “removed”, two died, and so he became the first Indian to graduate the course.
Returning to India, he was stationed at Waziristan where life was agreeable, but “terribly monotonous.” Much of his early career in both the military as well as the Indian Political Service was spent in the northern regions of what is now Pakistan. He became the first deputy commissioner of Mardan and later, the first Indian to be appointed deputy commissioner of Peshawar and political agent, Mohmands.
After stints in the ministries of Defence and Interior, and as governor of East Pakistan, Mirza took charge as the fourth governor-general of the country. Ultimately, he became the very first president of Pakistan.
With such an illustrious record, it is deeply unfortunate that his most well-known ‘first’ should be the implementation of Pakistan’s first martial law, which not only appear to be the root cause of his widespread vilification, but also turned out quite terribly for him on both the personal and professional front.
Mirza writes that, by the mid-1950s, Pakistan’s political situation was a dire mess. Loyalties had devolved from country to political party and senior officials were resigning from their positions with no thought to national stability. Party leaders spent their “time making violent and irresponsible speeches”, while in Bengal, during a meeting of the provincial assembly, “the Deputy Speaker was assaulted and died of his injuries.”
At this point, when “public meetings were being held outside the President’s House at which politicians shouted abuse and threats at me personally while the loudspeakers directed the speech straight at my house”, Mirza weighed his options. He could, like his predecessor Malik Ghulam Mohammad, suspend the Constitution, but this would mean “having one court case after the other as had happened in 1954.” Or, he could scrap everything and start from scratch.
Scrap everything, he did. Mirza felt the parliamentary system adopted from the British was not right for the nascent country and wanted a presidential system along the American style of governance. Thus, he abrogated the 1956 Constitution and asked for a new set of rules and principles to be formulated. The country in the interim, he declared, would be run by a mix of civilians and military leaders. He writes that, as well as Gen Ayub Khan, he had the assurance and backing of Gens Musa Khan and Wajid Burki, the latter swearing “to shed his last drop of blood’ for Mirza.
At 10:30pm on October 7, 1958, Mirza announced that the government had been dismissed. He reproduces in full his statement as it had been issued to the press and public, and reading it 65 years later makes one sad, to say the least.
The statement makes note of corruption, exploitation of the masses, and the “prostitution of Islam for political ends.” The food crisis continues to flourish even now. “The same group of people who have brought Pakistan to the verge of ruination will rig the elections for their own end.” Bogus votes abound, “a vast majority of the people no longer have any confidence in the present system of Government and are getting more and more disillusioned and disappointed and are becoming dangerously resentful of the manner in which they have been exploited.”
Mirza writes that he intended for the martial law to run for the shortest duration necessary. He then states that Gen Ayub did not appreciate the requirement that martial law be lifted by early November. In his own press conference, Gen Ayub announced that while martial law would not be maintained longer than necessary, it would not be lifted “a minute earlier” until its purpose was achieved.
On the evening of October 27, Gens Ayub and Burki paid Mirza a visit and the men enjoyed a genial drink in the garden. A few hours later, after Mirza had retired to bed for the night, Gen Burki returned with armed troops and asked him to pack up and leave the country immediately. By the end of the week, the erstwhile president of Pakistan had been exiled to London.
During his 10 years of exile, Mirza’s daughters petitioned the government to let him return. Their requests were denied every time. On Nov 13, 1969 — his 70th birthday — Mirza passed away and requests for burial in Pakistan were also denied. Iran stepped up at this point and the deceased was buried, after a state funeral with full military honours, in Tehran. His family was not granted permission to attend.
Other than opening the door for the army to enmesh itself in governance, Mirza is accused of manipulating political parties and personalities and of introducing policies that essentially broke Pakistan before it could even find its feet — all of which he categorically denies.
However, as 2023 draws to a close, it is doubtful that the politics of the 1950s would be of great concern to anyone now. Successive governments since then have made such a hash of national affairs that it is futile to point fingers or hurl accusations. We have our own set of crooks at the helm today, and all people want now is to sort things out. It no longer matters who destroyed us; what matters is that we find a way to get up and move forward.
Mirza comes across as a reasonably decent man, though. His memoirs have some ‘saviour’ vibes, but that’s part and parcel of any political autobiography. He admits to his own shortcomings — “All I did was to waste a considerable amount of time and money” — and he is comfortable giving credit where due. His dismay at the souring of relations with his friend of 25 years, Gen Ayub Khan, is palpable.
Compiler and editor Mehdi writes in the preface that while Gen Ayub’s diaries have been maintained by his family and “an abetting state”, Mirza’s personal papers were either confiscated or destroyed on Gen Ayub’s “special orders.” Thus, apart from the memoirs, anything worth telling can only be acquired from other people’s recollections, or archival records.
Mirza himself notes that the only reason he possessed a file of his confidential reports to then governor-general Ghulam Mohammad was because he took them along when he had gone to England for medical treatment. He was called back to Karachi urgently and, as he expected to return to continue his treatment, the file was left in England. In the same paragraph he states that these reports are “reproduced in full in an Appendix”, but they do not seem to be in the book under review.
Additionally, four pages are missing from the chapter ‘After 10 Years’: 180, 181, 184, and 185. It could be a publishing error but, seeing as how there are a few mentions in the book of records being confiscated, destroyed, or controlled, it could well be censorship. Make of this what you will.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that there are two sides to any story. A fair chance to tell their side is everyone’s right, but other universal truths are that history is written by the victor, and that whoever shouts the loudest gets heard. The reality is that politics is arguably the biggest game of ‘he said-we said-they said’. Putting every narrative out may not fix the past, but it does bring closure for the future.
Sarwat Yasmeen Azeem is a writer, editor, and advertising professional. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author