Iskander Mirza

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 (1875–1925). 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) in the British Indian Army, ca.1920. 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 (17th Poona Horse). As was customary for newly commissioned British Indian Army officers, he was initially attached for a year to the second battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). His military career was spent in the Military Police. 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. 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. he became the political agent of the Tribal Belt in April 1938, stationed at Khyber. He remained there until 1945. 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 ==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 (DKA). His tenure as defense secretary also saw the deployment of Military Police in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) 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. 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. Governorship of East Bengal and Cabinet Minister (1954–55) , as the Governor General of Pakistan Due to rapid political instability in East Bengal, Mirza was relieved as Defence Secretary and took over the governorship of East Bengal, in an appointment approved by then Governor-General Sir Malik Ghulam on 29 May 1954. On 1 June 1954, Mirza took over the Government of East Bengal from Chief Minister A. K. Fazlul Huq as part of the governor's rule that dismissed the United Front. He imposed martial law, backed by the East Pakistan Rifles, and dismissed the East Bengal Legislative Assembly. On 24 October 1954, he was appointed as Interior Minister in the Bogra administration of Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra. During this time, he had maintained close political ties to the United States's establishment and was backed by Governor-General Sir Malik Ghulam for this post, which Mirza only remained at until 7 August 1955. During this time, Governor-General Malik Ghulam survived another attack of paralysis that made him unable to talk and walk, seeking treatment in the United Kingdom on a two-month leave. Appointed only as acting governor-general since 7 August 1955, Mirza dismissed Sir Malik Ghulam to take over his post on 6 October 1955, and forced Prime Minister Bogra to resign when he appointed him as the Pakistan Ambassador to the United States. On 12 August 1955, he invited Muhammad Ali, the Finance Minister, to take over the government as a prime minister. ==Presidency (1956–58)==

The newly constituted Electoral College unanimously elected Mirza as the interim president upon the promulgation of the first set of the Constitution on 23 March 1956. The coalition of the Awami League, the Muslim League, and the Republican Party endorsed his presidency. Upon these developments, President Mirza invited the Awami League to form the central government that appointed Huseyn Suhrawardy as the Prime Minister, who made an alliance with the Republican Party, to take over charge of the government. Despite both being ethnic Bengalis and hailing from East Bengal, the two leaders had very different views of running the central government and both leaders were in brief conflict, causing harm to the unity of the nation. President Mirza had widely lacked the parliamentary spirit, distrusting the civilians to ensure the integrity and sovereignty of the country. In the morning of 8 October 1958, President Mirza announced via national radio that he was introducing a new constitution "more suited to the genius of the Pakistan nation", Upon abdicating, Mirza took the nation into confidence, saying that: This martial law imposed by the country's first president was the first example of martial law in Pakistan, which would continue until the dissolution of East Pakistan in 1971. However, the two men had very different points of view on running the government with the new situation, even though they were responsible for bringing about the change. In 1958, President Mirza accepted the resignation of Vice-Admiral M.S. Choudhri, replacing him with Vice-Admiral A.R. Khan as the new naval chief but civil-military relations continued to be a dominant factor between President Mirza and General Ayub Khan. The new administration did not satisfy CMLA Ayub Khan who had more control in the administration than President Mirza. ==Exile and death==

, Tehran Exiled in 1959, Mirza lived the remainder of his life in exile in London, England, where he financially struggled running a small Pakistani cuisine hotel until his death. It was reported widely by Pakistani media that despite hailing from a wealthy Nawab and aristocratic family, Mirza lived in poverty in England and his regular income was based on his retirement pension of £3,000 as a former military officer and president. Foreign dignitaries such as Ardeshir Zahedi, Shah of Iran, Lord Inchcape, Lord Hume, and Pakistani billionaires in London made his life in exile tolerable. He died of a heart attack on 13 November 1969, his 70th birthday. Yahya Khan, the president of Pakistan, denied him a burial in East Pakistan. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, sent his personal plane to London to bring President Mirza's body to Tehran, where he was given a state funeral. Hundreds of Iranians, including Prime Minister Abbas Hoveyda, and Pakistani expatriates in Iran bade farewell and offered their prayers. Humayun Mirza is the only surviving son of Iskander Mirza. He was born in Poona, India, and was educated at Doon School. He also studied in the U.K., before moving to the U.S., where he earned his MBA from Harvard. He married Josephine Hildreth, the daughter of Horace Hildreth, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. He retired from the World Bank in 1988. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the author of a book "From Plassey to Pakistan: The Family History of Iskander Mirza." Humayun's younger brother, Enver Mirza, had died in a plane crash in 1953. In October 1954, while in West Pakistan, Mirza's second marriage took place in Karachi after he fell in love with an Iranian aristocrat, Nahid Amirteymour (1919–2019), daughter of Amirteymour Kalali. She was a close friend of Begum Nusrat Bhutto. It was this friendship that brought Zulfikar Ali Bhutto into the political arena of Pakistan. ==Legacy==

Iskandar Ali Mirza is often criticized by Pakistani historians for imposing martial law. Honours (ribbon bar, as it would look today) • India General Service Medal (1909) • King George V Silver Jubilee Medal – 1935 • King George VI Coronation Medal – 1937 • Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) – 1939 • Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) – 1945 • Pakistan Medal – 1948 • Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal – 1953 • Grand Collar of the Order of Pahlavi of the Empire of Iran – 1956 • Order of the Supreme Sun, 1st Class of the Kingdom of Afghanistan – 1958 ==Notes==