Iskander Mirza

Iskander Mirza (November 13, 1899 â€" November 13, 1969) was the first President of Pakistan and held that position from 1956 until 1958. He was also the fourth Governor-General of Pakistan before it was replaced by the Presidency.

Iskander Mirza was born in Murshidabad, Bengal in 1899 and grew up in Bombay. After completing his early education, he was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, becoming the first graduate from the Indian subcontinent at the academy, and commissioned into the British Indian Army in 1920. Mirza only served in the army for six years, after which he was the first Indian to be accepted in the elite Indian Political Service, eventually becoming a joint secretary in the Ministry of Defense of British India. In this position he was responsible for dividing the British Indian Army into the future armies of Pakistan and India.

Upon the formation of Pakistan, Mirza was made the Defense Secretary of the new nation, this appointment owed to Mirza's ranking as the highest Muslim civil servant in India at the time. In 1954 he was made governor of East Pakistan to bring order to a politically distressed region. This position was followed by his being appointed Minister of Interior and Frontier Regions in Prime Minister Bogra's cabinet. In 1955 he became acting Governor-General, before becoming the last Governor-General of Pakistan. Iskander Mirza was also a great advocate of the One Unit scheme and believed in the separation of state and religion.

In 1956, Pakistan established its first constitution, and the position of Governor-General was replaced by that of President. The two were essentially the same, but Mirza was officially elected as President by the Assembly. During his presidency, Pakistan was politically unstable, this was marked by four different prime ministers in two years.

By 1958, realising that the 1956 Constitution was contributing to political instability, Mirza declared martial law on October 7th with the view to introducing a new constitution "more suited to the genious of the Pakistani people" in November. He appointed the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army, Ayub Khan as the martial law administrator. This move quickly backfired as Ayub Khan forced Mirza to step down within three weeks after the establishment of martial law and exiled him to England. Ayub Khan declared himself President on October 27th after a bloodless coup d'état.

Mirza lived in exile in London till his death in 1969. After Yahya Khan's military government refused to allow him to be buried in his own country, his body was flown to Tehran where the Shah of Iran gave him a State Funeral befitting a Head of State.