Ghulam Ishaq Khan

Ghulam Ishaq Khan (20 January 1915 – 27 October 2006), commonly known by his initials GIK, was a Pakistani bureaucrat, politician and statesman who served as the seventh president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993.

Initially looking for a university job, Khan joined the Indian Civil Service in 1941, serving in various provincial assignments on behalf of British India.

Raised in Bannu, Khan graduated from Peshawar University and entered the Indian Civil Service, opting for Pakistan after the independence in 1947.

After independence in 1947, Khan opted for Pakistan and was assigned to the bureaucracy of the provincial government of North-West Frontier Province in 1947.

He took over the provincial secretariat as the secretary of the irrigation department, which he held until 1955.

In 1956, Khan was appointed in the provincial government of Sindh as the Home Secretary, but was later appointed Secretary of Department of Development and Irrigation by the Sindh government.

In 1958, he was elevated to federal government level, and assigned to the secretariat control of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), an appointment approved by the President Ayub Khan.

Since 1958, Khan had been serving on the Board of Governors of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), before being elevated to chairman in 1961.

As Chairman, he played a vital role in the construction and financial development of Mangla Dam and Warsak Dam.

Appointed the first chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority by President Ayub Khan in 1961, Ghulam Ishaq also served as Finance Secretary from 1966 to 1970.

In 1966, Khan left the chairmanship to be appointed as the Federal Finance Secretary to the Government of Pakistan until 1970, which he relinquished to incoming Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

After Pakistan's loss to India in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Khan was called to administer all retail and commercial services pertaining to the national economy tattered by war.

In 1971, Bhutto appointed him Governor of State Bank of Pakistan when he was tasked to formulate and administer monetary and credit policy in accordance with Government policy with influence of socialism.

In the latter position, he questioned the wisdom of many of the economic policies of then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was keen to intensify his nationalization and socialist influence in the financial institutions that marked the slow down of the economy.

A year later, he was appointed Governor of the State Bank by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before being made Defence Secretary in 1975, assisting with Pakistan's atomic bomb programme.

In 1975, Prime Minister Bhutto transferred him from Governor of the State Bank to the Ministry of Defence as Defence Secretary.

It was a fortuitous move in that it brought him into close contact with the Pakistani military establishment and enabled him to closely manage the nuclear weapons program.

Though an unusual assignment for a financial expert, this appointment made him a powerful bureaucrat in the country.

During that time, Khan became closer to General Zia-ul-Haq and had later coveted for General Zia-ul-Haq's appointment as the chief of army staff.

As Defence Secretary, he helped manage Pakistan's atomic bomb project and had been directly associated with the program.

Khan was a vehement support of the program and saw it as a "national priory".

He backed the advocacy of theorist Abdul Qadeer Khan and helped establishing the Engineering Research Laboratories in Kahuta.

He was retained by President Zia-ul-Haq as Finance Minister in 1977, overseeing the country's highest GDP growth average.

He previously served as Chairman of the Senate from 1985 to 1988 under president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and was sworn in shortly after Zia's death.

Elected Chairman of the Senate in 1985, Khan was elevated to the presidency after Zia's death in an air crash on 17 August 1988.

He was elected president on 13 December, as the consensus candidate of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and Pakistan People's Party.

The oldest person to serve as president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan played a hawkish role against Communist Afghanistan, while relations with the United States deteriorated following the Pressler amendment.

Domestically, Khan's term faced challenges: ethnic riots flared in Karachi, and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused him of frustrating her government as part of an alliance with conservative opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and the post-Zia military establishment.

Khan invoked the Eighth Amendment and dismissed Benazir's government after just 20 months, on charges of rampant corruption and misgovernance.

Sharif was elected Prime Minister in 1990, but Khan dismissed his government on similar charges three years later.

The Supreme Court overturned the dismissal, but the gridlock ultimately led to both men resigning in 1993.

He was the founder of his namesake Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute.

Retiring from public service, Khan served as rector of the GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology in his native province, dying from pneumonia in 2006.

He is viewed contentiously by Pakistani historians; he is credited with personal austerity, but criticized for wielding an autocratic presidency that ousted two governments.

Ghulam Ishaq Khan was born in Ismail Khel, a rural locality on the outskirts of Bannu District, both villages in the North-West Frontier Province of the British Indian Empire, now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.

He was a Pashtun of the Bangash tribe.

His family remains active in politics; his son-in-law is former federal minister Anwar Saifullah Khan while another son-in-law is former Sindh minister and advisor, Irfanullah Khan Marwat.

A granddaughter of his, Samar Haroon Bilour, was married to Haroon Bilour of the ANP and another to Omar Ayub Khan, the grandson of former military dictator Ayub Khan and son of politician Gohar Ayub Khan.

After his schooling in Bannu, Khan first attended the Islamia College before making transfer to Peshawar University.

He obtained double BSc, in Chemistry and in Botany.