General Rahimuddin Khan (رحیم الدین خان; born 21 July, 1926) was the Governor of Balochistan, the largest province of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, for an unprecedented seven years (1978-1984), while simultaneously holding the military posts of Armoured Corps Commander as well as Martial Law Administrator of Balochistan, the latter which he held from July 1977 to May 1984. He was also the Governor of Sindh from May 1988 to October 1988. General Rahimuddin Khan is also an ethnic Pashtun.
His position as authoritarian head of the provincial military regime in Balochistan, a separate entity set up by the central government in 1977 to stop secessionist rebellions within the province, allowed him to enjoy a phenomenally large amount of dictatorial power as Governor. He was made full General when he was appointed Chairmanof the Joint Chiefs of Staff in March 1984. After retirement both from the military and government in 1987, he holds the unique distinction that he also briefly served as the interim Governor of Sindh following the dismissal of the civilian Muhammad Khan Junejo government by the strongman President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, in May 1988. He resigned shortly after Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who became President after General Zia's death in a sabotage-induced air crash on August 17, attempted to limit the vast powers held by Governor Rahimuddin in favor of a more democratic system.
General Rahimuddin is generally credited with the political stabilization of Balochistan during his authoritarian rule, having inherited widespread civil disorder in the province from the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government of the 1970s. Rahimuddin's Stabilization of Balochistan, a process of indirect military action aimed at subduing the agitation, is one of the most enduring legacies he left behind. Shortly afterwards, Rahimuddin became well-known for his strict controlling of the influx of refugees into the province during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan War. He is also remembered for being appointed to be the judge of the special-court trial of Bangladesh founder Shaikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971, by then-President Yahya Khan, during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
General Rahimuddin Khan is the longest-serving Governor of Balochistan (1978-1984) to date. In 1985, however, Martial Law was lifted following Junejo becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. As Prime Minister, Junejo, and subsequently Benazir Bhutto, 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). 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.
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. 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.
On November 23, 2005, retired Brigadier A.R. Siddiqi, commenting on his latest book on the fall of East Pakistan, wrote:
The morale of the Pakistani troops was extremely low in 1970-1971, but General Rahimuddin had tried East Pakistan’s charismatic leader Mujibur Rehman in Faisalabad and given him death in a special court. General Yahya did not confirm this at the time the proceedings of the case took place.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. The former President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, has also stated his admiration for the general on several counts.
Moroeover, 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.
Also, 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.
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.
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