Mohammad Asghar Khan

Mohammad Asghar Khan was born in Jammu, Kashmir in 1921, and was educated at the Prince of Wales’s Royal Indian Military College, Dehra Dun. He joined the Indian Military in 1939 and was commissioned in the Royal Deccan Horse in 1940. On Partition he was posted as Commandant of the RPAF Flying Training School, now the PAF College, Risalpur. He commanded the Pakistan Air Force from 1957—1965 and was its first Pakistani Commander-in-Chief and was President of PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) from 1965 to 1968. The author entered the political arena in 1968 and led a movement for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. He renounced the awards of Hilal i-Pakistan and Hilal-i-Quaid-i-Azam in January 1969 as a mark of protest against the government's policy of suppression. M. Asghar Khan formed his own political party, the Tehrik-i-lstaqlal, in 1972. He was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in the General Elections held in 1977. He stepped down as President of Tehrik-i-lstaqlal in December 1995. M. Asghar Khan is the author of a number of books, Pakistan at the Cross Roads, Generals in Politics, and Islam, Politics and the State —The Pakistan Experience.