Documents for "South Asian History: Biographies":

• Śivaji or Shivaji , 1627-80, Indian ruler, leader of the Marathas. The son of a Maratha chieftain, he was imbued from early childhood with hatred of the Mughal empire, which controlled most of India. From his capital at Pune he made guerrilla attacks on the...

• Abdullah, Sheikh Muhammad 1905-82, nationalist leader in Kashmir , known as the Lion of Kashmir. He became active in political reform while a student at Lahore Univ. and was frequently imprisoned from 1931 for urging self-rule for Kashmir, a region now divided...

• Abulfazl 1551-1602, minister of state and adviser to Akbar , Mughal emperor of India. His most renowned Persian text recounts the history of the Akbar reign, describing the political and religious organization of the empire. He was in part responsible for...

• Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid 1817-98, Indian Muslim educator. His family was long connected with the Mughal court, but he entered the service of the British East India Company. Convinced of the futility of revolt, he remained...

• Akbar 1542-1605, Mughal emperor of India (1556-1605); son of Humayun , grandson of Babur. He succeeded to the throne under a regent, Bairam Khan, who rendered loyal service in expanding and consolidating the Mughal domains before he was summarily dismissed (1560) by the young king...

• Alamgir see Aurangzeb.

• Albuquerque, Afonso de 1453-1515, Portuguese admiral, the effective founder of the Portuguese Empire in the East. He first went to India in 1503, and in 1506 he set out for India again, to assume command from Francisco...

• Asoka d. c.232 BC, Indian emperor (c.273-c.232 BC) of the Maurya dynasty; grandson of Chandragupta. One of the greatest rulers of ancient India, he brought nearly all India, together with Baluchistan and Afghanistan, under one sway for the first time in history. According to legends, after his...

• Aurangzeb or Aurangzib , 1618-1707, Mughal emperor of India (1658-1707), son and successor of Shah Jahan. He served (1636-44, 1653-58) as viceroy of the Deccan but was constantly at odds with his father and his eldest brother, Dara Shikoh, the heir apparent. When Shah Jahan fell ill in 1658, Aurangzeb...

• Aurobindo, Sri see Ghose, Aurobindo.

• Aurungzebe see Aurangzeb.

• Ayub Khan, Muhammad 1907-74, military leader and president (1958-69) of Pakistan. He was commissioned in the British Indian army in 1928 and saw active service as a battalion commander in World War II. After 1947,...

• Babar see Babur.

• Baber see Babur.

• Babur [Turk.,=lion], 1483-1530, founder of the Mughal empire of India. His full name was Zahir ud-Din Muhammad. A descendant of Timur (Tamerlane) and of Jenghiz Khan, he succeeded (1494) to the principality of Fergana in central Asia. His early life...

• Bahadur Shah II 1775-1862, last Mughal emperor of India (1837-57). A political figurehead, he was completely controlled by the British East India Company, who found it convenient to maintain the fiction of Mughal rule. He was an old man...

• Bandaranaike, Sirimavo 1916-2000, Sri Lankan political leader, b. Sirimavo Ratwatte. She and her husband, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike , converted to Buddhism from Christianity before he became prime minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956. After his assassination (1959), she became the first woman in the world to serve as a...

• Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias 1899-1959, prime minister (1956-59) of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka); husband of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. A lawyer educated in England, he entered politics and rose to hold a cabinet position. He...

• Banerjea, Sir Surendranath 1848-1926, Indian nationalist. One of the first Indians to join the Indian civil service, he was dismissed (1874) for a minor error and was considered by many to be the victim of discrimination...

• Bhutto, Benazir 1953-, prime minister of Pakistan (1988-90; 1993-96), daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Radcliffe and Oxford educated, she returned to Pakistan shortly before her father was overthrown by General Zia ul-Haq in 1977. Under detention and then in exile, she returned in 1986 to lead the Pakistan People's party (PPP) and opposition to military rule. In Nov., 1988, three months after President Zia ul-Haq...

• Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali 1928-79, Pakistani political leader. Member of a wealthy landowning family, he entered politics as the protégé of General Ayub Khan. Bhutto joined the cabinet in 1958, becoming foreign minister in 1963. Critical of the Indo-Pakistan agreement ending the 1965 war, he left the government and formed (1967) the Pakistan People's...

• Bose, Subhas Chandra 1897-1945?, Indian nationalist also known as Netaji. He began his political career in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and soon became the leader of the left wing of the Indian National Congress. He was president of the party in 1938-39 but was forced to resign after a dispute with Mohandas Gandhi ; he advocated militancy to achieve independence for India and believed in dictatorship to unify the country. Jailed by the British for his Axis sympathies in World War II, he escaped (1941) and...

• Chalukya several S Indian dynasties that ruled in the Deccan. They claimed descent from Pulakesin I (reigned 543-566), who established himself at Badami (in Bijapur). The Early Chalukyas held power in...

• Chandragupta (Chandragupta Maurya) , fl. c.321 BC-c.298 BC, Indian emperor, founder of the Maurya dynasty and grandfather of Asoka. He conquered the Magadha kingdom (in modern Bihar and Jharkhand) and eventually controlled all India N of the Vindhya Hills. In c.305, Chandragupta, with a huge army, defeated Seleucus I (Nicator) who had invaded NW India in an attempt to regain Alexander the Great's Indian provinces. Seleucus had to yield parts of Afghanistan to Chandragupta, and some sort of marriage alliance...

• Chandragupta I and II Indian emperors. See Gupta.

• Chelmsford, Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 3d Baron and 1st Viscount 1868-1933, British colonial administrator. After serving as governor of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia (1905-13), he went to India, becoming viceroy in 1916. His regime was noteworthy...

• Child, Sir John d. 1690, English administrator in India. In 1680 he was appointed the British East India Company's agent at Surat, then the company's main factory (i.e., trading station) in W India. In 1685, Sir...

• Chola S Indian dynasty, whose kingdom was in what is now Tamil Nadu. Its chief capitals were at Kanchi (Kanchipuram) and Thanjavur (Tanjore). The Chola kingdom was one of the three of ancient Tamil tradition, but the dynasty had been virtually submerged for centuries when at the end of the 9th cent. AD it rose again. Under the...

• Das, Chitta Ranjan 1870-1925, Indian political leader. A lawyer who opposed British rule and defended many Indian nationalists, he idealized traditional Indian life. He supported Mohandas Gandhi's noncooperation...

• Desai, Morarji Ranchhodji 1896-1995, Indian political leader. He joined the government in 1956, becoming minister of finance (1958-63). He returned to government in 1967 as deputy prime minister and minister of finance,...

• Deve Gowda, H. D. (Haradanahalli Dodde Gowda Deve Gowda) , 1933-, Indian political leader, prime minister of India (1996-97), b. Haradanahalli, Karnataka, S India. A member of a farming family of intermediate caste, he was trained as a civil engineer and...

• Dupleix, Joseph François 1697-1763, French colonial administrator in India. He went to India in 1721 as an officer of the French East India Company. In 1731 he was appointed governor of Chandannagar, where he made a...

• Gandhi, Indira 1917-84, Indian political leader; daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. She served as an aide to her father, who was prime minister (1947-64), and as minister of information in the government of Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-66). On Shastri's death in 1966, she succeeded as prime minister. Her first administration, marked by her increasing personal control of the Indian National Congress party, led to a party...

• Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 1869-1948, Indian political and spiritual leader, b. Porbandar.

• Gandhi, Rajiv 1944-91, prime minister of India (1984-89). Oldest son of Indira Gandhi , he flew for Indian Airlines until his brother died in 1981 and he was drafted into politics by his mother. He was elected to parliament and when his mother, Indira Gandhi , was assassinated in 1984 he succeeded her as prime minister, leading the Congress party (see Indian National Congress ) to a sweeping election victory. His government encouraged foreign investment, and industry boomed with the loosening of business controls. In 1987 he sent Indian peacekeeping forces to Sri Lanka in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate an end to Tamil-Sinhalese violence there. Allegations of corruption and arrogance diminished Gandhi's popularity, and in 1989 he resigned as prime minister...

• Gandhi, Sonia gän´dē , 1946-, Indian politician, b. Turin, Italy, as Sonia Maino. She met Rajiv Gandhi in 1965 when they were students in Cambridge, England. They were married in 1968 and settled in his family home in India. Sonia Gandhi, who became an Indian citizen in 1983, was close to her...

• Ghose, Aurobindo 1872-1950, Indian nationalist leader and mystic philosopher. Born in Bengal, he was sent to England and lived there for 14 years, completing his education at Cambridge. Returning to India in 1893,...

• Giri, Varahagiri Venkata 1894-1980, president of India (1969-74). He earned a law degree in Ireland, where he practiced law. After participating in the Easter Rebellion (1916), he was deported to India, where he became...

• Gokhale, Gopal Krishna 1866-1915, Indian nationalist leader. A Brahman from Maharashtra, he was educated in India and became involved in the nationalist movement when he was quite young. A moderate, he stressed...

• Gowda, H. D. Deve see Deve Gowda, H. D.

• Gupta Indian dynasty, AD c.320-c.550, whose empire at its height encompassed much of N India. Ancient Indian culture reached a high point during this period. Gupta paintings adorned the caves of Ajanta ,...

• Haidar Ali or Hyder Ali , 1722-82, Indian ruler. A Muslim of peasant stock, he rose by military brilliance to command the army of the Hindu state of Mysore. By 1761 he was virtual ruler of Mysore and began expanding the...

• Harsha b. c.590, Indian emperor (606-47). He became (606) king of a small state in the upper Ganges Valley, and by 612 he had built up a vast army with which he forged nearly all India N of the Narmada...

• Hastings, Warren 1732-1818, first governor-general of British India. Employed (1750) as a clerk by the East India Company, he soon became manager of a trading post in Bengal. When Calcutta (now Kolkata) was...

• Havelock, Sir Henry 1795-1857, British general. Entering the army in 1815, he was sent (1823) to India, where he served in the first Burma War (1824-26), the first Afghan War (1839), and the Sikh Wars (1843-49)...

• Homayun see Humayun.

• Hoysala dynasty of S India, c.1110-1326. It had its origins in the last half of the 11th cent., when Vinayaditya (1047-98) ruled an an area centered on Dorasamudra (modern Halebid), which became the...

• Hulagu Khan 1217-65, Mongol conqueror, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. His brother Mangu, grand khan of the Mongols, directed him to quell a revolt in Persia. In 1256, in the course of his successful campaign, his...

• Humayun or Homayun , 1507-56, second Mughal emperor of India (1530-56), son and successor of Babur. In 1535, pressed by enemy incursions into Rajasthan, Humayun defeated the formidable Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. However military opposition, particularly that of Sher Khan in Bihar, grew in strength. Sher Khan overran Bengal in 1537, and Humayun was routed at Chausa in 1539 and crushingly defeated at Kanauj in 1540. Humayun fled to Sind and finally obtained shelter...

• Hyder Ali see Haidar Ali.

• Iqbal, Muhammad 1877-1938, Indian Muslim poet, philosopher, and political leader. He studied at Government College, Lahore, Cambridge, and the Univ. of Munich, and then he taught philosophy at Government College...

• Jahangir or Jehangir , 1569-1627, Mughal emperor of India (1605-27), son of Akbar. He continued his father's policy of expansion. The Rajput principality of Mewar (Udaipur) capitulated in 1614. In the Deccan, Ahmadnagar was taken in 1616 and half of its kingdom annexed. In the...

• Jayawardene, Junius Richard 1906-96, prime minister (1977-78) and president (1978-88) of Sri Lanka. Active in Sri Lankan politics since the early 1940s, he was a founding member of the United National Party. Supporting a new...

• Jehangir see Jahangir.

• Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 1876-1948, founder of Pakistan , b. Karachi. After his admission to the bar in England, he returned to India to practice law. Early in his career he was a fervent supporter of the Indian National Congress and an advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity. Jinnah was a member of the legislative council of the viceroy from 1910 to 1919. He joined the Muslim League in 1913 and was elected its president in 1916 and 1920. He played a major role in negotiating the so-called Lucknow Pact (1916) between the League and the Congress, in which the latter conceded...

• Kanishka fl. c.AD 120, king of Gandhara. He was the most powerful and renowned ruler of the Kushan dynasty, one of the five tribes of the Yüeh-chih who had divided (1st cent. BC) Bactria among them. Earlier Kushan kings had extended...

• Krishna Menon, Vengalil Krishnan 1897-1974, Indian diplomat. He was educated at the Presidency College and the Law College of Madras (now Chennai) and at the London School of Economics and University College, London. During his...

• Kumaratunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike 1945-, Sri Lankan politician. The daughter of two former prime ministers, the assassinated (1959) Solomon Bandaranaike and his wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike , and the widow of Vijaya Kumartunga, another slain (1988) political leader, she is an economist and a member of the People's Alliance (PA) party. In 1994 she became chief minister of Sri Lanka's...

• Lawrence, John Laird Mair Lawrence, 1st Baron 1811-79, British colonial administrator in India; brother of Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence. He went to India in 1829 and served in many administrative posts. In 1846, after the first Sikh War, he...

• Lawrence, Sir Henry Montgomery 1806-57, British general and administrator in India; brother of John Laird Mair Lawrence. Commissioned (1822) in the Bengal artillery, he fought in Myanmar (1824-26), against the Afghans (1842),...

• Liaquat Ali Khan 1895-1951, first prime minister of Pakistan. He was educated at Aligarh Muslim Univ. and at Oxford and was admitted to the English bar in 1922. A year later he joined the Muslim League. He served...

• Linlithgow, Victor Alexander John Hope, 2d marquess of 1887-1952, British statesman, viceroy of India. Linlithgow was civil lord of the admiralty (1922-24) and held numerous other public positions. As chairman of the committee on Indian constitutional...

• Maurya ancient Indian dynasty, c.325-c.183 BC, founded by Chandragupta (Chandragupta Maurya). He conquered the Magadha kingdom and established his capital at Pataliputra (now Patna). His son, Bindusara (d. c.273), and his grandson, Asoka , the most notable ruler of ancient India, for the first time in history brought nearly all India, together with Afghanistan, under one rule. The culture of the Mauryan empire represents the first...

• Muhammad of Ghor d. 1206, Afghan conqueror of N India. A brother of the sultan of Ghor, he was made governor of Ghazni in 1173 and from there launched a series of invasions of India. By 1186 he had conquered the...

• Mujibur Rahman 1921-75, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) political leader, prime minister of Bangladesh (1972-75), popularly known as Sheikh Mujib. Concerned that East Pakistan was unfairly dominated by West...

• Mumtaz Mahal see Taj Mahal.

• Musharraf, Pervez 1943-, Pakistani army officer, president of Pakistan (2001-), b. Delhi. After the partition of British India, his family resettled in Karachi, Pakistan; he spent (1949-56) some of his childhood in...

• Naidu, Sarojini 1879-1949, Indian poet and political leader. Born Sarojini Chattopadhyay, she was educated in Madras (now Chennai) and at King's College, London, and Cambridge. In 1898 she married Dr. M. G...

• Nana Sahib b. c.1821, leader in the Indian Mutiny , his real name was Dhundu Pant. The adopted son of the last peshwa (hereditary prime minister) of the Marathas, his request (1853) to the British to grant him the peshwa's title and pension was...

• Naoroji, Dadabhai 1825-1917, Indian nationalist leader. The son of a Parsi priest, at 27 he became professor of mathematics at Elphinstone Institution, Bombay (now Mumbai). At 30 he left for England to start a...

• Narayan, Jaya Prakash 1902-79. Indian political leader. He was a founder (1934) of the Congress Socialist party and later (1952) the Indian Socialist party. He was an opponent of Indira Gandhi and formed the coalition Janata...

• Narayanan, K. R. (Raman Kocheril Narayanan) , 1921-2005, Indian government official. An "untouchable" or Dalit (see Harijans ), he nonetheless graduated from the Univ. of Travancore (now Kerala, 1943) with high honors. After a stint as a journalist and study at the London School of Economics, he joined India's foreign...

• Nehru, Jawaharlal 1889-1964, Indian statesman, b. Allahabad; son of Motilal Nehru. A politician and statesman of great skill, Nehru was enormously popular in India.

• Nehru, Motilal 1861-1931, Indian political leader, father of Jawaharlal Nehru. A successful attorney, he joined the Indian National Congress and served as its president in 1919. In 1923, however, he entered the national legislature as leader of the Swaraj [independence] party, formed to wreck the constitution by obstruction from within...

• Pallava S Indian dynasty that established its capital at Kanchipuram in the 4th cent. AD Of obscure origin, it grew wealthy and strong and is most noted for its patronage of Dravidian architecture, especially...

• Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi 1900-1990, Indian diplomat, sister of Jawaharlal Nehru. She played an active role in the Indian National Congress before Indian independence and was several times imprisoned. She was leader of the Indian delegation to the United Nations (1946-51), ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947-49) and to the United...

• Patel, Vallabhbhai 1875-1950, Indian political leader. He was admitted (1913) to the bar in England and set up a lucrative practice in India. In 1915 he met Mohandas Gandhi and within a short time became one of his closest associates, a staunch nationalist and a supporter of the Indian National Congress. A talented organizer, he successfully directed the civil-disobedience campaigns of the 1920s and 30s; several times he suffered imprisonment. He was mayor of Ahmedabad (1924-28) and was elected...

• Prabhakaran, Velupillai 1954-, Tamil nationalist guerrilla leader in Sri Lanka. Involved as a youth in protests against discrimination against Sri Lanka's Tamils, he was accused of the killing (1975) of Jaffna's mayor...

• Prasad, Rajendra 1884-1963, first president of India. Before entering politics, he taught English literature, history, economics, and law. In 1917 he began working with Mohandas K. Gandhi , and in 1920 he joined the Indian National Congress and was several times (1934, 1939, 1947-48) its president. He was imprisoned (1942-45) for supporting the Congress opposition to the British war effort in World War II. Prasad became president of...

• Prithvi Raj d. 1192, ruler of the Chauan dynasty of N India. A great warrior, he later became the subject of many romantic epics, including the Chand Raisa. He resisted the incursions of the Afghans led by Muhammad...

• Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli 1888-1975, Indian philosopher, president of India (1962-67). The main part of his life was spent as an academic; he was a philosophy professor at Mysore (1918-21) and Calcutta (1921-31, 1937-41)...

• Rahman, Mujibur see Mujibur Rahman.

• Rajagopalachari, Chakravarti 1878-1972, Indian political leader. He was educated in Bangalore and Madras (now Chennai) and admitted to the bar in 1900. Following World War I, he joined the Indian National Congress , in which he rose to prominence. A close friend of Mohandas K. Gandhi , he served several terms in prison for his political activities. After India became independent as a dominion, he served (1948-50) as the last governor-general, resigning that office when India was...

• Rajapaksa, Mahinda see Rajapakse, Mahinda.

• Rajapakse, Mahinda 1945-, Sri Lankan political leader. A lawyer from a political family, he was first elected to parliament in 1970 as member of the Sri Lanka Freedom party. From 1994 to 2001 he served as minister...

• Ranjit Singh 1780-1839, Indian maharaja, ruler of the Sikhs. Seizing Lahore (1799) and Amritsar (1809), he established himself as the leading Sikh chieftain. In 1809 he made a treaty with the British, by which...

• Rao, P. V. Narasimha (Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao) , 1921-2004, Indian politician, prime minister of India (1991-96), b. Hyderabad. A poet, he was active in the Indian National Congress during the struggle for independence and thereafter. He served as a minister (1962-71) and chief minister (1971-73) in the Andhra Pradesh state government before his election to the Indian...

• Roy, Rammohun 1772-1833, Indian religious and educational reformer. Sometimes called the father of modern India, Roy was born to a wealthy and devout Brahman family in Bengal. He early mastered several...

• Sandrocottus see Chandragupta.

• Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar 1883-1966, Indian nationalist. Educated in Pune, he was militantly anti-British and anti-Muslim. He founded a terrorist organization in London while ostensibly studying for a law degree and was...

• Senanayake, Don Stephen 1884-1952, prime minister (1947-52) of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka). He entered politics in 1922 and became a prominent leader before independence from Great Britain (1948), serving as minister of...

• Shah Alam 1728-1806, Mughal emperor of India (1759-1806). Driven out of Delhi in 1758, he nonetheless proclaimed himself emperor after the murder (1759) of his father, Alamgir II. He was under the protection of the nawab of...

• Shah Jahan or Shah Jehan , 1592-1666, Mughal emperor of India (1628-58), son and successor of Jahangir. His full name was Khurram Shihab-ud-din Muhammad. He rebelled against his father in 1622 but was pardoned and succeeded to the throne in 1628. In the course of his long reign he conquered most of...

• Shastri, Shri Lal Bahadur 1904-66, Indian political leader. He joined Mohandas Gandhi's noncooperation movement in 1921 and studied at the nationalist Kashi Vidyapeth school, where he was given the title Shastri [learned in the scriptures]. Elected to the central legislature in 1952, he served as minister for railways (1952-56), minister of commerce and industry (1957-61), and minister of home affairs...

• Sher Khan or Sher Shah , 1486-1545, Afghan ruler in N India. He enlisted in the service of the Mughal leader Babur when the latter invaded India and became governor of Bihar. After Babur's death, however, he asserted his independence of the Mughals, and in 1537, when Humayun , son of Babur, was elsewhere engaged, he overran Bengal. A brilliant strategist, Sher Khan routed the army of Humayun in 1539, and a year later decisively defeated a fresh army at Kanauj. Humayun...

• Sher Shah see Sher Khan.

• Shivaji see Śivaji.

• Singh, Manmohan 1932-, Indian economist and government official, prime minister of India (2004-), b. Gah, West Punjab. Educated at the universities of Punjab, Cambridge, and Oxford, Singh taught at a number of...

• Singh, Vishwanath Pratap 1931-, Indian politician and prime minister (1989-90). As finance minister under Rajiv Gandhi (1984-87) he pursued policies of economic liberalization. Expelled from Gandhi's Congress faction in 1989, he formed an anti-Congress coalition, the Janata Dal. He became prime minister in a...

• Sinha, Satyendra Prassano, 1st Baron Sinha of Raipur 1864-1928, Indian statesman. A successful lawyer, he was the first Indian to hold several important administrative positions under the British: advocate general of Bengal (1907), member of the...

• Sorabji, Cornelia c.1870-1954, Indian lawyer and author. She took a law degree at Oxford in 1893. She served (1904-23) as a special legal adviser to the Court of Wards of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam; in this...

• Sri Aurobindo see Ghose, Aurobindo.

• Tilak, Bal Gangadhar 1856-1920, Indian nationalist leader. He was a journalist in Pune, and in his newspapers, the Marathi-language Kesari [lion] and the English-language Mahratta, he set forth his nationalist ideals. He sought a Hindu revival based on Maratha traditions and independence [swaraj] from Britain. After the Indian National Congress was founded (1885), Tilak became the acknowledged leader of the extreme wing. He fought the moderate measures of Gopal Krishna Gokhale and advocated resistance to British rule; he was arrested (1897) by the British and imprisoned for 18 months. In 1907 a split took place in the Congress, and Tilak led his extremist wing out of the...

• Tippoo Sahib or Tipu Sahib , 1749-99, Indian ruler, sultan of Mysore (1782-99); son and successor of Haidar Ali. He fought in his father's campaigns against the Marathas and the British but, after his succession, made peace with the British in 1784. His invasion (1789) of Travancore, a state under British...

• Tipu Sahib or Tipu Sultan: see Tippoo Sahib.

• Tughluq, Muhammad see Delhi Sultanate.

• Vajpayee, Atal Bihari 1926-, Indian politician, prime minister of India (1996, 1998-2004). He began his career as a journalist, entering politics as an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate in 1950. He was (1951) a...

• Yahya Khan, Agha Muhammad 1917-80, Pakistani general and president (1969-71). He fought with the British in World War II, and rose through the Pakistan army following independence, becoming chief of the general staff...

• Zia ul-Haq, Mohammad 1924-88, Pakistani military and political leader. Named general and chief of staff by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1976, he declared martial law in July, 1977, in response to agitations against election fraud. He imprisoned Bhutto, later (1979) executing him. Zia became president in 1978 declaring the "Islamization" of Pakistan. He attempted to establish a partyless politics, winning a referendum in 1984. He permitted elected legislatures by 1985, lifting martial law in 1986. However, agitations caused Zia to...