Khalid Amir Khan

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Khalid Amir Khan was a Pakistani diplomat and politician. Born on 2 December 1934 to [ Bilquis Sultana and Major Amir Abdullah Khan, a land holder from a family from Sargodha District, Punjab, Pakistan. Khalid Amir Khan served as ambassador to Hungary, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in the 1990s,^[1] and played a major role in the politics of the Punjab and especially the Sargodha district. He died on 22 December 2020.

Khalid Amir Khan, who was a student at Aitchison College between 1942 and 1951, died peacefully at his Lahore residence, shortly after celebrating his birthday on 2 December. He was 86. He was one of the few surviving Aitchisonians, on either side of the Pakistani border with India, who retained fond memories of the School in pre-Partition days. He would recall with nostalgia his association with Hindu and Sikh contemporaries. Respected in Sargodha District for his political acumen, he was elected to the Punjab Assembly as an MPA in 1977, he was a bon vivant and a popular member of the Golf Club at the Lahore Gymkhana as well as a regular at The Punjab Club. He was a political appointee as Ambassador to Hungary in 1991. His diplomatic skills in Budapest, very quickly recognised at the Foreign Office in Islamabad, led to his appointment to two further ambassadorial appointments to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. He was primarily a landowner, who managed his vast Khankhel Estate, located in Zabardust Khanwala, on the fringes of the village of Trekhanwala. Khalid Amir was of distinguished rural lineage. His father was Amir Abdullah Khan, belonging to the Khankhel tribe who were close associates of Ibrahim Lodhi, the last Sultan of Delhi from the Lodhi dynasty. It was Ibrahim Lodhi’s defeat to Babar at Panipat in 1526 that led to the founding of the Mughal Empire. Amir Abdullah, while under the Court of Wards (his father having died when he was two years old), was admitted to Aitchison at the age of eight and graduated with a Diploma in 1930. Khalid’s mother was Bilquis Sultana, from the illustrious Khattar family of Wah in Rawalpindi District. She was a descendant of one Muhammad Hyat Khan Khattar, later Nawab, who founded the fortunes of the Hyat family with his unflinching loyalty to Brigadier-General John Nicholson ( called ‘Nickel Hussain’ in the Hyat family history), and for his gallantry in the battle for the Lahore Gate at the time of the re-taking of Delhi for the British in 1857. Aitchison College was undergoing a transition in the early Forties, being transformed under Principal Barry from being a Chiefs’ College (ie primarily a finishing school for princes and chiefs) to a school run broadly on the lines of an English public school, where Aitchisonians would be prepared for careers in politics, the services, education as well as business. Mr Akram, who was to become Bursar and Vice Principal of Aitchison in the Fifties, once described the values cherished by the Senior Boys when he joined as a young teacher at the beginning of this period of transition. According to him, to be acceptable at School one had to be a substantial landowner, who was proficient in riding as well as golf. In all these respects, Khalid Amir Khan qualified as a gentleman and a true blue Aitchisonian. Khalid Amir was affected by polio as a child. Instead of this being a dampener for his development at sport, it became a catalyst and a challenge. He became a very able swimmer and a devotee of equestrian events. Later, he developed a life-long passion for golf. When in his seventies, he was struck with a serious back ailment and there was the possibility that he might have to give up all sport. He refused to accept that and instead took the courageous decision to undergo a long and hazardous surgery, which required the insertion of over twenty titanium nails in his back. This enabled him to return to the golf course. He celebrated this with a series of holes-in-one over the following years. He was the President of the Gymkhana Divots, a club of enthusiastic golfers, and he set up a miniature 5-hole golf course at his grand country house in Trekhanwala. On more than one occasion he hosted very gracious golfing weekends there. Although he did not actively play cricket, he supported the Mandarins Cricket Club, which I initiated in the Seventies. The Mandarins would play weekend matches, many of these at the cricket ground at Aitchison. In view of his commitment to the club, Khalid Amir was designated Manager of the Mandarins, a responsibility he discharged with his usual enthusiasm and humour. Khalid Amir was to proceed for higher studies to the University of California (UC) at Berkeley in 1952. There he graduated in Political Science along with his young wife Rabia. From Berkeley he went on to UC at Davis for a degree in Agriculture. But before leaving for the USA, in 1951, Khalid obtained his Cambridge School Certificate (Senior Cambridge) at Aitchison. The year 1951 was Khalid Amir’s final year at Aitchison, and it was marked by a landmark election victory for the position of Prime Minister of the Council of State at Aitchison. All senior school boys were the electors for the Council of State; in those days, with the total school strength below 300, the number of eligible voters would not have exceeded 80. Khalid’s adversary in the election was

Rehman Sobhan, from the erstwhile province of East Pakistan. Rehman was to go on to Trinity Hall for his Tripos at Cambridge. Later, he became a leading economist in undivided Pakistan, and a strong voice for economic equity between East and West Pakistan. Rehman’s mother was a niece of Khwaja Nazimuddin, the Governor General and, later, Prime Minister of Pakistan. Rehman describes his defeat at Khalid’s hands and their subsequent exchanges in the Council of State, in his Memoir, in the following words:

‘It was an unequal contest because Khalid had been at Aitchison from junior school and had the campaign support of the numerically larger cohort of C-2 boys. In contrast I had been at Aitchison for just a year and campaigned with the backup of the HSC class whose smaller numbers could not be compensated by the oratory of Abdul Aziz Khan (of Hoti Mardan) or the muscular support of Malek Muzaffar Khan (of Kalabagh). In spite of our superior eloquence on the hustings, I lost the election by a good margin ..... With the Principal, Mr Gwynn, as the Speaker, Khalid went on to become PM, while I was the Leader of the Opposition ..... Questions (by me) on how they would handle the ‘fiscal deficit’ left Khalid tongue-tied and reduced Asad Hyat, his campaign manager, to tears of frustration as he accused me of being an intellectual snob, which I was heartless enough to take as a compliment.’ Rehman Sobhan’s description of the Council of State, which was succeeded in the mid-Fifties by the short-lived Parliament of Aitchisonia, brings back nostalgic memories of our initiation in those days in to the real world of politics. There may be a case for Principal Thomson to consider a modified revival of the Council at the School today. Khalid Amir remained to the end a very loyal Aitchisonian. His son Asad and grandsons all followed him to the School. He never forgot the strong friendships he had forged there and they lasted him throughout his life. He always looked forward to visiting Aitchison at Old Boys’ functions and to meeting up his school contemporaries in later life. Once, I think it may have been the Eighties, he arranged a reconciliation meeting at my house between Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, his contemporary, and Sardar Farouq Leghari, my contemporary. They were at the time at loggerheads in the District politics of Dera Ghazi Khan. In 1982, when I was working as Finance Secretary in Quetta, Khalid and Rabia, his wife, came to visit me. There he contacted Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti, at the time a firm opponent of the Zia-Ul-Huq regime. Sardar Bugti, true to tradition, invited us to his house for dinner at an open house ‘dastarkhan’ banquet. There a journalist dropped in and wanted to know if my presence as a government functionary meant that Sardar Akbar Khan was negotiating with the government. Sardar Akbar Khan scoffed at this suggestion and said firmly: ‘No. I am merely providing hospitality to Old Boys from my alma mater, Aitchison College.’ Politics was not discussed that evening. There was talk only of days gone by at the School and of Kelly House. Khalid, to the end of his days, remained an engaging raconteur, a sportsman and a very generous host. A few years ago, he organised a sit down dinner of his surviving school contemporaries at his Lahore residence. Usman Aminuddin, Tariq Hussain, Zulfiqar Khosa, Iftikhar Bokhari were among those present. The highlight of the dinner was an imitation of a ‘teenda gosht’ dish which he recalled would be served at Kelly House meals in his time! His cook had to practice more than once to ensure that it was as tasteless as the original and had the correct texture. He will be missed by his many friends in Pakistan and all over the world. .......

References[]

http://www.travelfirst.com/pays3/pakistan_nabobs1.html^[1]

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