Syed Ali Nawab

Syed Ali Nawab
Nickname(s)	Nawab
Born	(1925-06-10)10 June 1925 Badaun, Uttar Pradesh, British India Present-day India
Died	23 September 1994(1994-09-23) (aged 69) Islamabad
Allegiance	Pakistan
Service/branch	Pakistan Army
Years of service	1951-1981
Rank	Major-General
Unit	Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
Commands held	Pakistan Ordnance Factories
Battles/wars	Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 Indo-Pakistani war of 1971
Awards	TPk, SBt, HI (M)

Major General Syed Ali Nawab (Urdu: سید علی نواب‎; 10 June 1925 – 23 September 1994), was a career officer of the Pakistan Army Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME). He was promoted to the rank of Major General in 1975 when General Tikka Khan was COAS. Nawab was one of two serving EME generals at that time.^[1] (It was at the end of 1976, during Gen Zia's tenure, that EME would have more than two generals).

The head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons project, Secretary General, Ministry of Defense, Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan ^[2] appointed Nawab to discreetly oversee the establishment of KRL, the first facility to make fissile material in Pakistan and its international procurement operation. Nawab was also appointed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan to advise and monitor, engineering and manufacturing companies, to enable them to support the country's newly developing nuclear capabilities. This was important work for Pakistan, as in the words of Houston Wood, Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA, "The most difficult step in building a nuclear weapon is the production of fissile material".^[3][4] As a graduate of the US Army Career Ordnance Officer course and a professional grade MIMechE engineer from UK, Nawab was a technically qualified general selected by the government of Pakistan for the job. Nawab's promotion to general officer came a few months before Dr. A.Q. Khan, key scientist behind Pakistan's clandestine Nuclear Weapons program, was scheduled to move to Pakistan from Europe.^[5]

Nawab has been mentioned in several op-ed articles by Dr. A.Q. Khan. Khan has described Gen Nawab as a "competent engineer and thorough gentleman".^[6] In one article titled "Defenders of Pakistan", Nawab's name appears on a list of generals with whom Khan had close contact and meetings.^[7] In a couple of articles, Khan revealed that one of two KRL procurement officers was a former POF engineer deputed via Gen Ali Nawab, chairman POF.^[8][9]

According to another couple of articles by Dr. A.Q. Khan, in early 1976, the Army office of DG EME (Director General EME) began assisting Khan in establishing KRL after Gen Zia became COAS.^[10][11] DG EME was a strategic post as it was held by one of two EME generals at the time and in the normal course of duty, was also involved in selecting and deputing EME personnel to the office of Military procurement (PATLO) used by KRL in London.^[12] So, DG EME was able to help KRL in several ways without attracting too much attention. Although, Dr. Khan does not mention Gen Nawab by name in these articles, army records clearly indicate that Nawab was in fact DG EME after General Zia became COAS.^[13] Gen Nawab was transferred from the Ministry of Defense to the Army office of DG EME by Secretary General of Defense, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, so Nawab could make these strategic logistical and staffing decisions for KRL and then be transferred back to the Ministry of Defense. However, Director of KRL, A.Q. Khan, was kept in the dark about the process.

In December 1976 after assisting KRL establish its basic infrastructure as DG EME, Nawab moved back to the Ministry of Defense and began running the military industrial complex known as POF from where he could continue assisting KRL,^[14][15] such that, main structures were in place by middle of 1977^[16] and moderate uranium enrichment was achieved by April 1978.^[17] During his stay at POF, Nawab also began working on a project to develop, monitoring and advisory systems, for the domestic engineering and manufacturing sectors of the economy, so they could support the country's newly developing advanced nuclear capabilities.

After retirement from the Army in 1981 Nawab became chief of Experts Advisory Cell (EAC) from where he continued to advise and monitor state owned enterprises. EAC was affiliated with the Ministry of Industries & Production as well as the powerful Ministry of Finance headed by Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan who had moved to the Ministry of Finance after Gen Zia became president.^[18][19] As chief of EAC, Nawab co-authored the article, "Evaluating Public Manufacturing Enterprises: An experimental monitoring system".^[20] In addition, during Nawab's tenure EAC's contributions to industrialization of Pakistan were recognized by the World Bank and IMF in the 1983 World Development Report.^[21] Coincidentally a few months after Dr. A.Q. Khan declared that he had finally developed the ability to detonate a nuclear device in December 1984, Nawab retired from the government as chief of EAC.^[22][23]

As a related anecdote, in 1984, A.Q. Khan wrote that President Zia had appointed two Major Generals, Zahid Ali Akbar Khan and Anis Nawab, whom Peter Griffin had met in London in 1977 over dinner at the Kundan Restaurant, to oversee all operations.^[24] Khan's reference was to a dinner meeting in which Peter Griffin says he met a Brigadier General Anis Nawab who was described as running a project on industrializing Pakistan.^[25] However, Brigadier General Anis Nawab was obviously a fictitious name, for Brigadier General is not even a rank in the Pakistan Army and there was no Brigadier or General by the name of Anis Nawab at the time. Khan has been unwilling to reveal the true identity of the mystery Brigadier General. In addition, Peter's account also has its problems. For example, why would any general travel all the way from Pakistan to meet Griffin, then jeopardize his operation by introducing himself with a fake rank that didn't even exist in his own army? Also why did he make up a rank that suggested he wasn't a general, yet allow his team to address him as a general?^[26] Also, why would Peter go ahead with the deal after it was obvious that the man had a fake rank and name? It is a very odd story and requires clarification. In addition, it is unclear how Khan knew which Generals and how many were appointed by Zia to oversee operations. After all, if General Zia had managed to conceal the identity of EME's Director General who was running the show and allowed Khan to think Director ITD was Director General EME what does it say about Khan's knowledge of who was overseeing operations? Khan was a director (rather than a director general) at the time, the equivalent of a Brigadier in the army or a middle management executive at a large corporation. In addition he had just moved from Europe. So, it is quite unlikely that Gen Zia or anyone else would have shared with Khan how many generals were overseeing the operation or their identities. Essentially, both A.Q. Khan and Peter Griffin were misled into thinking they were dealing with a Brigadier / Brigadier General rather than a general officer with a different name.

Career

During the administrations of Presidents Ayub and Yahya Khan, Nawab worked as an Army colonel and a diplomat in the office of PATLO aka Office of Military Procurement ^[27] for several years at the Pakistan High Commission in London, England.

Nawab was promoted to the rank of Major General (two star general) in 1975 when General Tikka Khan was Chief of the Army Staff. As a general officer, his first appointment was Director General of a Research and Development Establishment in the Ministry of Defense, headed by Secretary General Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan. His next appointment was Director General EME with the Army.^[28] His third and final appointment was another deputation to the Ministry of Defense in late 1976 where he ran the military industrial complex, known as POF.

In 1978, Nawab was superseded, but given a three-year extension to continue his work at the Ministry of Defense in Gen Zia's administration.

After running POF as chairman of the board and retiring from the military in 1981, Nawab became chief of a newly created Experts Advisory Cell (EAC), a semi government entity designed to improve the performance of state owned enterprises in Pakistan. During his tenure at EAC he was the author of an internationally published article, "Evaluating Public Manufacturing Enterprises: An experimental monitoring system".^[29]

Education

Nawab was an engineer by education. He attended Aligarh University in the 1940s,^[30] earning a B.Sc in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in 1945, and a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering in 1948.^[31] In the 1950s, he was admitted to the grade of MIMechE at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Britain.

Among other courses, Nawab attended The Ordnance Officer Career Course at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA and REME's training courses at Loughborough Technical Institute (later Loughborough University) and Royal Military College Shrivenham in England. He graduated from PMA Kakul at the top of his class, earning the Norman medal and the course Staff / Cane.

Personal life

Nawab had two sons from his wife Razia Jaffery Nawab, a physician and a graduate of King Edward Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan.

He was the son of Syed Nawab Hasan of Sirsi, Uttar Pradesh (aka Sirsi Sadat), near Moradabad, in British India, a Senior Sessions Judge in the provincial civil service in British India.

Nawab was an admirer of the rational secular views of Sir Syed ^[32] and President and founder of Sir Syed Memorial Society.^[33]

References