Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Remembering Khanji
By Air Chief Marshal (r) Jamal A Khan
Doubtlessly the most admired and respected engineer of the PAF passed away a few days ago. Many of Air Marshal Iftikhar Ahmed Khan’s colleagues and even some seniors called him ‘Khanji’ as a mark of the high esteem in which the air force held this outstanding officer.
A young Government College graduate from Lahore just as Pakistan was becoming an independent country, Iftikhar was sent with others in his course to the UK to become an aviation engineer. While gaining that qualification, the young man was so keen also to become a pilot that he spent quite a chunk of his meager salary to qualify as a civil pilot in one of the flying clubs in England. His lifelong immersion in the fast growing aviation technologies and his close association with air force pilots began as he was commissioned in 1948.
Seniors above him easily noted the young Iftikhar’s capacity for hard, purposeful work and his uncompromising integrity. This earned him increasingly challenging assignments during the first decade of his life among fighter and transport planes and pilots at several air bases. Lifelong friendship and mutual respect (and his nickname) were established during this time. Beyond his engineering expertise Khanji also gained a reputation for penning concisely expressed but comprehensively argued staff studies. This led to his becoming an instructor at the Air War College where many young pilots and engineers learned much from him.
In a mid career example noted by his colleagues, the future air marshal, then a wing commander in charge of a maintenance wing, could be daily seen riding a bicycle to visit his units for additional supervision. Why not use his officially authorized car? In Khanji’s reckoning, his right to use the official transport ended at cease work every day. Outside working hours, even for official duties, he could not justify to himself the use of the car that the air force had authorized for his senior rank and position. Despite the efforts of his senior commander to soften this interpretation, Khanji would not budge.
Stories of similar and very strict standards of personnel conduct trickled back to the Pakistan’s Air Headquarters when (as a group captain) Iftikhar held two foreign assignments where he wielded the authority for authorizing millions of dollars in defence purchases on behalf of a friendly country. The ever scrupulous Khanji earned repeated mention in the host country’s reports about this officer’s impeccable honesty and integrity.
It would have been surprising if such an officer was held back from very high assignments in the PAF. Iftikhar easily rose to the top engineering assignment in the air force and before his retirement also headed the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, a uniquely successful aircraft manufacturing network of factories.
Khanji lived to the end by the same creed he started his air force career with. His bachelor’s life emphasised dignity and simplicity. After he had reluctantly to give up golf owing to his eighty-plus years, he remained mostly surrounded by the books he loved to read. Affable to the core, he would himself insist on making a cup of tea for a visitor, and proffer it without any self-consciousness about the rattling cup extended in the friend’s direction. In the old world language such individuals were described as officers of Stirling qualities. Khanji always was.
Born in Dec 1926; Commissioned May 48; Retd as Air Marshal in Dec 84. Government College Lahore BA, BE from the PAF / Engg Course in the UK; joined a flying club in the UK at his own expense; PAF Air War College Course, was Instructor /DS; US Defence Management Course; 2 years as Squadron Engg Officer in No. 5 Sqn Aug 50-Jan 52; Risalpur, Chaklala as Engg Offr 53-55; Air HQ Staff 55-59; HQ 2 Corps Jun 59-Aug 60 Engg Offr; USAF Course Aug 60-May 61 [F-104 related]; Sargodha Engg Offr Aug 60-May 63; Air War College Jan 63-Jan 64; Air HQ Asst Dir Engg Jan 64-Mar 65; Masroor OCMW Mar 65-Sep 66; Shara Faisal SMO Oct 66-Nov 66
Air HQ DD Acft Engg Nov 66-Jul 67; Air HQ DTSvcs Jul 67-May 68; Air War College DS May 68-Nov 70; Libya Deputation Nov 70-Apr 73; Karachi DP Air May 73-May 75; Air HQ Dir Wpn Sys Mngmt May 75-Aug 75; ACAS M Aug 75-Jul 78; DCAS M Jul 78-May 82; DG Kamra May 82-Dec 84; [DC HMC Taxila 84].
