Khwaja Wasiuddin (1920–1992) was an army general and diplomat. He started his career as a young officer in the British Indian Army and later became a senior general in Pakistan Army. He was the permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations.

Early life

Khwaja Wasiuddin was born on 20 March 1920 in

Ahsan Manzil Ahsan Manzil is the erstwhile official residential palace and seat of the Nawab of Dhaka. The building is situated at Kumartoli along the banks of the Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Construction was started in 1859 and was completed in ...

Dacca Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...

(Present-day Bangladesh). His father

Khwaja Shahabuddin Khawaja Shahabuddin (31 May 1898 – 9 February 1977) was a politician of Kashmiri-Bengali descent from East Pakistan who was a minister in the Government of Pakistan and member of the Dhaka Nawab family. He was the younger brother of Khawaja ...

was the governor of

North-west Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followi ...

of Pakistan and member of the

Dhaka Nawab family The Nawab of Dhaka ( Bengali: "ঢাকার নবাব"), originally spelt in English Nawab of Dacca, was the title of the head of largest Muslim zamindar in British Bengal and Assam, based in present-day Dhaka, Bangladesh. The title of ''n ...

; his father's elder brother was Sir

Khawaja Nazimuddin Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin ( bn, খাজা নাজিমুদ্দীন; ur, ; 19 July 1894 – 22 October 1964) was a Pakistani politician and one of the leading founding fathers of Pakistan. He is noted as being the first Bengali to ha ...

, the second Governor-General of Pakistan and subsequently its second Prime Minister. His mother was Farhat Banu, the niece of sir salimullah and member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly. He studied at Dhaka Muslim High School and later in St Gregory's High School. In 1938 he graduated from Prince of Wales Royal Military College.

Career

After graduation, he joined the

Indian Military Academy The Indian Military Academy (IMA) is one of the oldest military academies in India, and trains officers for the Indian Army. Located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, it was established in 1932 following a recommendation by a military committee set up ...

and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in April 1940 in the

8th Punjab Regiment The 8th Punjab Regiment was a regiment of the British Indian Army from 1922 to 1947. It was transferred to Pakistan Army on Partition of India in 1947 and merged with the Baluch Regiment in 1956. History Madras Infantry The 8th Punjab Regimen ...

of the British Indian Army. He served in the Burma Campaign of World War II. He reached the rank of major by 1943, and commanded an artillery battalion. In 1945 he was promoted to rank of lieutenant colonel and appointed as the additional deputy president of

Inter Services Selection Board , logo = Pakistan Inter Services (Emblem).png , motto = We Select Defenders of Pakistan , abbreviation = ISSB , formation = , headquarters = Kohat , addnl_location_city = GujranwalaQuetta ...

of British Indian Armed Forces.

Pakistan

After the partition of India he opted for Pakistan Army. In Pakistan, he continued to work in Pakistani

, eventually becoming its president. In 1951 he went for further studies in Camberley Staff College in United Kingdom and subsequently was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. In 1960 he was made the general officer commanding (GOC) of the 14th Division located in

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wi ...

's Dhaka and in 1963 he was the commander of 10th Division located in Lahore,

West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...

. In 1962 he was a provincial martial law administrator. In 1964 he got his higher educations from Imperial Defense College in United Kingdom. In 1967, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed as the commander of the II Corps, the headquarters was firstly in Lahore and later was transferred to

Multan Multan (; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan is Pakistan's seventh largest city as per the 2017 census, and the major cultural, religious and economic centre of southern Punjab. Multan is one of the old ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

Bangladesh

During the Bangladesh Liberation War he was the Master General of Ordnance (MGO) in

General Headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

in Rawalpindi, West Pakistan. In October 1973, he was repatriated to Bangladesh from Pakistan. After returning to Bangladesh he would serve as the ambassador of Bangladesh to Kuwait and France. He retired from Bangladesh Army in 1977 and was made the permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, position he held until 1986. As the representative he supported Indonesia's annexation of East Timor in the United Nation.

Death

He died on 22 September 1992 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wasiuddin, Khwaja People from Dhaka Bangladeshi diplomats 1920 births 1992 deaths Pakistani generals Members of the Dhaka Nawab family Ambassadors of Bangladesh to France Ambassadors of Bangladesh to Kuwait Permanent Representatives of Bangladesh to the United Nations Pakistani military personnel British Indian Army personnel