President of Pakistan from 1960 to 1969. Ayub Khan graduated from the Aligarh Muslim University and received military training at Sandhurst, England. He commanded a battalion on the Burma Front during the Second World War. In January 1951, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, and in 1954-55 became Minister of Defence. He was appointed Chief Martial Law Administrator on 7 October 1958, after the coup perpetrated by Iskander Mirza thereafter staging a further coup against Mirza on 27 October and seizing the office of President for himself. Ayub Khan ruled under martial law in 1962 and subsequently under his own tailor-made constitution until 1969. In 1959, he awarded himself the title of Field Marshal and in 1960 was confirmed as President of Pakistan by means of a referendum.
He was re-elected for a second term in 1965 under a system of indirect elections known as “Basic Democracy”. However, the widespread public enthusiasm shown to the candidature of the Combined Opposition Parties (COP)-no less a personage than Fatima Jinnah, sister of the Quaid-i-Azam shook the confidence of the Ayub regime.
The Rann of Kutch and Kashmir Wars took place during his term (1965). He signed the Tashkent Declaration (1966), after which his popularity declined. Major demonstrations against the Ayub Khan government began across a widening spectrum of groups in different regions in 1968. The vociferous public demands for democratic political institutions, social justice and regional autonomy unnerved Ayub Khan.