Ijlal Haider Zaidi

Who is Ijlal Haider Zaidi?

Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidi was a retired member of the Civil Service of Pakistan. He served in various key administrative and secretarial capacities, including Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar, Director General of Radio Pakistan, Chief Secretary of Azad Kashmir, Chief Secretary of North-West Frontier Province, Federal Defence Secretary and Establishment Secretary. After his retirement, Zaidi served as an advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Since 1992 he has been the chairman of the Pakistan-Japan Friendship Association, and in 2007 received a special commendation for his work there from the Japanese ambassador to Pakistan.

Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidi was born on December 29, 1928 in Shahabad, the then District Karnal, British India. He was a B.Sc engineer by profession, and obtained distinguished position in Superior Competitive Services examinations of Pakistan. His grandfather late Engineer Mr. Syed Ghulam Shabbir Zaidi was the chief of Shahabad town and renowned philanthropist of the town, and his father late Mr. Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Zaidi was one of the pioneer Muslim B.Sc engineers of the entire Indian sub-continent, and Aligarh College graduate as well as a poet, novelist, intellectual and prose-writer; and also served as Senior Vice Chairman of Lahore Board of Education during 1950s. His youngest brother late Mr. Syed Ijmal Haider Zaidi, who served as senior Vice President, Habib Bank Limited, Pakistan, was also a lawyer and writer, whose son Mujtaba Haider Zaidi writer, lawyer and columnist of Pakistan English Newspaper The Frontier Post " is the pioneer playwright of the Theatre of the Absurd and Stream of Consciousness in Urdu literature. Syed Ijlal Haider Zaidi died on 23 March 2013 in Lahore after protracted illness. He left three daughters. Zaidi was an influential member of the Establishment. He served as a senior bureaucrat while working very close to four former Presidents of Pakistan including Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, General Zia, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Farooq Leghari, and was considered to be the right hand and closest aide of the former President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.