General Jehangir Karamat (Urdu: ??????? ?????; born 20 February 1941) LOM, NI(M), SBt, best known as JK, is a retired four-star rank army general, diplomat, public intellectual, and a former professor of political science at the National Defense University.
Appointed first to be served as the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army in 1996, he was elevated as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in 1997 until 1998.After joining the Pakistan Army in 1958, he entered in the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, and passed out in 1961 to later serve in the combat in conflicts with India in 1965 and in 1971.
His tenureship is regarded as his pivotal role in enhancing the democracy and the civilian control when he staunchly backed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's authorisation of atomic-testing programme in 1998.On 6 October 1998, Karamat was forced to relieved from his four-star commands by Prime minister Nawaz Sharif over a disagreement on national security and reforms of the intelligence community.
He is also one of very few army generals in the military history of Pakistan to have resigned over a disagreement with the civilian authorities.After his resignation, he accepted the professorship at the Stanford University in California and appointed as to head Pakistan's diplomatic mission as an Ambassador but was later removed.
Karamat has been credited for foresight prediction of the dangers of unbalanced civil-military relations and the rise of foreign-supported homegrown terrorism in the country.
Many of his recommendations on national security were eventually became part of counterterrorism policy by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2013.