KARACHI, Pakistan, April 12— centuries the far northern reaches of what is now West Pakistan have echoed to the tramp of soldiers’ feet.

Alexander the Great, and his army pushed through on their way to Delhi. Tribal conflicts swept to and fro. And the British officers of Queen Victoria's empire drilled generations of colonial troops on the hot Punjabi plain. So when Tikka Khan was born in 1915 in an obscure northern village near Rawalpindi, it was only logical that he should become a fighting man. The British Raj, with his emphasis on military pomp, was going strong. Rawalpindi, later to become Pakistan's provincial capital, was the site of a great military cantonment.

Now the Raj is gone, Rawalpindi has become the military headquarters of the new state of Pakistan and the Moslem boy has become a grizzled lieutenant general with four rows of ribbons.

The general was sworn in last week as the governor in what is called Zone B in Pakistan's military jargon.. Zone B is East Pakistan, and he is its boss in his capacity as governor, area military commander and administrator of martial law.

In his bearing General Tikka Khan shows the stamp of his British training. Unlike Pakistani, politicians, who have a tendency to slouch a little in the easy‐going way of politicians everywhere, the general sits ramrod‐stiff. Though his sleeves are rolled up, they are neatly rolled up, and the papers are laid out before him in rows, as if for roll call.

He Chose the Artillery

That martial precision seems to have been part of his character since his youth. When he went off to the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun, a hill station in the northeast, he chose to become an officer in the artillery, where precise computations are a must.

At Dehra Dun, in the palmy days on the eve of World War II, he studied elbow to elbow with youths who are now high officers in India, which the Pakistani press likes to term “Pakistan's enemy No. 1.”

In 1940 he received his commission as an artillery officer in the Indian Army and was sent to fight in North Africa and Burma under British command. After the war the academy took him back as an artillery instructor. He is believed to be married, but his private life is obscure.

In 1947 came the independence of Pakistan. General Tikka Khan switched over to the fledgling Pakistani Army. He became an artillery instructor again, this time at the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, 80 miles from Rawalpindi.

His rise was swift. He was picked to attend the Command and Staff College at Quetta, the historic capital of Baluchistan, famous for its fighting men, and then was given command of an artillery regiment from 1949 to 1951. Thereafter he held a succession of progressively more important staff posts in major headquarters.

Meanwhile the army leadership became the main focus of power in the new country, partly because civilian political institutions proved frail and partly because of the prospect of conflict with India.

By 1962 General Tikka Khan, who had emerged among the officers with really big jobs, was given command of a division. In April, 1965, he, became something of a national hero when he commanded the forces in the fighting at the Rann of Cutch, a marshy area on the Indian frontier where, as Pakistanis tell it, a superior Indian force was routed.

In that battle the basis was laid for the general's reputation as an extremely tough commander and administrator. Later in that year he commanded a division in the war with India and was awarded the Star of Pakistan, one of the country's highest decorations.

He then became a lieutenant general and the commander of an army corps. After Gen. Agha Mohammad Yayha Khan took over in 1969 and imposed martial law, he became one of the principal martial law administrators, assigned to maintain law and order.

Last month General Yayha Khan showed his confidence in General Tikka Khan—no kin—by making him administrator in Zone B and head of the army in the east. He has presided over what the press calls “destroying” the “miscreants” and Indian infiltrators. From all the evidence he has not heeded complaints abroad that his measures have been severe.