M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Senior Leader Senator A. Rehman Malik has paid tributes to the founder of the PPP and first democratically-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto on his 91st birth anniversary.
Senator A. Rehman Malik said that Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was a born leader with vision, courage and wisdom. He said Shaheed Bhutto was a diplomat, a defence strategist, architect of country’s nuclear programme and a leader who became the leader of the world leaders, said a message issued here on Saturday.
He observed “Unfortunately, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became the victim of dictator’s lust for power but his judicial murder will remain a scar on our national horizon forever.”
Senator Malik said that Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had the vision and dream for the developed and progressive Pakistan.
He said that Shaheed Bhutto was voice of the poor and a ray of hope for the exploited masses.
He said that Bhutto’s vision for a prosperous, peaceful and progressive Pakistan would remain a shining chapter in the history of Pakistan.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Saturday called for accountability of those “who had stolen the votes of millions of people.”
“When will there be accountability for those who stole the votes of millions of people,” Bilawal Bhutto questioned.
He said there was a planned conspiracy behind the leak of a joint investigation team’s report on alleged money laundering.
“The PTI administration lacks capability to run the government. It has failed to live up to the expectations of people. They are running the government only by levelling allegations against the opposition leaders," said Bilawal while speaking through a video link on the birth anniversary of party founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, he said.
The government has resorted to political victimisation in the name of accountability, but it can't stop the democratic struggle of the country.
“Opposition is the target of so-called accountability drive. But PPP will continue its struggle for supremacy of law,” he said.
The young PPP leader lamented that the JIT report was being presented as a verdict.
He said that the country will run only according to the constitution given by PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Bilawal said that the 18th amendment is being targeted, and the country’s federation is under threat due to the negligence being shown against the smaller provinces. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/415136-bilawal-bhutto-seeks-accountability-for-stealing-millions-of-votes
An unmitigated witch-hunt of opposition members is being carried out in the name of accountability, said PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
He was addressing party workers via video link in Lahore on the grandfather’s 91st birthday. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founder of PPP, was born on January 5, 1928. “Forty-one years have passed since my grandfather’s judicial murder. It is shameful the way our country’s justice system has failed him,” he remarked.
He remarked that Bhutto upheld the law throughout his life. “The slogan roti, kapra aur makaan [bread, cloth and house] was a testament to his yearning for justice.”
Bilawal said that the lasting legacy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto shall continue as long as there is injustice in the society.
The PPP chief criticised the ruling PTI and remarked that it was “brought into power”. He remarked, “We are entering the worst era of authoritarianism. We did not fight to have a sham democracy, which is totalitarianism in disguise,” he remarked. PPP will continue to fight the threat to its liberties.
Bilawal thanked the workers for standing with Benazir Bhutto in the fight against the dictatorial regimes of Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf.
January 5, we celebrate birthday of Z A Bhutto, a leader, politician, revolutionary, who after his execution in Pakistan on April 4, 1979, still lives on in the hearts and minds of millions of Pakistanis, and the party that he founded still possesses the largest permanent voting bank in Pakistan. The possibility of the secular, democratic Pakistan that he had in mind, like Pakistan 's founder, Jinnah has earned ZAB the title of Quaid-i-Awam . Z. A. Bhutto has still more charisma than any politician in Pakistan. Mr Bhutto was inducted into office as the President of Pakistan in 1971 and was removed in 1977, both events took place around midnight; one in the wake of a war and the other in the shadow of a civil war. In between he gave the country what even his sympathizers and admirers would concede was a 'strong' government, he mobilized his country's first mass-based political party around a socialist ideology and highly independent foreign policy. Pakistan's modernizer Zulfikar Ali Bhutto left deep footprints in the sands of history.
To his lasting credit remains the 1973 Constitution of the country, the Shimla Accord of 1972 which brought the longest peace between India and Pakistan, the social reforms to build an egalitarian society, the non-aligned foreign policy, the nuclear programme and the building of the social, economic and military infrastructure of the country. He was a thinker, author and orator. He was deliberate, discreet, and competent; honest, upright and keeper of his covenants. He was a friend of the poor, downtrodden and oppressed. Fearless in his beliefs he refused to bow before any man or power other than the Almighty. His courage was such that he preferred to face death for his beliefs and embraced martyrdom. He had profound faith in freedom and the liberation of humanity. Under his government, Pakistan gave overt and covert support to the African nations than under apartheid and minority rule. He rejected fanaticism. He gave pride to the poor.
He gave voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless of the country. He helped them shape their own destiny and the destiny of their country. He was a man of honour who gave honour and raised the honour of his country and his people. He was able to do this because the people of the country from Khyber to the shores of the Arabian sea in Karachi loved him and supported him. Bhutto brought back 90,000 prisoners of war, prevented their war crime trials and also restored the territory lost on the battlefield. As leader of the Third World he spoke boldly against racism, colonialism and imperialism. He fearlessly defended the right of nations to independence. When the 1973 Ramazan war broke out, he sent Pakistan's military to defend the borders of the Muslim countries, including the Golan Heights of Syria. ZAB's short life of 50 years was spent in the service of many international, regional and national causes. The most important and the most enduring legacy of the Quaid-i-Awam was raising the consciousness of the people for democracy. He awakened the masses, making them realise they were the legitimate fountainhead of political power. He enlightened the farmer, the industrial worker, the student, the woman and the rest of the common people of their importance and of their right of franchise, which is the definite means of bringing changes for the betterment of the lives of the common people. Z. A. Bhutto's rule brought a transformation of Pakistan's rules of the game, a new populist style of governance, a new governmentality, he favoured a much more active role of the state in relation to society, he reshaped the economic and political landscape of Pakistan. He reached out to masses, aroused their feelings and disciplined their minds. The role of Bhutto family in the uplifting of the poor is unforgettable.
Z A Bhutto is the first person in Pakistan who has given voice to the common people. Z. A. Bhutto remains alive in hearts of millions of Pakistanis. It was a miracle that in less than half a decade a defeated nation had become a significant entity in the comity of nations. Pakistan had friends all around the globe from Africa to the far corner of Asia and from Europe to South America. We were regarded as a nation which had proved itself. Pakistani manpower was exported in the Middle East and the statesmanship of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had started bearing fruit. Under Z A Bhutto's rule, a new vision of Pakistan was born. Within a few years of the defeat in 1971, Pakistan began to see itself not as some beleaguered non-entity in South Asia, as the Indian establishment was prone to see it, but as a strategically located middle-sized power straddling the two worlds of South and West Asia, uniquely poised to take advantage of a host of geopolitical possibilities and enjoying widespread support among the Islamic states. He is one of the few Pakistani leaders that energized the nation and gave it a sense of optimism. Z A Bhutto, saw the future of Pakistan.
Like Jinnah he outwitted Indira Gandhi at Shimla and formed alliances with various world leaders, from Sadaat, to Boumediene to Qaddafi to Faisal. Pakistan survives today because of those alliances that enabled him to build the Nuclear bomb. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto understood the geo-political realities of the region. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has earned a place in the pantheon of leaders from the Third World who earned everlasting fame in the struggle against colonialism and imperialism. He had the privilege of interacting with many of those leaders who played a great role in the epic struggle for national independence in the 20th century, including Mao Tse Tung, Ahmed Soekarno, Chou-en Lai, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Salvador Allende. During the period between the end of the Second World War and the end of the Cold War, the world was divided into two blocs: The Capitalist West and the Socialist East. All these leaders aspired to aspects of a socialist pattern of economy. Bhutto shared their faith in a leading role for the public sector as an instrument of self-reliance. Bhutto's foundation of the PPP was a setback for the reactionary forces in a country long dominated by the Right. The slogan of "Food, Shelter and Clothing" shifted the focus of Pakistan politics from theological to economic issues. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had the courage of his conviction to decide to lay down his life rather than compromise or seek appeasement.
The last chapter of his life is a glorious example of martyrdom for the cause of resurrection of democracy. At the time of his overthrow, Bhutto was emerging as a spokesman of the World of Islam and the leader of the Third World. The age of Bhutto was an Age of Revolution, he was the architect of the China Policy, Pakistan Steel Mill, Agriculture Reforms. Although his life and career were cruelly terminated, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto will forever shine in history as one of the Great leaders who took part in the liberation of the Third World from the yoke of Imperialism and Neo Colonialism during the Twentieth Century. He could have easily entered into a deal, as others did, at the cost of principles, to save his life and move out. How cruel it strikes to bring down such a sincere leader like Bhutto with rare caliber, competence and integrity, Bhutto never colluded with generals, he confronted them. Mr. Bhutto remains a memorable figure . He commanded the allegiance of millions of people inside Pakistan, across the Muslim world and in the Third World as a hero of the people. His leadership gave pride to his followers, to his Nation and to oppressed people everywhere. He conquered the hearts of a Nation through supreme qualities of leadership, vision, intellectual breadth, charisma, dauntlessness, bravery, boldness and a programme for political redemption of an exploited people, he built the foundations of education and industrialization in the country. He liberated the small farmers and peasants from the repression and cruelty of big landlords and banished the jagirdari and sardari system declaring that all citizens are born equal and must live with equal rights. The Taliban, the terrorist groups and the new war against terror are the direct result of the overthrow of the modernizing government of Z. A. Bhutto and its replacement by a clique of military officers that cynically used the name of religion to promote their own illegal stay in power. Quaid e Awam was murdered but his memory lives on in the monuments he built. It lives on in his ideas. And it lives on in the hearts of all men and women who believe that humanity can only progress when there is tolerance, freedom, dignity and equal opportunity for all. Pakistan survived due to the leadership of a bold and courageous leader, a people's leader, who had the vision to break the shackles of poverty to emancipate his people and lead them into a new decade of glory, strength and achievement. Quaid e Awam built the most modern schools, colleges, universities, professional colleges, vocational training institutes, including Quaid-e-Azam University, Allama Iqbal Open University, Chandka Medical College and many others. He built hospitals to take care of the sick and poor. He opened the way for the middle classes to develop and prosper in the fields of medicine, engineering , law and other specialist studies. He introduced peaceful nuclear energy to help treat cancer setting up the first cancer treating institutes in the four provinces of Pakistan. He built roads in the tribal areas and the Northern areas knowing how poor and oppressed people in the distant areas of Pakistan were. Internationally, using his experience as Foreign Minister, he hosted the Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore. It was at this conference that the Palestinian Liberation Organization was recognized as the authentic voice of the Muslims. He advocated closer relations with the Muslim countries arguing for a common economic bloc with banking and other financial institutions long before regional blocs became identified as the economic way forward. Bhutto pushed politics out of the posh drawing rooms into real Pakistan - into the muddy lanes and villages of the poor. Bhutto's inspiring leadership filled Pakistanis with hope, energy and strength.
There was a sense of purpose and direction in the country in pursuit of peace and prosperity. The economic growth rate increased and money poured in from expatriates who got the universal right to passport. The Muslim countries donated roughly $500 million annually to Pakistan, freeing it of international financial institutions. The people got jobs and opportunities. Women of the country were emancipated entering the police force, Foreign, Civil Service and subordinate judiciary for the first time in the country's history. There is a story that the American President John F. Kennedy was much impressed with the then Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. When they met, Kennedy walked with him in the Rose Garden and said, "Bhutto, if you were an American, you would be in my Cabinet". To which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto smilingly replied, "No, Mr. President. If I were an American, you would be in my cabinet". Z A Bhutto, was highly skilled negotiator and an international statesman, he secured the agreement between USSR and Pakistan, he signed an agreement with China on demarcation of the Sino-Pak boundary. When he became President, Pakistan had innumerable problems, but he was not a man to be cowed down by knotty problems, he was in fact, a dynamo of inexhaustible and boundless creative energy, he was born to solve problems , he had to tackle the problems of shattered country by a methodical system of fixing priorities. Bhutto the adroit politician and statesman tackled the difficult problems of his country one by one with devotion, determination and patriotic zeal and solved them successfully. Since his assumption of power this great man of vision and destiny, equipped with resolute will, extraordinary intelligence and seething patriotic zeal fought successfully against the landlords, capitalists, industrialists, religious fanatics, corrupt bureaucrats, saboteurs, foreign intriguers and spies, he stood like a rock against all odds and achieved national unity, he worked hard for the emancipation of the exploited working class and illiterate masses. His cruel and barbaric murder by military despots caused revulsion across the globe, Z A Bhutto dedicated his life to remove the sorrows from the hearts of the poor and the oppressed, to remove the tears from the children of his poor nation. He lived consciously to make history and to leave a legacy in the form of the development of his nation, his fight was a fight against the policies of IMF, which serve to perpetuate the backwardness of the developing nations.
Bhutto is rightfully credited with saving Pakistan at this dark moment in its history, as French President Giscard d'Estaing said, "he was the man who incarnated Pakistan at a dramatic hour of its history. Tolstoy in the last volume of his War and Peace expressed that history is a movement of ideas in which political leaders play a minor role. Sometimes the movement of ideas is indeed rapid. Yet, at times, the movement of ideas is slower than the melting of the glaciers. The movement of ideas is facilitated in a vibrant political and democratic culture, which gives room for dissent and disagreement. In dictatorial societies, history remains static in a cold freeze. And so it was in Pakistan before Quaid-i-Awam. He was the one who converted that static and decayed dictatorial polity into a vibrant and dynamic democratic society; the cost of which he paid with his own life. He who gave his blood, and the blood of his sons and daughter, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, knew that there can be no sacrifice greater than the sacrifice for the people whose respect, honour and dignity is the respect and dignity of the Nation. Quaid e Awam made the people proud of themselves and of their Nation. The 20th century has seen many great leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is one of them. Due to his glorious achievements, Mr. Bhutto rules the hearts of the Pakistani people from his grave. He was not only the leader of Pakistan, he was the leader of an Islamic world, the leader of Third World. He will forever be remembered by his countrymen as Quaid-e-Awam. As his followers say, "Zinda Hai Bhutto, Zinda Hai"--Bhutto lives, he lives. Indeed he does, in the hearts of all those who dream of a better tomorrow.
The 91st birth anniversary of former prime minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is being observed today.
A wreath will be laid at Bhutto’s grave and special prayers will be held. Various programmes have been planned by PPP Larkana for the day.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari while paying tribute to his grandfather said the PPP leadership and party workers will take forward the struggle, philosophy, vision and mission of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto forward.
Bilawal added that his aim is not only to make people firmly adhere to his ideology but also apprise the people about commitment to his mission, political vision, wisdom and bravery. He added that Bhutto had a rich mind, an unprecedented democracy in his blood, unmatched political vision with which he created a unanimous constitution.
Further, Bilawal said that Bhutto not only laid the foundation of the country’s nuclear programme, but he also established mega projects like Pakistan Steel Mills, Port Qasim, universities and health facilities.
How much Benazir was driven by a sense of destiny and how much was she the product of the peculiar circumstances of her life is a question for historians to answer. But if any conclusion can be drawn from the story of her life it is that she managed to hang on to her destiny even when she was initially thrust by the not-so-mundane realities of her life into it and even though the practical problems of everyday life kept dodging – and sometimes tripping – her in her larger-than-life endeavours. Bhutto first called herself the “daughter of Pakistan”, then the “daughter of the East” and lately the “daughter of destiny” — giving an unmistakable hint how the very concept of being larger than life kept changing for her.
While the aim was to champion the cause of democracy in Pakistan in the initial stages of her political career, it expanded to serve as a symbol of success for all women in the East. In the latest transformation of her personal symbolism, she stood as the human incarnation of destiny which, however, was left vague and undefined.It was traumatically tragic that this “daughter of destiny” was mowed down so ruthlessly much before she could succeed or fail in justifying her recent appellation or, more basically, define what her destiny was.
Still, she has left a long trail of evidence to suggest that destiny for her might have meant beating back extremism and militancy by knocking down the military dictatorship and restoring democracy in Pakistan. Whether she would have succeeded or failed is open to debate as have been much of her earlier achievements and failures, more on which later. Going back to the symbolism she used to describe herself, the “daughter of Pakistan” quite closely followed in the footsteps of the daughter of India — Indira Gandhi.
Though some circumstances of their lives and most of their respective political situations were remarkably different, both women stepped into the political arena as substitutes to their illustrious fathers who, as the legend has it, had started training them from a very tender age for the superhuman roles they would eventually take up. Where the daughter of India did well, the “daughter of Pakistan” was bound to succeed also. They were their fathers’ daughters as well as the daughters of their homelands which partly explains why Gandhi and Bhutto headed in different directions in extending their symbolism onto a wider canvas. The progeny of Jawaharlal Nehru, the founder and architect of modern, independent India, was right-fully proud that she ruled the largest democracy in the world, while the off-spring of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who once was the most prominent standard-bearer of Muslim unity, was sure to draw satisfaction from being the first woman to head a country in the Muslim world.India is big enough to accommodate any ambition, no matter how grand.
So Gandhi at the height of her success became synonymous with her country: Indira was India and India was Indira, was her party’s political mantra during the 1970s. Bhutto,after successfully rising to lead the party – which at that time enjoyed the support of most of her countrymen – found that her use of the sobriquet, the “daughter of her homeland”, was a bit constricting. Like her father who wanted to become the leader of not just one Muslim country but the whole lot of them, she would expand the scope of her success and become the “daughter of the East”.
To her credit, the success of this “daughter of the East”, who rose to the top job in her impoverished homeland, indirectly inspired many other daughters of the region to climb up from more or less similar circumstances.That this first happened in what was once apart of Pakistan – Bangladesh, through the electoral successes of Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia – soon after it happened in Pakistan only underscores the ironic discrepancy between the regional grandiosity of the symbol and its much smaller reality.
Photo | White Star Archives
That Bhutto should call herself the “daughter of destiny” might also have to do with the ongoing conflict between religious extremism and tolerant liberalism for the souls of humanity. By winning over the hearts and minds of the people in the second-largest Muslim country in the world to her side – that is, the side of toleration and liberalism – she would play a decisive role in which way the conflict would end. That her assassination is being blamed on those representing the ‘other’ in this battle of ideas is a backhanded admission that she stood for what she claimed she stood for.
In order to discover the origin of this symbolism, understanding Bhutto's life with its numerous struggles – both at personal and political levels – with varying degrees of success and failure is extremely helpful. That she failed more spectacularly than many had expected or could reconcile with, is a function of how she came to be regarded as what her son Bilawal called her in his first press conference in London — the best hope for democracy in Pakistan. She was the best hope because she had the most suitable family background,the most appropriate education and the most needed political training. In a country of mostly poor, illiterate and politically disempowered people, her bloodline, her Western training and her upbringing under one of the country's best political brains ensured that she was looked up to by all and sundry.
That she became the focus of popular attention as well as the centre of people’s hopes for a better future was only the next logical stage in her life and career. In the eyes of her supporters she could do nothing but succeed. Bhutto, though, proved them wrong — not just by failing but also by accepting failure as an option in the political choices that she voluntarily made or was forced to make under unrelenting circumstances.This is the only way to explain why she agreed to make so many com-promises with virtually everyone around before coming to power for the first time after winning the 1988 general elections. She agreed with the army that she would have no truck with the activities of the intelligence agencies as well as Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
She assured then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan that she intended to change nothing in the Constitution that upset the constitutional apple cart so meticulously loaded against parliamentary democracy by his predecessor and long-time tormentor of both Bhutto and her party, General Ziaul Haq. And in an attempt to reassure the concerned foreigners, she agreed to keep Sahibzada Yaqoob Ali Khan as the foreign minister of Pakistan even though he was chosen for that role by none other than Zia himself. Even before arriving in Pakistan to an unprecedented and tumultuous welcome in 1986, she was a regular visitor to Washington DC, trying – through a network of personal and family friends and professional lobbyists – to do the Americans’ bidding, in Afghanistan in particular, as efficiently and effectively as Zia was doing before her. After giving away so much to begin with, she was still thought to have gatecrashed the corridors of power, and was accepted only begrudgingly. With this background, she must have been under some great delusion if she still believed that she would succeed.
Even in ensuring her downfall, which came much earlier than she would have expected, she managed to sneak a peek into the internal working of the so-called corridors of power. By allowing herself to fail,she learnt some precious tricks that facilitated a comeback soon afterwards — in a matter of three years to be exact. She also learnt that palace intrigues mattered as much, or more than marching in the streets, and why the wily ways of power politics were a necessary addendum to the gains made from mobilising the masses and victories won at the ballot box. She used all this knowledge to good effect by allowing her enemies to destroy each other during her first stint in the parliamentary opposition. This experience of being the government-in-waiting,therefore, differed sharply from her much longer stint in the popular opposition to the military regime.
This earlier experience, however, was the only political experience that she had before she came to power. If the situation had allowed her to exercise her own choice, she would have joined the foreign service, something that her father had trained her for, particularly when he took her along with him to Shimla for the historic peace agreement that he struck with Gandhi. Short of being a diplomat under the supervision of her father, Bhutto could have gone back to Europe as her father had advised her from his prison cell. Only 10 days after she returned to a Pakistan where her father was an all-powerful prime minister, she was to learn the politics the hard way. She came back to the country after completing her education at Oxford University, aged 24, and knew nothing for the next 11 years except the travails of being in opposition to a military dictator who would not relent until he had ensured that her family and party no longer disturbed his peace of mind.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Murtaza Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shahnawaz Bhutto | White Star Archives
By disagreeing with her father, the young girl that Bhutto was at that time chose the rigours that come automatically with being on the wrong side of power over a settled, comfort-able and politically indifferent life abroad. For someone born and brought up in luxury and privilege, this was a momentous decision that set the course of her life in the days, months, years and decades to come. Little did she know that her participation in the anti-Vietnam war protests during her stay at Harvard University and her election as the president of the students union at Oxford were to come in quite handy in the future. The “bubbly babe” of her Harvard years and the fun-loving,ice cream guzzling, sports car driver at Oxford took little time in adapting to her new and much humbler environs. Bhutto, who would spend her winter holidays in Switzerland and who would drive all the way from Oxford to her favourite ice cream parlour in London, spent the next six years of her life under arrest, sometimes in solitary confinement, without any contact with the outside world.s
The contact with the world, however, was not the only thing that she lost during this period of extreme tribulation. In 1979, her father was hanged and six years later she lost her younger brother Shahnawaz. In between she tried to reorganise her father’s party, launch a movement for the restoration of democracy and keep in touch with the well-wishers of her family, foreign supporters of democracy’s revival in Pakistan and the supporters of her own party living in exile. She also fought ceaselessly with her political “uncles”,who by virtue of their age and their proximity to her father, refused to take her seriously. To many of them, she was still “Pinky” as she was lovingly called by her parents during her childhood and youth. But she soon proved her political mettle by winning the factional war within her Pakistan Peoples Party with help from a younger generation of party members. By 1986, however, she was becoming increasingly certain that the time for her public launch as heir to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s political legacy was ripe.
She was not surprised when she was received in Lahore by more than a million-strong mob, which after years of political hibernation under Zia vividly exhibited that Bhutto would be nipping her political career in the bud if she failed to ride the anti-Zia storm. That the then prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo allowed her to move around freely was obviously one of the many reasons why Zia eventually sacked him in early 1988. In retrospect, it can be argued that Junejo initially had thought that he would be able to contain her inexorable rise to the political summit in the country. Like the recent holders of political power under the patronage of a soldier, he would have believed that he had the power of the state behind him, that he had the control of the local governments and that he came from the same province as her. So, he would have thought that her success was not inevitable. But Zia’s presence and the absolute control that he had on power meant that Bhutto could not win without a bloody conflict with his regime — the outcome of which could be anybody’s guess. This was avoided when the unthinkable happened and Zia died in a plane crash in August 1988.
Thus he was saved from the ignominy of swearing in a Bhutto as the prime minister of the country or risking alienation and worldwide condemnation that could have accrued to him if he persisted in keeping her out. But shortly before then the “queen of people’s hearts” – the title that Bhutto had by then won through her sheer political tenacity and verve – gave her followers a major shock when she agreed to marry Asif Ali Zardari. It was an arranged marriage, made possible through the good offices of her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, who wanted her daughter to settle down in life. Bhutto was initially reluctant to enter into the marriage, believing that linking any man’s name to hers would be politically counterproductive for her. She had in fact made up her mind about a unmarried life before she realised that she might have to be dependent upon her brothers and their wives for carrying out even the smallest social activities, let alone power politics.
She also did not have time for a courtship and, moreover, any love affair, no matter how rewarding personally, could have been politically damaging for her. Hence she agreed to an arranged union which her Western friends as well as the local champions of women’s rights could not stomach easily. Bhutto was unable to console any of those whose hearts she broke by marrying Zardari. In extreme cases,some of her staunch supporters saw her 1987 marriage as a ‘plot’ by the Zia regime. Zardari is the son of Hakim Ali Zardari who was then a member of the Awami National Party headed by one of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s many political opponents,Khan Abdul Wali Khan. It mattered little for her die hard fans that Zardari Senior’s party at that time was still an official part of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy which Bhutto was spearheading. To be fair to them, her marriage to anyone would be a step down for their political goddess to the level of an ordinary woman. No man could be a “suitable boy” for her, much less Zardari, who was seen as coming from a lower social and family back-ground than the Bhuttos, who, by dint of their large landholding and their prominent political presence for many generations, were seen as the elite of the elite.
In a different sense, her union with Zardari was initially a marriage of convenience which allowed her to portray herself as a ‘normal’ woman who did not shy away from the feminine norms of marriage and bearing children. It also took away some of the sting from the religious opposition she was facing for being a woman aspiring to rule over men. Though she successfully put this opposition down, she continued to be haunted by it during her years in power and opposition. Conscious of her gender, she made it a point to appear stronger than all the men around and, again like Gandhi,sometimes behaved as the only‘man’ in her large cabinet. Years later she told an interviewer that this was one thing she would change if and when she was in power again. She said she would be herself – a woman, a wife, a mother – to ensure that she exuded care and compassion - qualities much needed for running governments in tortured and troubled societies such as Pakistan. As she was trying to be more‘manly’ than most men around her, Bilawal, the second man in her life after Zardari, started gaining prominence in her political life even before he was born.
Benazir waves to the crowd at her wedding celebrations held in Karachi's Lyari are in 1987 | dawn.com
It’s not without reason that aged 19 and heading the party of his mother and grandfather, he fears more for his privacy than for his life. Though he said much about fearing prying journalists, at a subconscious level he was referring to the lack of privacy he suffered when even in his mother’s womb. An object of intense debate and politicking both among Zia’s camp followers and Bhutto’s own supporters, Bilawal’s birth was one occasion upon which once hinged the political fortunes of an entire nation. Zia wanted to schedule the 1988 elections in such a way that a pregnant Bhutto would be unable to campaign vigorously. Many of her supporters saw her pregnancy as yet another proof that her marriage was an official conspiracy to keep her away from active politics.
Much later, Bhutto confessed in her interviews that Zardari, too, was not favourably inclined – at least initially – towards her politics and did not believe that she was going to become the prime minister sooner rather than later. But once he was convinced, Bhutto said, he was quite comfortable in playing second fiddle to his eminent life partner. This, she said, was the start of their post-marriage love affair which all evidence suggests continued till they parted forever. He was the first man in her life after her father and brothers and she leaned heavily on him in times of emotional trial for succour.
Their detractors would say that she leaned rather too heavily on someone who, by all accounts, played a big role in both her ignoble exits from power. When she said Zardari suffered immensely because of her political career, she often glossed over the fact that he was the cause of most of her political failings between 1988 and 1996. He went to jail and remained there for 11 of their 20 years of marriage but he also earned her government the unenviable title of being one of the most corrupt administrations in the world at that time. If inexperience in administration and the incorrect notion of benefiting the party’s members and workers through jobs that they did not deserve or contracts and licences that they did not qualify for were the basic cause of her undoing, Zardari’s reputation as Mr 10 per cent was further proof that she was unable to govern, let alone effectively and efficiently. She would often act haughtily and arrogantly as a means of warding off this much disliked criticism.
When President Farooq Leghari, once her confidant, threw her government out in 1996, her husband also faced the unlikely charge of killing Mir Murtaza Bhutto, her only brother then living. The “queen of hearts” degenerated into the “princess” of a 1997 British Broadcasting Corporation documentary which dubbed Zardari the “play-boy” who had siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars earned as commissions and kickbacks while Bhutto ruled in Islamabad. The “princess”was shown to have a weakness for costly jewellery and the “playboy” was alleged to have houses in all the important cities in the world, including a multi-million pound palace in the exclusive London suburb of Surrey.In the 1997 elections, hence, it was a payback time. Her supporters voted with their feet by not turning up at the polling stations, cutting her down to a political size she could not reconcile with easily. Heartbroken and almost on the verge of becoming irrelevant to politics in her country, Bhutto acquired a siege mentality, looking for demons where none existed.
Like all those suffering from an acute sense of victimhood, she failed to take even the slightest constructive criticism in her stride. With her political fortunes at their lowest and her husband in jail for the long haul,she decided to be with her children and went into self-imposed exile in 1998 when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister. In retrospect, the decision may some day pay rich political dividends as it was the only time a growing Bilawal spent in the company of his mother, who had been through all that Pakistani politics is made up of.
During the mid-1990s Bhutto felt increasingly alone in the political battlefield as she was almost always at the receiving end of an official accountability drive, even after her removal from power, as well as the focus of unending media reporting into the fabulous wealth that she had allegedly stashed away in foreign accounts and properties abroad.
Benazir Bhutto takes the oath of office for prime minister on October 19, 1993 in Islamabad | AFP
On a personal level, too, she was nothing but an embattled and challenged occupant of the Bhutto throne. After her brother came back to Pakistan in 1993 and ran for about two dozen seats in Sindh against her party’s nominees in the general elections, one critical factor that he was banking on was support from their mother Nusrat Bhutto. The mother canvassed for her “favourite” offspring, openly suspecting her daughter’s credentials to head her deceased husband’s party. By 1996, these family fissures became all the more visible when Mir Murtaza’s widow and his children accused their aunt and her husband of killing him. The only solace that Benazir Bhutto could secure came in the shape of the successful ouster of her mother from the party’s leadership and the electoral success of her nominees against her own brothers. The bitter memories of those bad old days still vitiate the relations between the two parts of the Bhutto family and reverberated even after her death and the subsequent bequeathing of party leadership to her husband and then to her son. Nervous sympathisers feared this could again lead to a feud in the family over who genuinely deserved to carry on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s political mantle.
Till the time she left this world, however, her claim was established beyond any doubt. People looked up and were beholden to her because she remained in the fray and fought politically, unlike her brothers who chose to stay away and use violence as the means to avenge their father’s removal from power, imprisonment and eventual execution.By opting to lie low while the chips were down, Bhutto remained out of Pakistan even when the country was going through yet another momentous period of its turbulent history. Her arch rival, Sharif, already stung by the uneasy cohabitation that the country’s political system had become,decided to do away with some of the obstacles she had tripped over. By removing the presidential powers to sack the cabinets and parliaments, by confronting head-on a judiciary trying to assert its independence and by forcing the resignation of an army chief venting dissidence, he was setting the stage for another massive political showdown in the country — with one novel aspect.
After almost three decades of being continuously at the centre of everything political in Pakistan, no Bhutto was an active participant in that political drama.The fact that the fight between Sharif and all others in the establishment ended in a hiatus for the career of Bhutto’s worst political enemy helped her claw back to centre stage. Some other contributing factors and attenuating circumstances – some of which were seminally important to her ideology, political style and image – also promoted her cause. That Sharif’s political legacy had to be passed on to his wife Kulsoom Nawaz vindicated her long-held belief that women could be as politically effective – or ineffective – as men.
Coming from a family and political party that once had secured religious decrees against Bhutto’s presence in the public sphere, this was a clear sign that Bhutto – her personal failure not withstanding – had helped change social and political attitudes towards women like no other feminist activist or organisation could do.
Soon after General (retd) Pervez Musharraf came to power, he started securing peace with the foreign investors that Bhutto had brought in, especially in the energy sector, lending credence to the former prime minister's stance that corruption cases against her and her husband were politically motivated. But the biggest thing in her favour was the surfacing of a taped conversation between Malik Qayyum, then a high court judge, and the then prime minister Sharif. It clearly showed that the only conviction that her opponents had managed to secure against her was made on the continuous prompting of the government. By trying to keep both Sharif and Bhutto out, Musharraf unwittingly helped her come in — for a record third time.
That her party won the highest number of popular votes in the 2002 election – in which she was a target of official machinations to manipulate the electoral verdict – helped her stake her claim, yet again, as the most popular politician in the country. She, wisely, stayed away from striking a Faustian bargain with the Musharraf regime even though it would have brought her to power much earlier than her detractors and critics had expected and despite the fact that her decision split her party almost down the middle.
She certainly lost a number of legislators to the government but retained her regained support. Then, even more to her advantage,Musharraf started to fail in his pet projects. His accountability drive started to bog down under political expedience and under the heavy bur-den of its failure to have Bhutto and Zardari convicted for corruption despite relentless media campaigns and much to-ing and fro-ing to Switzerland and Great Britain. While debilitating setbacks to the government’s security apparatus started increasing in the so-called war on terrorism, Pakistan’s image as an honourable member of the comity of nations suffered severe jolts. Rising religious extremism across the country showed that prominent political players under Musharraf could at best be silent bystanders and at worst accomplices of terrorists and religious fanatics.
Bhutto and her party offered the only ideological alternative to this rising tide of intolerance and obscurantism. The stage was set yet again for the “queen of people’s hearts” to regain her lost throne. Her resilience, her courage, her willingness to take threats against her person and her country head-on, as well as her relentless lobbying in the Western capitals during her long years in exile, all combined to propel a sea of people from across Pakistan to receive her in Karachi on October 18, 2007. By some estimates this welcoming crowd was even bigger than the one that had gathered in Lahore slightly more than two decades ago to receive her as the daughter of Pakistan. Her journey to become the “daughter of destiny” had certainly started on a high note and it came to an abrupt end on an even higher note: no worldly achievement, or failure,could have immortalised her as her death has done.
Napoleon Bonaparte rightly believed that “it is the cause, and not the death, that makes the martyr.” In this historic perspective those leaders become immortal who live and die for causes dear to them. There could not be a better example of a father and daughter who died for the causes they had struggled for all their lives.
Very few leaders enjoy that permanent epitome in glory in history that judicially murdered Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Born Jan 5, 1928) does to this day. Bhutto Sahib from the days of his school-had chosen the hazardous path that was to take him to eternal glory for waging a dauntless struggle to unshackle the masses, give them a voice and free them from all sorts of bondages. He walked to the gallows head high to arm Pakistan with a nuclear bomb so that his people and his army would not have to lower their heads ever. As a school student he had pledged to Pakistan’s founder-that if need be, he would die for Pakistan.
Bhutto Sahib’s original letter and Quaid-i-Azam’s reply to him is preserved as part of Shamsul Hasan Papers in the National Archives in Islamabad.
Indeed true to his word, he sacrificed his life for Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah (MAJ) advised him (May 1, 1945): “I was very glad to read your letter of 26th April and to note that you have been following the various political events. I would advise you, if you are interested in politics, to make a thorough study of it. But, don’t neglect your education, and when you have completed your student’s career, I have no doubt that you will be all better qualified if you study thoroughly the political problems of India, when you enter the struggle of life.”
To know the real story read ZAB’s “Myth of Independence” along with Ayub’s “Friends, Not Masters”. It bares how intrusive American interference had become in the day to day affairs of running Pakistan
It is nothing but ironic that he did not die in a foreign prison, neither his killers were aliens. He was judicially murdered by the dictator who was also an ungrateful beneficiary. What made the crime more horrendous was the fact that in cahoots with him were four persons belonging to legal fraternity. Ever since then, Pakistani judiciary has this judgment hanging around its neck as an albatross.
He took MAJ’s advice to his heart, immersed in his studies to prepare himself for the future leadership role. Perhaps no one in history has sustained his fame and a coveted place among the top leaders despite year after year of slander on him by successive generations of unscrupulous power manipulators. Generals Ayub and Yahya Khan lost the wars with India, to cover it up they blamed Bhutto. Despite that he remains dear to the masses. It seems to be a rare phenomenon-the most dominant political personality in post-1947 Pakistan until death came to him “not with the due panoply of justice but like a thief in the night, a deed done shamefully, apprehensively and with desperation”-by a dictator.
Bhutto found his way forward when the power troika comprising of generals, judges and civil bureaucracy had shown the door to the vintage politicians. They had become ineffective and their very survival had become impossible in the new ball game, with rules made to order by the powerful Establishment rather than the people of Pakistan. Always a moot point that he owed his political career to a military dictator–Bhutto had learnt much earlier in the day to practice politics as the art of the impossible. His entry was a means to an end and not an end in itself. And in due course of time he outplayed them all.
Bhutto’s outstanding reservoir of multifaceted talents and charismatic personality made him master of every portfolio that he was entrusted with. He outshone all previous foreign ministers to date by providing unique dynamism by unshackling Pakistan’s subservient foreign policy to American diktats and making it proactive. Indeed, if ever Pakistan had an independent foreign policy it was during Bhutto’s time. President Ayub Khan had devalued Pakistan with the United States. To know the real story read ZAB’s “Myth of Independence” along with Ayub’s Friends, Not Masters. It bares how intrusive American interference had become in the day to day affairs of running Pakistan.
A question keeps coming back to me by researchers-asking me for my journalistic opinion about Pakistan’s foreign policy, my conscientious comment-instead of beating about the bush saying nothing–typical of diplomats-I just tell them: “Pakistan’s foreign policy is made in Washington and executed by security apparatus”. If one looks at it from the days of General Ziaul Haq to this day, it is nothing but kowtowing to the Americans, more related to defence procurement and financial assistance for military needs-whether it is CSF or those suitcases full of dollars that CIA delivered to the last two generals in the Presidency.
Except for Bhutto’s initiative to charter an independent foreign policy, laying the foundation of ever lasting friendship with China, building bridges with the Third World, uniting the Muslim countries-Pakistan was leased out by Ayub Khan, General Zia followed by General Pervez Musharraf to the Americans. I hope and pray we don’t revert back to the era of dictators to cast a shadow of uncertainty on our future by becoming kingpins in the American designs for “enhancing uncertainties abroad”.
Bhutto’s unnatural demise unleashed nearly four decades of unease, disruption, dislocation, ethnicity, divisiveness, sectarianism, ongoing trauma, terrorism and unending war between the Praetorian establishment and the people-the former defending its right to a security state and later seeking the supremacy of the vote as the sole arbiter of power-a phenomenon symbolic of martyred Bhuttos.
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چیئرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے
ملک کے سابق وزیراعظم و پی پی پی کے بانی چیئرمین شہید ذوالفقار علی بھٹو کو ان کی 91 ویں سالگراہ کے موقعے پر شاندار الفاظ میں خراج عقیدت پیش کیا ہے۔ اپنے پیغام میں پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کی قیادت و جیالے شہید ذوالفقار علی بھٹو اور شہید محترمہ بینظیر بھٹو کے فلسفے، ویژن اور مشن کو پایئہ تکمیل تک پہنچانے کے لیئے سرگرمِ عمل رہیں گے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ نہ فقط شہید بھٹو کے نظریئے پر سختی سے کاربند رہنا ان کا نصب العین ہے بلکہ اس کے ساتھ ساتھ عوام کو ان کے مشن سے کمٹمنٹ، سیاسی ویژن، تدبر اور بھادری کے متعلق بھی آگہی دینا ہے۔ پی پی پی چیئرمین نے کہا کہ شہید ذوالفقار علی بھٹو غیرمعمولی طور ذرخیز ذھن کے مالک تھے، جمہوریت بے مثال طور ان کے خون میں ایسے رچی بسی تھی اور بینظیر سیاسی ویژن کے بل بوتے وہ ایک متفقہ دستور تخلیق کرنے میں بھی سرخرو ہوئے۔ وہ ہتھیار ڈالنے والے 90 ہزار جنگی قیدیوں کو بھارت سے واپس لانے، پاکستان کی ہزاروں میلوں پر مبنی زمین بھارتی قبضے سے واگذار کرانے اور تاریخی شملہ معاہدہ کرنے میں بھی کامیاب ہوئے۔ انہوں نے نشاندہی کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ پاکستان کے دفاع کو ناقابل تسخیر بنانے والے جوہری پروگرام کی بنیاد رکھنے سے لے کر اسٹیل ملز اور پورٹ قاسم جیسے سینکڑوں میگا پروجیکٹس کے ذریعے ملک میں معاشی انقلاب برپا کیا اور یونیورسٹیاں و اسپتالیں قائم کیں۔ بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ شہید بھٹو کے عدالتی قتل نے عوام کو ان کی خدمات اور صدیوں میں پیدا ہونے والے عظیم مدبر سے محروم کردیا، لیکن ان کی سیاسی میراث ناقابل تسخیر ہے، جو پاکستان میں جمہوریت کے اقدار اور معیار کی آبیاری کرتی رہے گی۔
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has paid rich tribute to former Prime Minister of Pakistan and PPP founder Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on his 91st Birth Anniversary, which is being observed on Saturday January 05, throughout the country.
In his message, the PPP Chairman said that the PPP leadership and Jiyalas will continue our struggle to take the philosophy, vision and mission of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto forward.
He lauded Shaheed Bhutto and said that it is his aim to not only to firmly adhere to his ideology but to also apprise the masses about the commitment to the mission, his political vision, wisdom and bravery.
The PPP Chairman said that Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had a rich mind, an unprecedented democracy in his blood, unmatched political vision with which he successfully created a unanimous Constitution. He successfully managed to retrieve the already surrendered to India 90,000 PoWs, and thousands of miles of occupied Pakistani territory from India and a landmark Simla accord.He pointed out that from laying foundation of country’s nuclear programme, which made defence of Pakistan invincible besides launching economic revolution through establishing scores of mega projects like Pakistan Steel, Port Qasim etc universities and health facilities.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that his judicial murder had deprived the masses of services and intuition of century’s great statesman in the history of Pakistan but his legacy can never be conquered and would keep nurturing the values and norms of democracy in Pakistan.
Former President of Pakistan and President Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Asif Ali Zardari paying glowing tributes to Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on his birth anniversary has expressed his resolve to remain steadfast on the principles of “respect for humans and liberty” and to follow the slogan of “all powers to the people”.
Asif Ali Zardari said that Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rebuilt the country which had been turned into ashes before he came to power. He gave the nation strength and gave voice to the downtrodden masses.
Former President said that Quaid-e-Awam loved his country especially the lower stratum of the society and accepted gallows but never left his people, he said. PPP will continue to work according to its founder’s ideology and will continue to resist the anti-democratic elements in the country, he said. The PPP will fulfill every dream of its founder, he concluded.
