Adil Najam
Today, April 4, marks the death anniversary of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
There is probably no other political figure since Mohammad Ali Jinnah who has left as deep and lasting a shaddow on Pakistan politics as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB). You can love him or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.
Those who love him, love him with a passion that few – if any – other Pakistani leaders evoke. Those who hate him – and many seem to do – do so with equal ferocity. No one I know is indifferent to him.
I use the words “love” and “hate” because the intensity of people’s views on him cannot really be captured by dispassionate terms such as “like” and “dislike” alone. Whatever else we might think of him, no one can deny his intensity, or the intensity with which Pakistanis of all generations – including those who have never even seen him – talk about him.
So today, on his death anniversary, let me not talk about my views on him. Let him talk to us himself. In his own words and in his own unique and passionate style.
As someone mentioned before, Bhutto was a master politician; the way he exploited the vacuum left by the PML and created the PPP is something to think about. His famous deal with India to bring the troops home was perhaps his finest moment in foreign policy; and their way of paying him back by executing him was perhaps the darkest moment in our countrys history.
I think the main problem with Bhutto was his arrogance…and that may have been because other people were too fearful of him, and his own circle did not challenge and critique his decisions when they should have.
I highly recommend the book by Stanley Wolpert, “Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan.” It’s really well written and unbiased (i.e. Wolpert is not Sindhi)….one of the things that struck me when I read it a few years ago was that ZAB was actually a very self-conscious man, and had somewhat of an inferiority complex, which is ironic because he’s probably the most aggressive, as far as mannerisms, etc are concerned, prime minister or president we’ve ever had. According to Wolpert, Jinnah was the only one ZAB genuinely respected.
ZAB certainly wasn’t an angel, and he certainly did a lot of things wrong, but the way he (non-violently) fought until the bitter end makes him a hero in my book.
Can any one in the whole world icluding Amir of jamaat/e/Islami qualify or claim as true Muslim as enunciated in the Holy quoran?
Humans can only TRY? this applies to every religion.
The videos ARE working for me.
And these are amazing videos, all four of them. That Security COuncil speech and some of the other ones are amazing to see now.
Can we call Z.A. Bhutto and honest person????
When Z. A. Bhutto was on trial he was accused of being a “Muslim in name only”. This accusation was levelled by the Lahore High Court Judgment against him of March 1978. Bhutto was very bitter about this, as he has himself stated in his book “If I am assasssinated” on page 41: To vindicate the judgement of the Lahore High Court that I am
Bhutto was a political animal in true literal sense. He got 90,000 Paky army men freed from imprisonment in India but also established FSF, a civil armed force, to counterpoise the army’s onslaught on the nation. He gave the left-over nation a Constitution in 1973 which contained Art.6 to check its subversion or abrogation but amended it soon to make it a ‘Takfiri Fatwa’ to render the faith of every Paky Muslim questionable. He did great blunders indeed which caused the nation some irreparable losses but atoned them all with his ‘Shahadat’ which made him live for ever in the hearts of the people. May God bless him ‘Ajab azzad mard tha’!