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.
On the 40th anniversary of his assassination, Martin Luther King is appropriately being remembered this week for his civil rights struggle that has allowed Barrack Obama, an African American, to be the leading Presidential candidate for a major party nomination in the United States. This is also the week that Pakistani leader Zulfikar Bhutto was assassinated using the court system by Gen Zia-ul-Haq twenty nine years ago. Bhutto is being remembered as a leader who has captured the imagination of the poor and the disenfranchised masses in Pakistan seeking basic economic improvement in their lives, just as Martin Luther King did among the minorities and the poor in the United States. The Bhutto legacy lives on as Pakistanis have voted PPP into office once again. As Pakistani urban middle class asserts itself in Pakistan as seen with the success of PML(N) and MQM with their urban power bases, the PPP needs to find a way to broaden its base from rural Sind and Southern Punjab to the urban middle class to maintain its leading position in Pakistani politics. It’s going to be a daunting task, given the mostly feudal zamindar leadership of the PPP.
JQ says:
April 5th, 2008 8:56 am
“The fate of his faith, like all of ours, is between him and Allah alone.”
Then why those Pakies, and Pakies alone, who claim to be Muslims and had even voted Pakistan into existence, are made to submit declarations about their faith to the faithless and corrupt beaurocracy?
And why the discussions held in the National Assembly on the issue of the faith of Pakies in 1973 prior to the passage of the Second Amendment to the Constitution have not been made public to this day?
“Ham jo taareek raahon mein maare gaye”
Can any body please enlighten me in this respect?
I will add, if anyone today can do that and raise a new party and get support for it, then that will be Aitizaz Ahsan.
You are right. You can love him or hate him but you cannot ignore him. He was larger than life and he still impacts Pakistan politics. It is amazing how he set up a new party and made it what he did. No one else was able to do that.
Though too young to know what politics was I, like many of the Urdu-speaking Karachiites, was told that Bhutto was REALLY bad and we were even told to offer ‘Azan’ on roofs by the likes of Pir Pagara to seek mercy if Bhutto was released by Zia. Ahh, those ‘No Sitaray’ clowns! Memory is not clear but I remember a sense of satisfaction hearing of ZAB’s execution. I DO remember that 1-2 days before his execution I heard the rumours of the date being 4th April. I also remember often taunting an old Punjabi ‘Thelay Wala’ (mobile fruit seller) that his beloved Bhutto would be hanged; to this he would chase after we little boys, cursing us.
How sad! The guilt is impossible to wash away. After Jinnah we had one great leader which was ZAB and we let him die. As if that was not enough we have just seen the murder of BB–the next great leader.
I fully agree what Eidee Man says about Bhutto. I also think that mostly by robbing Pakistan of its greatest leaders can a ‘leader’ like Nawaz Sharif emerge. Today the PPP is facing dwindling support in Punjab (and hence a secondary role in Pakistani politics) and the main reason is that the PPP has yet to have its own CM in Punjab since 1977 while NS and other flavors of Muslim League have held power in all but 3 years since 1977. If ZAB was alive, I am sure that would not be the case.
Rest in Peace ZAB.