Bhutto had prophesied that he, alive or dead, would rule this country for decades
- Bhutto was physically eliminated but Bhuttoism – his adulatory bond with the multitude – survived, and defeated Ziaism.
- Since his execution, the Pakistani politics remained divided into two opposing camps – pro-Bhutto and anti-Bhutto
By Ambassador M. Alam Brohi
It was the ominous evening of 3 April 1979, two ladies incarcerated in the Sihala Rest House saw a police escort approach the premises. They were asked to get ready to go to the Rawalpindi Jail to have the last meeting with the man on death row. The man in the death cell had been informed of their impending arrival. This meeting was different, signifying the end of the hope. He was dressed ordinarily and looked a pale shadow of his earlier confident and vibrant being – emaciated, weak and grim. He feebly questioned the Jail Superintendent ‘was this the last meeting’. The Jail official nodded in affirmative. That had turned the gloomy evening into a distress.
The security was unusually tight. Army officials were lurking in the background around the barrack housing the distressed man. The women were shaky and grief stricken. The man approached the iron bars to touch the hands of his wife and his Pinkie. They looked at each other in silence that was more expressive than wailing. Finally, he spoke haltingly. His words reflected the bitter truth of life – rise and eclipse, success and defeat, courage and resilience, hope and disappointment, truth and falsehood, legacy and heritage, all clustering in his tired mind. He was addressing Pinkie. She, clinging to his hand, was listening raptly with tears flowing down her cheeks. The time slipped so swiftly.
No other leader in Pakistan could have matched his caliber, energy and hard work. Moving like a hurricane, he was constantly audible and incessantly visible all over the country virtually collecting its broken pieces to rebuild it.
The man in the dingy death barrack was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister who was overthrown by his handpicked General, arrested and prosecuted for murder of a political opponent and handed down the capital punishment. The life of this brilliant man was coming to an inglorious end in the early hours of 4 April 1979 at the young age of 51 years. The prediction of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that the male members of the Bhutto family had short spans of life was proving true.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, born to Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto and his wife, Khurshid Begum on 5 January 1928, was an extraordinary child. He was brought up in an over-pampering atmosphere. He went to best schools both in Karachi and Bombay where the senior Bhutto served as Minister in the Bombay Presidency Council and later member of the prestigious Public Service Commission. He was not a keen student and passed most of his time in games but always came out with flying colours. In his teenage, he had the privilege of calling on Mr. Jinnah. Later, he addressed him a letter declaring him the Messiah of the Musalmans.
Zulfikar was sent to the Barclay College for graduation and later to Oxford for further studies. Even before completing his graduation in the Barclay, he had fallen to the captivating looks of Nusrat Isfahani, a slender and intelligent girl of Persian stock. He married her despite reservations of senior Bhutto. After Barclay, he enrolled in Oxford and later in the Lincoln’s Inn. After his resounding thesis on an array of law subjects, he was called to the Bar with his name recorded in the row of highly successful barristers like William Pitt, Lord Canning, John Morley, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Barrister Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1953. He started his law practice from the chambers of Dingo Mal, a known lawyer of the time.
He won the admiration of the Soviet leaders as the young but intelligent Minister during his maiden visit to the Kremlin in December 1961.
Bhuttos were friends of Major General Iskander Mirza and frequently hosted him in Larkana for hunting. His visits to Larkana continued even after he took over as President of the country. Now, the charge of the hospitality had devolved on the younger Bhutto who never lost an opportunity to charm the President and his entourage by his education, knowledge and understanding of history and world politics, intelligence and eloquence. President Iskander was impressed by the talented young Bhutto. He decided to send him as member of Pakistan’s delegation to the UN in September 1956 under the leadership of Feroz Khan Noon. Later, Zulfikar led Pakistan’s delegation to the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea in Geneva in October 1956. His performance at both places evoked approbation from the experienced diplomats and law experts.
That was it and Zulfi never looked back. He used his rhetoric, debating skill, education, knowledge, intelligence, hard work and flattery to advance in his career as a diplomat and political leader. It was from Geneva that he wrote his oft-quoted letter to President Iskander Mirza expressing his admiration for – and his devoted loyalty – to him in highly flattering words. He added, inter alia, “For the greater good of my own country, I feel that your services to Pakistan are indispensable. When the history of our country is written by objective historians, your name will be placed even before that of Mr. Jinnah”. Later, General Ayub Khan included him in his cabinet at the behest of Iskander Mirza as the Minister for Natural Resources. He won the admiration of the Soviet leaders as the young but intelligent Minister during his maiden visit to the Kremlin in December 1961. This was expressed to the Pakistan envoy in Moscow, Ambassador Hilly as quoted by late Salman Taseer in his book on ZAB. Later, he was appointed Foreign Minister. He held this portfolio until he developed serious differences with Ayub Khan on the Tashkent Treaty brokered by the Soviet leaders in the wake of the 1965 war. Once out of the cabinet, Bhutto decided to test the waters politics, and his public acceptability. He had carefully carved out his image as a leftist, modern, progressive and pro-people leader. After his exit from government, he travelled by train from Rawalpindi to Larkana. At Lahore Railway station, there was a mammoth crowd to greet him. This strengthened his resolve to challenge General Ayub Khan joining the Democratic Action Committee, a loose alliance of the opposition parties.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto emerged as the most popular leader pulling huge crowds in the declining years of the Ayub Khan regime. He formed his Pakistan People’s Party in November 1967 which magnetically pulled secularists, left wingers and young idealists and revolutionaries. Ayub Khan could not withstand the public protests and handed power over to the Chief of Army, General Yahya Khan in March 1969. Bhutto was at the peak of his popularity. He did not organize his party in the Eastern wing leaving the field open for Shaikh Mujeeb. His PPP emerged as the majority party in Sindh and Punjab with a few seats from KPK capturing 81 seats in the National Assembly. Shaikh Mujeeb with his overall majority of 159 seats in the National Assembly had the right to form the Government. But Bhutto opposed the convening of the National Assembly on ambiguous pretexts.
Bhutto was a man hamstrung between conflicting and contrasting characters. Apart from his authoritative rule, he did everything uplift the sagging morale of the nation and rehabilitate the remainder part of Pakistan as a viable country.
I imagine with hindsight what would have been the political scenario in Pakistan with Mujeeb as Prime Minister and the firebrand Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the opposition leader under the constitution framed on the basis of the famous Six Points giving maximum political, economic and financial autonomy to the smaller provinces. But Bhutto did not have the patience to lead as opposition leader. He opposed the transfer of power to Mujeeb on the plea of settling the difference on the constitution making outside the National Assembly. The ruling military junta was also playing one leader against the other to advance their agenda. The military operation, the ensuing insurgency of Bengalis and the active military intervention by India dissected the Jinnah’s dreamland into two independent countries. After this humiliating debacle, power was transferred to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The rule of Bhutto was not ideal. Though he has had resounding political achievements to his credit, his half-baked socialist economic reforms, strong arm politics, dependence on electoral demigods and the Federal Security Force and ISI, arrests and prosecution of political opponents on flimsy charges, mistreatment of the Party stalwarts like G.A. Rahim, Ghulam Mustafa Khar and left wingers including Mukhtar Rana, Mairaj Muhammad Khan, Tariq Aziz and Iftikhar Ahmed Tari weakened his standing as a democrat and statesman. He also meted out the worst treatment to his opponents in Jails who were booked on flimsy grounds including theft of buffalo etc.
Nevertheless, he started his rule with renewed energy and efforts to rebuild the new Pakistan. However, with our proverbial short memory, he forgot our history leave alone learning any lesson from it. During his rule, the democratic governments of National Awami Party in Balochistan and KPK were dismissed in July 1972. Again, a military operation was ordered to subdue the ensuing violent Baloch protests. This was the third security operation against the Baloch. The earlier two operations in which Baloch leaders were imprisoned and executed were still fresh in the Baloch minds. Later, the Baloch and Pashtun leaders of National Awami Party were charged with sedition and imprisoned in Hyderabad to be tried by a Special Tribunal. The most saddening thing was that all this happened under an elected government soon after the breakup of the country.
Read – Analysis: Nationalism, PPP Rule and Case of Sindh
Bhutto was a man hamstrung between conflicting and contrasting characters. Apart from his authoritative rule, he did everything uplift the sagging morale of the nation and rehabilitate the remainder part of Pakistan as a viable country. No other leader in Pakistan could have matched his caliber, energy and hard work. Moving like a hurricane, he was constantly audible and incessantly visible all over the country virtually collecting its broken pieces to rebuild it. He restored its confidence and prestige in the comity of nations turning it into a constitutional and parliamentary democratic state. He impregnated its defence by replenishing and modernizing the military hardware and launching a fast developing nuclear program. He addressed all the post war issues with India with honour and dignity. He faced the ruthless Indira Gandhi as the leader of a proud and resilient nation rather than the representative of a defeated and humiliated nation. He astounded experienced diplomats and leaders by achieving all that which otherwise seemed impossible to be conceded to by the Indian leadership without a heavy quid pro quo.
The nationalized industrial units were plundered by the officers and staff appointed for running them. The society nor the bureaucracy was ready for such state run commercial ventures.
He damaged the economy by his half-baked socialist economic program with the wholesale nationalization of heavy industries, banks, insurance companies, and small industrial units including cement, cotton ginning and rice husking factories, small iron mills, foundries which not only inflicted a heavy blow to the private sector but scared off domestic and foreign investors. The country never recovered from this debilitating economic shock. These nationalized industrial units were plundered by the officers and staff appointed for running them. The society nor the bureaucracy was ready for such state run commercial ventures.
Read- Pakistan: Four in One
The second most harmful initiative by Bhutto was to ignore merit in the appointment of civil servants. The repatriation of Bengali civil servants after the secession of Bengal, there were thousands of vacant posts in Pakistan. Bhutto started doling out these vacancies to applicants in his open public audiences like a medieval king. These applicants used to be relatives of his party’s elected members, activists, and friends. This strengthened the traditional ruling class. The horizontal movability from one cadre of service to another introduced by him after his administrative reforms played havoc with the established cadres of services like erstwhile CSP, FSP etc. Bhutto Sahib appointed directly a number of officers in the Foreign Service of Pakistan from Second Secretary to Counsellor and Minister over and above the Federal Public Service Commission of Pakistan. (Continues)
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The author is a former member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and has served as Ambassador for seven years.
