Other would do even more.
They would burn themselves alive, go to the gallows, accept the excruciating
lash of the whip on their backs and be prepared for electric shocks and
torture. Such was his call and his cause that ordinary mortals became extraordinary
when they followed him.
His personality and cause
inspired poets and writers to new heights of literature enriching our culture
and our heritage.
So what was this giant of
a man like whose shadow has followed the destiny of Pakistan for four decades
and more.
He was rather shy and had
a shy and endearing smile. As I learnt when I met a fellow student of his
in California last month, who knew him when he was eighteen, that he had
the whole University in thrall. He was tall, handsome, charming, witty,
a great debater, had a fantastic memory and was always well dressed in
well cut and well designed clothes shipped specially from England to America
for him to wear.
He was a man of privilege
who turned his back on his class. In so doing, he invited the wrath of
influential elites who never forgave him for challenging the status quo.
In Washington, a Minister
from Jordan told me how Quaid-e-Awam had inspired a whole generation of
diplomats with his stirring speeches at the United Nations. He said that
they watched the videos of his speech to learn from him.
Such was his power of speech
that he never needed notes. He spoke from the heart. He made his audiences
laugh, he made them cry, he could whip them into frenzy and he could motivate
them to shed aside despair to rise and build a great nation.
The President of Kyrghiztan
and the Prime Minister of Nepal both told me how his judicial murder had
changed their lives and the nature of their nations. The first demonstrations,
which
snowballed into movements of freedom and democracy for their countries,
began protesting his unjust hanging.
His fellow student said
to me, he had a grand passion for Pan Islamism.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was passionately
committed as a Muslim to the concept of Muslim unity. He spoke of the Soldiers
of Islam and of an Islamic Nuclear Power to bring Islam at par with other
civilisations. He spoke of an Islamic Common market. He sent the armed
forces of Pakistan to defend Arab lands threatened with Israeli aggression
in the Middle East war of 1973 known as the Ramadan war.
At his initiative, the Organisation
of Islamic Countries held an Islamic Conference in Lahore in 1974. That
Conference was co hosted by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Both of them would
be assassinated in quick succession ending a dramatic moment of leadership
in Muslim history which could have forever altered its course.
It was an historic conference,
beyond platitude. It was the conference which recognised Yasser Arafat
as the sole spokesman of the Palestinian people. In so doing, it undid
the fractious nature of the Palestinian movement. It laid the groundwork
which would enable President Arafat to legitimately negotiate on behalf
of the Palestinian people for a Middle East settlement.
That conference also enabled
Pakistan and Bangladesh to reconcile after a bitter war of separation.
In Simla, he did the impossible.
He went there as the leader of a vanquished nation that had been divided
in half by force. He went there with ninety thousand prisoners of war held
as hostages, with territory lost, threats of Nuremberg style trials against
the Officers and men of the Pakistan army. He went there at a time when
General Manekshaw was threatening the break up of residual Pakistan.
But he took with him his
intellect, his vision of history, the support and prayers of the Pakistani
people.
And he succeeded in getting
back the territory Pakistan had lost in the Western wing. Compare that
glory to the attempts still made to get back parts lost by General Zia
in Siachen. He succeeded in building with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
the Simla Agreement, which, although strained at times, has held peace
in place for nearly three decades. He also got back the POWs without compromising
on national honour or respect and prevented war trials.
All over the world, he inspired
a generation with his stand against colonialism, imperialism and the unjust
war in Vietnam where Asian blood was being shed. He took pride in being
an Asian and had good terms with Third World leaders. President Sukarno
of Indonesia treated him as a son whilst President Nasser of Egypt gave
him affection. President De Gaulle, Yugoslavia’s Tito and the giants of
the time held him in esteem for his intellect had a power that inspired
awe. When he met the young American President, Kennedy took his hands in
his own and said, If you had been an American, you would have been the
President of the United States.
Powerful statesmen, the American
President George Bush and National Security Advisor Henry Kissenger, praised
him for his brilliance and his statesmanship. The Chinese leaders Mao Tse
Tung and
Premier Chou en Lai treated
him like family. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia regarded him as a brother and
told me, I said it then and I say it now: his was an unjust murder. The
Shah of Iran never knew whether to envy him or admire him.
The list is endless illustrating
his special brand of intellect, charm and vision. And an ability to impress
born of the politics of conviction and principle.
Such was his charisma that
fans fainted when they saw him or touched him. Women lost their hearts
to him, including royal princesses, first ladies and international film
stars. But he was devoted to his family and walked away leaving many a
broken heart in his wake.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto joined
the cabinet of President Ayub Khan as the youngest minister in the subcontinent.
At first he adored Ayub as a son does a Father. But he soon became disenchanted.
He thought Ayub too subservient to America. He disliked the politics of
permits which saw the rise of a robber baron class of twenty-two families
sucking the blood of the Pakistani people. He watched in dismay the nepotism
where the relatives of Ayub enriched themselves. The final straw was the
surrender at Tashkent where Pakistan, under superpower dictation, gave
up what its sons and daughters in the 1965 war had won by shedding their
blood as sacrifice.
He left and began a period
of rumination and reflection. Ayub saw him as a threat and few dared to
thwart Ayub’s will. The long line of cars outside 70, Clifton, his home,
disappeared. It was a period of isolation. He threw himself into writing
and came up with the Myth of Independence. He was a socialist and a philosopher,
friends with Bertrand Russell, who wrote encouraging him.
At heart Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
was a socialist. He was determined to defy Ayub and save the people from
the clutches of feudalism, imperialism and neo colonialism. And so he formed
the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1967.
He travelled far and wide
preaching its message. He went to dusty villages at a time when roads had
yet to be built. He travelled in the sun and in storms with his message
that the poor people of Pakistan could change their destiny.
His was a powerful message
that stirred the masses even as the capitalist oligarchy united to fight
him. His was a message of egalitarianism in a hierarchical society; a message
of redemption for those who had been slaves to feudal lords, tribal warlords
and industrial masters.
His tours electrified the
masses and shook the Nation. He defied death even as the assassination
squads followed him from the deserts of Sindh to the mountains of Khyber.
Military titans fell before him, Ayub and Yahya, who had sworn that Bhutto
would never take power. But the floodgates of the people had been opened
and they swept him to power.
During his tenure, he gave
Pakistan the first representative constitution with full fundamental human
rights. It was a liberal constitution guaranteeing women and minorities
full rights in Parliament. The provinces got autonomy and the neglected
tribal and northern areas prospered.
Land was distributed, labour
given bonuses, job security, health facilities and a safety net. Women
were appointed to the subordinate judiciary, the foreign office, the police
and bureaucracy. The Karakorum Highway was built, Port Qasim, Kamrah Aeronautical
Complex, Heavy Mechanical Complex, the nuclear program and cancer treatment
centres in the four corners of Pakistan. The doors of education were thrown
open for the children of the peasants.
It was a true renaissance.
Pakistan became a leading voice in the world with the statesman Bhutto
to guide the ship of state. The country prospered.
But in every golden period
of history comes the point of decline. Lurking in the shadows was a General,
outwardly pious who had been seduced when he led the massacre of Palestinians
in Jordan.
In his dark heart he bred
evil forces of ambition, disloyalty, treachery. When he heard the bugle
call from beyond the borders, he answered it even as his gun blasted the
Muslim codes of chivalry and loyalty to his benefactor. The PPP government
was overthrown by a man who committed high treason and murder. His brutal
and violent rule raped the nation until finally nature scattered his body
in a ball of fire.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto always
prayed at the Mazaars of the great saints of the subcontinent. His signatures
are there in the books of Ajmer Sharif and elsewhere. He regularly prayed
at Data Sahib’s mazaar. In times of trouble he called out to Badshah Dastagir.
For him, Omar was the greatest of Muslim Caliphs, Aurangzeb the greatest
of Moghul Emperors.
The patron saint to whom
he was most devoted was Lal Shabaz Qalander. His mother had prayed there
when her new born son fell ill and doctors gave up hope. God heard the
prayers of the young and beautiful Mother as she cradled her only son in
her arms and called upon Lal Shabaz to beseech Allah to save him.
She dressed her son in the
finest of clothes and made his bed of silken sheets. She was spared the
horror of seeing her son, the hero of the people, imprisoned in a squalid
death cell.
But even in that death cell,
where the tyrants did not let him live before they killed him, his courage
shone like a beacon encouraging men to take up arms to fight his tormentors,
encouraging women to defy troops and encouraging children to protest an
unholy incarceration. In him, the people of Pakistan, nay of the Muslim
world, saw their hopes, their dreams and their aspirations.
He gave his life for the
downtrodden, the discriminated, and the disadvantaged. He said he would
show the usurpers how a leader of the people lives and dies. And he did.
Secretly he was murdered
in the darkness of the night and his body flown to the land of his birth
in Larkana while the Nation slept. A terrible hailstorm shook the desert
land with huge pieces of ice falling abnormally as nature wept for a great
man whose greatness was acknowledged the world over.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had said
to his young Iranian bride Nusrat, when he married her, I shall be a shooting
star brightening up the sky for one brief moment before disappearing forever.
He was Asia’s brightest star.
There never shall be another like him.
