Over to You Begum Bhutto
Nasim Zehra
Begum Nusrat Bhutto's death has forced us all to re-focus on the almost forgotten icon of Pakistan's democracy. As the Bhuttos, especially Sanam and Fatima Bhutto and the rest deal with the pain of both Begum Nusrat Bhutto's death and tragic life, inevitably family bickering, power struggle and politicking will also accompany Begum Bhutto's last rites. But there is a larger canvas that deserves recall.
Prolonged illness had caused both Begum Nusrat Bhutto's fading away and her unsung departure from Pakistan's public space. Equally the woman who bravely and resolutely led the resistance against Pakistan's most toxic dictatorship, this former first lady, the head of the PPP's woman's wing and subsequently the party's chairperson and also a senior Minister, has largely been absent from Pakistan's political narrative. Among the few known written accounts of Begum Bhutto role in Pakistan's democratic politics are the ones written by the widely respect Bashir Riaz, now a chronicler of the Bhutto politics.
The news of her death in Dubai has jolted us all into vividly recalling Begum Bhutto's determined acts of bravery and defiance against dictatorship while also recognizing the fact that post Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, it was this iconic figure who carved out the path of resistance and party's survival and subsequently of a collective democratic struggle in the shape of the MRD, that her equally brave daughter followed.
Until repeated tragedy broke her and she went into exile with her daughter Begum Bhutto remained active on the domestic and international scene. In June 1993 when she led, on then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's invitation, Pakistan's delegation to the World Human Rights' Conference to Vienna, Begum Bhutto held her own with dignified ferocity. As delegates some of us witnessed her taking up the case of the Kashmiris with great conviction. In fact she strongly chided the Foreign Office team for "trying to water down" her own text of the speech condemning Indian atrocities in the Valley. From the podium, in a hall full of delegates Begum Bhutto, shouted down the Indian delegates, who sought a right of reply to her very hard hitting speech. And when the Indian press raced towards her as she walked off away from the podium and asked her question about Pakistan's politics , she hit back saying" Do not try and divide us, here for the Kashmir cause we are all one."
Begum Bhutto, the unsung conqueror of fear when confronted with the malevolence of the then Pakistani State including sections of the Pakistani judiciary, in the shape of a her husband's removal, his arrest, his trial, her and her family's displacement and exile, her husband's judicial murder, his hanging and his burial in the darkness of the night. She bore the brunt of repeated pain and finally after the violent deaths of her two young sons and subsequent intra-family pressures, Alzheimer's pulled away Begum Bhutto from public life. Burdened with these unbearable tragedies, fate intervened with this memory-losing illness, as if to ease her pain.
Begum Bhutto, the mother of all resistance endured pain of an oceanic proportions and in her death one is tempted to fight with fate…why so much more than her fair share , one would ask ! But equally we need to be mindful that many acts of the Pakistani State have been no less callous. Begum Bhutto and many others rose to the challenge, were tall figures, have left us and our children a legacy of resistance and struggle that we will always be proud of, even if deeply pained, but no less we must always remember some of these havoc wreaking acts of the State, that not only destroyed individuals but also contributed to the hijacking of the Pakistani potential and of a bright future.
For Pakistan the costs of dictatorship have been devastating. While there are many commentators on Pakistan talk of the economic benefits of stable dictatorships, how do we ignore the mounting and de-stablizing costs of the long shadows of military dictatorships? Dictatorship derailed the only accountable system of governance known to the human civilization. Also these dictatorships have contributed to the creation of much, although now gradually challenged, of our public narrative.. weaving tales of conspiracy, of victim-hood, of divisiveness and of hate.
We have to retrieve ourselves. The only way is a democratic system, that holds us accountable. ZAB was pulled up by political forces, he even arrived at an agreement with the Opposition, but Zia's ambitions and army misguided nationalism empowered by a vindictive capitalist class which saw itself wronged by Bhutto drove us away from what would have been a semblance of a functioning national management system.
One of the legacies of dark dictatorships have been how we have lose the moments, lose our stars in their prime and are left to lament them. Here is the irony..while the State contributed to what was unparrelleled suffering in the long and twisted annals of Pakistan's power history, now in death we are extolling her, reporting her, analyzing her, bereaving her. Other great men like Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Dr Abdus Salaam banished from Pakistan in their prime, we eulogized after they died.
That's what our past power politics has done to us. It's been a weave of compromises, patch-work of contradictions drained of any public morality. But that's is what early military interventions made politicians do. In her time Begum Nusrat Bhutto came out to wage a genuine resistance struggle. What happened subsequently we all know. Zia led the charge of the abiding power brokers and crassly injected low level maniuplation tools to intimidate and break the PPP. Politicians then learnt to respond and also tragically ape the abiding power brokers.
Rising above all other divides, the woman to whom the credit for laying down the foundations of Pakistan's most difficult and yet the most principled struggle against dictatorship goes, must be given her due place in Pakistan's democratic history.
This is how a Nation's story, a Nation's narrative and soul are nurtured. She is one reason why Pakistanis, in the context of democratic struggles, must feel ten feet tall. But as for the yield of today's democracy, it is largely an indictment against the current politician.
Tariq Khattak, Islamabad, Pakistan.
GSM = 0300-9599007 and 0333-9599007
Email: Tariqgulkhattak@gmail.com
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