The legend

Bhutto lives…

It was captivating. The audience at Aiwan-i-Iqbal was overwhelmed with joy when a young man recited the famous song: Bhutto day naray wajan gay. PPP Secretary General Jehangir Badr couldn’t resist the temptation of giving a standing ovation to his late friend’s son and everybody else in the jampacked auditorium followed suit. It was indeed a tribute to Moazzam Ali Moazzam, once a household name for diehard jiyalas.

The day was observed to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the unceremonious dismissal of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – a legend in the contemporary history. Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci believed there was no alterative to him. July 5, 1977 had marked the beginning of the darkest era of our political history. General Zia-ul-Haq continued to play havoc with the country for over a decade until he perished in a plane crash in August 1988. It was only a year after toppling the PPP government that Zia’s paranoia forced him to take Bhutto to the gallows with his handpicked judges ordering the judicial murder of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister.

The despot’s biggest crime was that he had deprived not only Pakistan of a great leader who had given awareness to the poor and the downtrodden, empowered ordinary men and women and sincerely endeavoured to liberate the toiling peasantry as well as the working classes from the exploitation of the blood-sucking landlords and industrialists but also the Muslim World of a statesman who had spent his entire stint in power striving for the unity of the Ummah. The religious rightwing, which played second fiddle to the most repressive military dictatorship, was scared of the PPP leader’s growing popularity. So was the West, some of whose leaders started threatening to make a horrible example of Bhutto.

As far as great powers were concerned, ZAB wanted friendly relations with all of them, based on equality and mutual respect but at the same time he maintained that our foreign policy had to be recast and redone. Those who keep basking in the glory of turning Pakistan into the first Muslim nuclear state cannot take away from him the credit of initiating this process many years ago. No matter what his critics say, he managed to bring 90,000 prisoners of war back from Bangladesh when India’s ruling leadership was intoxicated by fact that it had taken over the eastern wing of our country by preponderance of military force. The world saw our hostile neighbour heap humiliation on our sacred saviours.

For the extremely demoralised armed forces, ZAB was the only hope. In his first address to the nation after assuming office of president, he said: “The armed forces should know that I have always admired them. I have always stood by them…my dear jawans and officers you have nothing to worry about; you have nothing to be ashamed of.” And he continued opposing the forces that tried to drive a wedge between the armed forces and people of Pakistan. But at the same time he wanted the security establishment to remain subservient to the civilian authority; the democratic system he had planned to put in place didn’t provide space to the so-called sacred cows to undermine the supremacy of parliament.

Bhutto had made a pledge to serve the masses with all his heart and will and was prepared to do this even at the cost of his life. He fulfilled his commitment. He knew his people; he had lived with them, had faith in them and never wanted to be seen betraying them. He wanted his party leaders and cabinet members to constantly travel and learn in order to remain in close touch with the people, their problems, hopes and aspirations rather than be bogged down in bureaucratic red tape. Many of his detractors who were launched into politics by the successive military regimes are now seen replicating his style in their public speeches and interaction with the masses. But what these copycats don’t understand is that they lack both charisma and commitment to create for them the kind of following ZAB had.

More than three decades after his death Bhutto still continues to rule the hearts and minds of a fairly vast majority of our population. And his legacy was successfully carried forward by his illustrious daughter Benazir Bhutto until she sacrificed her life while struggling to rid the country of the dual menace of extremism and terrorism bequeathed to this blighted country by the military dictator who eventually met his fate in the air crash. Thousands upon thousands of people travel to Ghari Khuda Bux every year to pay homage to the slain father and daughter. But there’s hardly anyone to mourn the death of Zia; no tears to be shed at the deserted grave in the sprawling compounds of the Faisal Masjid.

The writer is Executive Editor, Pakistan Today