Our lady of courage

It goes without saying that Begum Nusrat Bhutto was an embodiment of courage. As a confidante and companion of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto she lived like the shadow of her legendary husband for almost three decades.

Her life was a symbol of relentless struggle against the forces of tyranny and oppression that had taken her husband to the gallows. It started two years before ZAB’s execution following unceremonious dismissal of the first democratically-elected government by Zia whose promise to hold fresh polls in 90 days stretched over to 11 years of the most repressive military dictatorship the country has ever had.

ZAB had left no will for his wife (he reportedly burnt the one he had written shortly before his execution) to follow. As a matter of fact she didn’t need the one. She knew the cause he had lived and died for. She had no knowledge about the conversation her husband had with a jail official that was quoted by Col Rafi in his book as follows: “Where would you find a leader like me? But why would you need a leader like me in the first place?… I am needed by the poor but you people are taking away from them their leader.”

As his widow who knew Bhutto more than anybody else, she understood what his mission was. And she was also aware of the difficulties she might have to encounter before she could accomplish her husband’s unfinished task of ensuring a prosperous future to those living in abject poverty and blocking the way of those nursing Bonapartist tendencies. It was a long rocky road ahead which she had started traversing after initiating a struggle against the despot who had played havoc with this blighted country.

A day before her husband’s hanging, she had realised that the mercy petition lying before the president would not be accepted. She was broke but she didn’t give up her determination to fight a long battle against oppression. On the other hand, Zia decided to send Bhutto to the gallows after having been proved wrong that his mere removal from power could automatically lead the PPP to extinction. Since that was not to be the case he felt compelled to call off the 1979 elections.

However, what he failed to comprehend was that ZAB’s judicial murder would turn the PPP into a much stronger political force constantly causing him nightmares until he perished in the aircrash. But the fact remains that the PPP would not have been what it is today without the efforts Begum Nusrat Bhutto had made to keep the party intact at a time when her husband’s erstwhile loyalists had started deserting it on the prodding from the powers that be.

The rigours of imprisonment had not taken away from her the resolve to continue her mission. She was always on the move, travelling around the country and telling the party workers and people at large how strongly the Party’s founding Chairman felt about their welfare. The first and the foremost challenge before her was to reorganise the party that was in disarray. And she had to struggle even harder to frustrate the designs of the military regime and its handpicked politicos that were bent upon depoliticizing the system. That she was the driving force behind the movement for the restoration of democracy was a fact widely known and acknowledged.

No matter what the PPP’s detractors may say about the party leadership’s obsession with dynastic policies, Begum Nusrat Bhutto wanted to fulfil her late husband’s desire to see her daughter lead the party after him. That was, thus, her second most important duty. And it was her illustrious mother’s grooming that helped Benazir Bhutto make her mark in politics at an age when her contemporary politicians had just started taking their basic lessons in the lap of dictatorship.

And no one would have been more delighted than Begum Bhutto to see her daughter return to a historic welcome in Lahore in 1986 and her subsequent rise to the pinnacle of political power. But the pleasure of the success she had achieved was shortlived. During her tiring struggle for democracy, which came to an end with her own demise last Sunday, she lost her husband and three children.

If President Zardari had gone to Dubai to bring home the body of his mother-in-law for burial and then stayed back in Naudero along with his children receiving people coming from across the country for condolence, he simply discharged his moral obligation. After all he represents the Bhutto legacy – the legacy that stands out for its compassion for the poor and the dispossessed.

The writer is Executive Editor, Pakistan Today.