- A decade after her death
And another Bhutto lost her life on the path of defining democracy in and for Pakistan. One of the memories of BB that have left their mark on my mind for eternity is her response to the custodian of Bhutto family Mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh who had stated how majority of the members hailing from the family died in their fifties. “I am 54,” she had remarked. Whether the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has been able to survive its political journey beyond five decades is quite discernible from the way it has been reduced to nothing more than a regional party. This mid-life crisis, as analysts opine, has rendered the party to a form which is “not even a shadow of its past glory”.
Asif Ali Zardari, in his capacity as Benazir’s political successor and co-chairperson of the PPP, has been unable to give the kiss of life to the party after BB’s assassination. Its proof is evident in the form of loss of connection with the masses for which mere jalsas are not enough. The vigour of voices chanting the slogan of roti, kapra aur makaan coined by the PPP’s founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has ebbed away with time as reality has unfortunately continued to differ from claims. The golden chance that our democratic political parties had after the end of a decade of de facto dictatorship was not availed properly. Though Zardari continues to take pride in the 18th Amendment of the Constitution of Pakistan, awarding each province and community its true identity did not impart the constituent members of these communities with food, clothes or estates. Rather, the lion’s share of Sindh’s population has been pushed below the line that demarcates a deplorable lifestyle from a reasonable one. After all, changing surnames of children cannot immortalise and perpetuate the legacy of jiye Bhutto, assembling a huge crowd in the name of conducting jalsa is not a manifestation of power and popularity (as no political assemblage is ever left untenanted by people), and dancing and giving flying kisses on such platforms cannot form a link between common man and party leadership.
Hence enters Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the true successor of Benazir’s seat and chairman of the PPP. Though he had inherited the reins of the party in as tender an age as 19, his initial years in politics were more of celebratory nature than heuristic. His political beginnings, unlike his mother’s, coincided with election and formation of democratic governments in centre and Sindh. Benazir’s political grooming was the result of continuous encouragement by Bhutto, her joining the newly founded PPP and Bhutto writing to her during imprisonment being two dimensions of her exposure to the realm. Her accompanying Bhutto to a United Nations Security Council meeting in 1971, India-Pakistan Summit in Simla in 1972 and the 1974 summit of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and its concurrence with her bagging a bachelor of arts degree with a major in governance from Harvard and yet another undergraduate degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford drilled in her the functioning of all facets of politics which she could aptly apply in Pakistan’s context.
ZAB, who is known to have slept with Machiavelli’s The Prince placed under his pillow, could be conveniently accredited with laying the foundations of true concept of democracy in Pakistan following Ayub’s regime
For Bilawal, however, things worked in a different manner when the party leadership came to him as a windfall. Still a freshman at Oxford, the people of Pakistan started eyeing him as the next Bhutto, a title which is not only a name but, in actuality, a cult. This lacking, including the language barrier, incognisance to the political and cultural traditions of Pakistan and emotional weakness in the wake of losing his mother, took time to be controlled and eradicated owing to which Bilawal’s official political debut was delayed until 2012, two years after he graduated. Since then, the PPP has seemed to work on infusing new blood into the system and rejuvenating the party’s spirit together with mobilising party workers for the 2018 elections. But filling Bhutto’s shoes is not as easy as changing one’s surname.
ZAB, who is known to have slept with Machiavelli’s The Prince placed under his pillow, could be conveniently accredited with laying the foundations of true concept of democracy in Pakistan following Ayub’s regime. “Islam is our faith, democracy is our policy, socialism is our economy. All power to the people.” These words reflect the beliefs on which the party was founded. By imparting power to people, Bhutto acknowledged the beast that constitutes a great deal in man and realised his role as the ruler whose primary duty is to understand his nature and act accordingly. In Machiavelli’s own words: “A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognise traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” Hence, by virtue of this ideology, “a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist”.
Comparable to this scenario is that of the Indian National Congress in our neighbouring country. The political acumen and vision of Nehru remains unchallenged to date, and so is that of his daughter Indira Gandhi. But the vacuum that was created henceforth has led to the dejection of people and them rejecting the party in last elections. But with Rahul Gandhi taking the seat of party president, metamorphosis is being expected by many. “It is the desire within the Congress party to transform, evolve and change itself, and I would try and help to enable that,” he said in an interview.
What both these leaders must comprehend soon for their own good is that actual transformation has only one footnote – the manifesto. Yes, politics in the Indian subcontinent has been rendered to nothing more than slogans and selling the sanctity of votes for short-lived benefits, but the key to real success lies in the long-term vision of Bhutto and Nehru, for “a prince must live with his subjects in such a way that no accident of good or evil fortune can deflect him from his course”.