Note: This article is being posted on the eve of 86th birth
anniversary of the founder of the PPP Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, observed on January
5, 2015
January 12, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi
The paramount question intriguing the discerning students
of history has been that why an iconic, revolutionary and charismatic leader
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto met with a tragic end. He took the political citadel of
Pakistan by storm and assailed the minds and hearts of people within a short
span of time. He soared to the political horizon of Pakistan like a meteorite
yet plummeted with the same speed and intensity.
The charm and magic of Bhutto’s personality and his
rhetorical style and revolutionary mandate bewitched the people of Pakistan who
looked up to him as a redeemer and the architect of a new Pakistan that
he vowed to “built from ashes” and by “picking the pieces” of a
colossally mauled left-over Pakistan after the 1971 war with India.
It would not be in vain to adjudge him a leader who touched
the zenith of people’s love and approbation after the founder of Pakistan
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Had he not committed egregious blunders due
to his personal weaknesses he could have been equated with Kamal Ataturk of
Turkey and Jamal Abdul Nasir of Egypt and similar iconic leaders? Yet despite a
dazzling and unprecedented popularity, within five years, he was desperately
fighting for his political as well as personal survival.
He was endowed with the frame of a firebrand revolutionary
that performed exceedingly fast and furious to uproot a debased system of
governance and initiated instead one premised on parliamentary democracy.
He was the proponent of the Muslim unity and he deserves the credit for
convening the OIC 1974 conference in Pakistan.
He liberalized the society and straight jacket of
cumbersome rules and bureaucratic tangles were broken. People were greatly
relieved and motivated about a monumental change in the offing. He has the
glorious distinction of being the father of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons program.
A flurry of reforms including land reforms forbade a new
era of hope and progress. The journey towards a new promising destiny
began with a nation rejuvenated after country’s truncation. Although the
release of Pakistan’s prisoners of war and retaking captured territory by India
were considered as Bhutto’s spectacular achievements through Simla Accord, yet
I am of the opinion that India could not keep such a huge captured army for
long, nor could she hold on to the occupied territory indefinitely.
Bhutto’s overwhelming weakness was that he was loyal to no
one: not even to his lofty ideals. He possessed a voracious obsession for
power. What I want to point out that Bhutto would go to any extent for
retaining power. He ruled like a dictator in the garb of a civilian head of
government. During his dwindling fortunes after 1977 elections, he sacrificed
his cosmopolitan and secular principles by lobbying with ultra conservative
forces and courting discredited feudal classes in order to stick to power.
His letter written in April 1958 to the then president of
Pakistan general Iskander Mirza extolling him as more exalted that the founder
of Pakistan was a sordid display of rank flattery. His exploitation of Tashkent
Pact (10 January 1966) was a smart tactical move that swept away a powerful
military dictator with a bruised and demonized image.
Bhutto was genetically averse to anyone’s popularity.
His companions, who stood with him through thick and thin and faced extreme
persecution and oppression during Ayub Khan’s time, were disgraced and sacked
one after another on such flimsy grounds as someone getting popular in public
view or opposing some of his policies. Alas! his weaknesses overshadowed his
watershed achievements and that resulted in his tragic end.
Presently, in order to highlight Bhutto suspicious nature
and his morbid proclivity to tame and frighten his ministers and party leaders,
I have to refer to some of the observations made by Baloch leader Sher Baz
Mazari in his book, “The Journey to Disillusionment”
“If any of his subordinates showed even a modicum of
independence, he would be swiftly punished...“Even Bhutto’s close associates
and cabinet ministers now lived in dread and fear of the unpredictability of
their master’s temper”…”Bhutto would not brook any criticism…”Bhutto’s
obsession with maintaining a aura of invincibility was so strong that he would
spare no one, not even those who had done him valuable and devoted service over
the years”.
About Bhutto’s devious machinations that were part of his
politicking style, Mr. Mazari wrote, “I
had known Bhutto for some 23 years. To him lying, double-dealing and deceit
were normal means of attaining and keeping power.”
His FSF was a Gestapo type dreaded outfit, created to
terrorize and tyrannize both his colleagues and political rivals. In his book,
Mr Mazari provides an account of many erstwhile colleagues of PPP who suffered
enormously at the hands of Bhutto’s FSF that brooked no mercy for anyone if
ordered by Bhutto to be fixed physically and brutalized.
But let us thrash out the events then took place prior to
the Bhutto’s ascension to power, first as the president and then as prime
minister of Pakistan. The foremost question is that who was primarily
responsible for the historic blunder of igniting a civil war in formerly East
Pakistan? A political leader of the genius of Bhutto could never support use of
military in East Pakistan knowing well it would entrap Pakistan army.
Yet by a clever ruse not only did he refuse to sit with a
majority party but convinced debauch Yahya Khan to take the fatal army action
in East Pakistan. Pakistan army was not only defeated but earned a lasting
ignominy of surrender. There was a tacit or studied collusion between the then
president Yahya Khan and Mr. Bhutto for an army operation in East Pakistan for
the reason no one can justify.
If the democratic process was to be honored then why was it
necessary for Mr. Bhutto to warn the elected parliament members that their legs
would be broken if they go to East Pakistan in the aftermath of the elections.
That was a blatant denial of a majority party’s right to form the government.
Were the army top brass and Mr. Bhutto not cognizant that
sending of army to subdue a whole province was immoral, unconscionable, illegal
and suicidal? Were they not aware of a stark reality that in-between was an inveterate
hostile country and the supply line of army personnel, weapons, food and
medicines could not be carried on either by air or by sea.
Bhutto’s tenure could be portrayed as a kind of a façade of
democracy that cloaked his authoritarianism and was the most dominant reason
for his downfall. As already stated that all his aides and colleagues who
remained with him through thick and thin and were ideological bulwark of his
revolution, were forced to leave through gross intimidation, witch-hunting,
physical tortures, humiliation and through every brutal means carried out
through the FSF and personally by Mr. Bhutto by foul mouthing and abusing.
So when the army intervened on July 5, 1977, the PPP was
depleted of the committed and loyal cadres to stand by him. He fought a lonely
legal war in front of the prosecutors who were his sworn enemies for other
reasons.
Bhutto’s penchant for power was so chronic and deep-rooted
that contrary to his lofty ideals of making Pakistan a democratic, modern,
secular, liberal country with civil society, shamelessly abandoned these
cherished goals and dashed these on the rock of expediency. During the earth
shaking countryside agitation spear-headed by Pakistan National Alliance (PNA)
he frantically tried to win the support of the religious right to stay in power.
One Such party was Jamaat Islami that opposed the creation
of Pakistan and wanted the new state to be an Islamic emirate. He compromised
his treasured credentials of an enlightened leader by downgrading himself to the
level of a religious fanatic or zealot.
What a volte-face that he sold his lofty status of the
architect of a new modern Pakistan and auctioned his revolutionary mandate for
the sake of power. Now such perfunctory measures as making Friday as a holiday,
declaring Ahmadis as non Muslims, banning liquor and horse races would not make
Pakistan an Islamic state.
Yet in order to deflate the hurricane of commotion for his
ouster, he bargained his secular credentials, his conscience and political
integrity. From that moment Pakistan has been irredeemably sinking into the
abyss of religious fanaticism, lethal sectarianism and unremitting bigotry. But
even that historic betrayal couldn’t keep him in the power saddle.
The outcome was irretrievably disastrous for his future.
The religious lot got their piece of pie and then hastened to move for his
downfall. The anti-Bhutto outburst was mounted by all sections of society: the
betrayed and disillusioned people, friend and foes, bureaucracy, army, rival
politicians, traders, students. Bhutto looked a desolate and forlorn person
“fluttering his luminous wings in vain”. The whole scene seemed to be the
replay of what Bhutto did against Ayub Khan.
In his twilight days of power, Mr. Bhutto prolonged the
process of holding talks for a rapprochement with the opposition. When he
finally agreed on the contentious issues between him and PNA (alliance of nine
political parties), it was too late and much water had flown down the political
rivers.
It clearly means that he lacked a kind of political acumen
and discerning ability to see the direction of the wind. Thus Ziaul Haq took
the reins of the government and ruled with an iron hand till he met his tragic
fate also.
Now there is very little logic in maligning or hating Ziaul
Haq who seized power from Mr. Bhutto. Ziaul Haq was not a politician. He was
outright a dictator. He was a rigid, bigoted religious practicing Muslim.
He was an army chief and the country was drifting towards a total chaos and
breakdown. Ziaul Haq, in addition to the army and a host of politicians and
perhaps external abettors, enjoyed full support of the Islamic parties, Imams
of mosques, religious seminaries and madrasas.
Now I would not apportion much of blame to Ziaul Haq
because he was not an ideal moralist although he was a practicing Muslim. He
did not amass wealth, nor made mansions but decidedly lived simple and austere
life. This is for his person character. But in politics and in power all is
fair: all the more when the religious sections of all hue and cries were behind
him and the power fell in his lap like the ripened fruit.
Let us give credit to Ziaul Haq for a proxy war in
Afghanistan, though at the behest of America and the west that forced Soviet
Union to leave Afghanistan with an historic disgrace. As a result of Soviet
Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the Muslim caucuses that the czars of Russia had
forcibly annexed became independent.
During the Afghanistan war, in a brief conversation with
journalists including this scribe, Ziaul Haq obliquely made a revealing
statement to the effect that a miracle was about to happen in Afghanistan. By
that he meant the Soviet defeat and liberation of Afghanistan for the communist
stranglehold. That proved to be true.
I am not an admirer of Ziaul haq but I believe that
he was more prudent, crafty and skillful than Mr. Bhutto. He never
claimed that he was a political wizard or that he favored democracy and
fundamental rights. He crushed the freedom of expression, curbed independence
of media, and maimed the organs of civil society including judiciary and
parliament.
But he did these things because he near thought these were
wrong or in simple words it was not his mandate. The dictators around the world
have been doing obnoxious things and oppress their people to stay in power
corridors.
Zia was not a lone dictator who suppressed the social
freedom and further Islamized the society by more stringent Islamic
injunctions. But he was seldom apologetic about what he was doing. He was the
votary and spokesperson of a rigid, orthodox Islamic regime that he served well
even employing extreme tyranny. Bhutto was people’s chosen representative yet
he used the same coercive methods and intrigues that bring them at par.
Ziaul Haq and later General Musharraf assumed power by default
and because of the peculiar conditions that surfaced by the wrong doings and
inept policies of their predecessors. Bhutto’s grave mistakes of curbing
Baluchistan insurgency by use of brute military force, his amendments in the
constitution for accumulation of more powers,
His maltreatment of the
opposition leaders, the massive rigging of 1977 elections, behaving as a
merciless and intolerant lord to his peers and devoted colleagues, betrayal of
his revolutionary mandate and finally using excessive force before and after
1977 elections to curb the agitations whipped up by PNA and other groups, were
all catalysts for his downfall.
But tacitly dismembering Pakistan by raising the slogan,
“you on that side and we on this side” was proverbially the final nail in the
coffin. It clearly meant you rule there (former East Pakistan) and we rule here
(West Pakistan) as two independent states.
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