Note: This article is being posted on the eve of 89th
birth anniversary of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto observed every year on January 5. Mr. Bhutto served as the Prime
Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that as the fourth
President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973.
March 4,2018
By Saeed Qureshi
The paramount question intriguing the discerning students of
history has been as to 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.
Mr. Bhutto entered the power corridors in 1963 as the minister of Foreign
Affairs with president Ayub Khan. He was deposed in July 1977 by General Ziaul Haq
following a military coup. Later he was imprisoned for ordering the murdering of
a political opponent. A case of murder was initiated against him and he was
hanged by the military government on April 4, 1979. As such he lived for 51 years
and remained in power in various positions for 14 years.
His most outstanding achievement was the convening of The Second
Islamic Summit Conference (OIC countries) held from February 22-24, 1974 at Lahore.
It is also called the Lahore Summit. The Second Islamic Summit Conference was
called to discuss the Middle East situation in the wake of Arab Israel war of
October 1973 and the oil embargo imposed by Arabs. It was
attended by the heads of states, foreign ministers and dignitaries from almost
all the Islamic countries.
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 and the cessation of Eastern part of
Pakistan now called Bangladesh.
It would not be in vain to adjudge him as a leader who touched the
zenith of people’s intense love and deep 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 premised that on parliamentary democracy. He was the proponent of the
Muslim unity around the world and he deserve the credit for convening the OIC
1974 Conference in Pakistan.
He liberalized the society from the straight jackets of cumbersome
rules and dismantled the bureaucratic tangles. The people were greatly relieved
and motivated about a monumental change that was 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. The release of Pakistan’s prisoners
of war and retaking captured territory from India were considered as Bhutto’s
spectacular achievements through Shimla 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.
Nevertheless, 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 Sikander 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 an 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 (Federal Security Force) 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 foreign minister, then president and
as the 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 by the Indian forces as well a Mukti Bahni.
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 before the Indian armed forces. 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 from West
Pakistan that their legs would be broken if they go to East Pakistan to attend
the inaugural session and to from the government by the majority party which
was Awami League led by Mujibur Rehman. 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 whole province thousands of miles away, 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 intimidated through, 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. Thus, the ideological
core of the PPP was weakened.
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, he 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-e- 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 sordid 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 by the
religious right groups and politicians 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.
The opposition parties got everything what they wanted and didn’t relent in blowing
up their street power that led to his ouster.
It clearly means that he lacked also a kind of political acumen
and discerning ability to see the direction of the wind. Thus, the army chief
Gen. Ziaul Haq (appointed by Mr. Bhutto) took the reins of the government and
ruled with an iron hand till he also met his tragic fate.
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 support from 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 Union’s 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, duplicitous, 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 included curbing Baluchistan insurgency by
use of coercive military force and his amendments in the constitution for
accumulation of more powers. Bhutto’s 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
were all catalysts for his downfall.
Nevertheless, Bhutto’s greatest achievement was to unite the
Muslims by convening the Lahore OIC Summit in 1971. That was an historic
milestone although that unity couldn’t last long. The Middle East is still
going through a prolonged war.
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