Sada-e-Watan Sydney ™
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Tribute to
Benazir Bhutto
Exclusive
to Sada-e-Watan By Ashraf Shad
It is bad and sad
and ugly. I heard the unbelievable news in India when I was returning to Delhi
from Moradabad.
A day before her killing I was in the National Press Club, New Delhi, where its
President Rahul invited me to meet some prominent Indian journalists who wanted
my help to solve the jigsaw puzzle of Pakistani politics. Some of them predicted
that Benazir would form the next government in Pakistan and will follow the
American script by sharing powers with Pervaiz Musharraf.
I was expressing my apprehensions about this predictable scenario saying that
Pakistan’s establishment has a certain grudge with the Bhutto family, have not
spared any political aspirant in the family and Benazir may meet the same fate.
I deeply regret now to say something that came true just after a day.
I met Benazir for the first time in Lahore in 1978 when she was fighting on the
side of her mother, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, against the military rule of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq
and I was the Editor of a political weekly in Pakistan. Peoples Party gave a
call for nation-wide protests and I came to Lahore to cover these
demonstrations. Mother and Daughter both were under house arrest but I and my
Lahore correspondent, Mumtaz Syed, decided to take our chances and crashed into
the compound on a motor bike. Police stopped us but allowed to go in when they
received the words from Benazir to let us in.
She was the exact picture of Pinkie, her nick name given by her close friends,
and her attire, hairstyle, the naivety of her line of arguments and pinkish Urdu
were all mirroring her nick named image.
Next time I met her exactly after 10 years, only few months before she became
Prime minister for the first time. This time I went to Karachi from Kuwait to
interview her for the Kuwaiti daily Arab Times. She was not well and was not
meeting anyone but couldn’t refuse my request for interview due to my relations
with Irshad Rao. It was a very crucial time and my interview was picked up by
the international media when it appeared in the English edition of Arab Times.
There was no Pinkie in her anymore, she was a graceful ‘Daughter of the East’,
confident, thoughtful, and sharp in her answers. She was battle hardened after a
decade of struggle against a tyrant and had experienced many imprisonments,
house arrests mental tortures and a tough election campaign.
I also met her briefly at the house of Altaf Hussain, the MQM supremo, where she
went to seek his support to form the government and where she and Altaf Hussain
also addressed a joint press conference. The last time I met her when she went
to Jeddah to perform Umrah after becoming the first woman Prime Minister of
Pakistan. I was the only journalist from outside who was allowed in her only
press conference. She was very patient and polite replying some of my pointed
questions.
She lived in Dubai, not far from Al Ain where I live, but I never tried to go
there to meet or cover her meetings due to some personal reasons, though I am
Dawn’s stinger correspondent in the UAE.
Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, died much before
the final words on her political legacy could be said. She will now be
remembered only as a martyr, and undisputedly so.
The assassination of Benazir will also remain as another unsolved murder in
Pakistan’s political history but this is certain that her killing is a part of
an script and actual reasons for this heinous crime will only be known after the
dust is settled, emotions subsided and new political realities would start
emerging.
Look into history, the assassination of the first Pakistani Prime Minister at
the same venue where Benazir Bhutto was killed. The murder of Liaquat Ali Khan
in 1951 resulted in political destabilization of a new born country and the
beginning of the eventual military rule that is still looming in the country.
Pakistan yet to climb many un-climbable mountains in search of the way leading
to real democracy.
