The many contradictions of Pakistan

The Bhutto Complex;

On April 4th, 1979, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the overthrown Prime Minister of Pakistan and the father of Benazir Bhutto, was hanged by the State of Pakistan under the military dictator Zia ul Haq.

Zulfiqar Bhutto was an incredibly charismatic and popular leader [known for his fiery presence at the U.N. as Pakistan's Foreign Minister] but he was filled with contradictions. He was an intellectual who came from landed elite. He was schooled in the best of places and was bourgeoisie yet claimed to speak for the people with socialist convictions. He rose to prominence not from the mass politics but from the inner halls of bureaucratic power under the dictator General Ayub. When he became the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, in 1963, he wanted Pakistan on the forefront of Islamic countries and South Asia instead he stoked the fires in Kashmir. He hated the military but all of his best friends were military men. He was the most trusted man Ayub had but, in 1969, his own political ambition led him to create the political party [PPP - Pakistan's People Party] and, subsequently, topple Ayub. He instituted industrial and land reform but the only beneficiaries were landlords and industrialists. He gave speech after speech on the terrors of landholding exploiters of the people but he remained a landholder and courted the landed elite as his base. He promised 18 acres of land to each peasant and they got, well, nothing. From 1972 to 1977, he shaped Pakistan in his fractured image. More than anything, it was his death which came to symbolize the end of civil power in Pakistan.

Zulfiqar Bhutto was a popular PM. Perhaps, the most popular figure in the history of the nation. After his execution and Zia's long tenure of military dictatorship, Benazir Bhutto emerged as the hope of millions and the spearhead for democracy. The day she returned to Pakistan for the first time in 1986, those millions turned out to welcome her. The cult of personality that had built up around her father, herself, her brothers, her uncles, grew larger and larger but her tenure was just as maddenigly contradictory as her fathers. She courted the Islamists as much as she let the Army dictate her government. She tried to be the voice of feminism and modernity yet failed to do anything substantial for the rights of women and minority in her nation.

Benazir Bhutto is reportedly working on a deal that will bring her to power in Pakistan in companionship with Pervez Musharraf.