Bhutto's Relevance Today

by Wajid Shamsul Hasan - April 4, 2000

 

Pakistan today is at a cross- road. There is a big question mark on its future and its very survival as a federal state is in doubt especially when it is confronted by forces hell-bent in pushing it into the dustbin of history. At this crucial juncture the commemoration of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s martyrdom in the right earnest, in its correct perspective and to learn lessons from it have become the need of the hour. It is no occasion to ritualistic eulogize the great leader who continues to be the most dominant political phenomenon in the post-1947 Pakistan.

 

Bhutto had emerged on the national horizon at a time when vintage politicians were on their way out. They had become ineffective and made the task of filling the vacuum more difficult especially when their very survival had become impossible in the new ball game, with rules made to order, by players who represented the powerful Establishment rather than the people of Pakistan.

 

When the light was put off in one of the most brilliant shining stars in the galaxy in that dark night of April 4, 1979 Bhutto had already made indelible imprints on the sand of time, which no dictator could erase. His role in international affairs being a subject of wider study to be discussed later, here I would like to mention what Zulfikar Ali Bhutto meant to the people of Pakistan, what has been his legacy, where it is today and what role it continues to play in the life of our people.

 

Shaheed Bhutto had emerged on the political scene at a time when social change in Pakistan had become imminent and yet there were not many leaders who could take the bull by the horn. He was, perhaps, one single individual in the whole lot of Ayub Khan’s team who had foreseen the unleashing of the forces of unintended socio-political and economic changes as well. It was left to his pragmatic brilliance to take command of them and harness them for national objectives.

 

In the process, Bhutto had also taken on the entrenched elitist oligarchy since in its scheme of things, power did not flow from the ballot box but from the barrel of the gun. Being a politician much too shrewd for those who openly showed contempt for the civilians as state managers, he turned the tables on them when factors for change had matured into an effective force. He took charge of these factors and his electoral manifesto of ‘roti, kapra and makan’ ignited the fire to bring about a change of far-reaching consequences. It changed the whole complexion of Pakistani politics.

 

Bhutto’s revolutionary slogans, his populist politics--from drawing rooms into the muddy streets and lanes of unknown Pakistan-- opened floodgates of social change that dealt the first severe blow to the forces of status quo representing the feudal lords, big capital, civil and uniformed bureaucracy. His Pakistan’s People’s Party emerged as the forceful harbinger of change.

 

Bhutto’s politics no doubt took him into power but in store for him was not a bed of roses. He had taken over a truncated Pakistan when its leader was expected to perform a miracle to save it from further disintegration. Indeed, much of the credit goes to him and his party for spearheading the salvaging operation, plaudits must also be extended to the wisdom of political leaders opposed to him who found a common cause with him in the efforts to frame the 1973 Constitution--an everlasting monument to collective wisdom of those on the two sides of the political divide. By putting the pieces together, he inspired a new hope in the vanquished nation, for a progressive and prosperous Pakistan.

 

Bhutto had believed that when a people lose power over livelihood, they are forced to accept a loss of democracy as well. It was massive unemployment, economy in shambles and loss of direction that had encouraged General Ayub Khan to take over as saviour in 1958. Bhutto, however, reversed the phenomenon in 1969 when he and his PPP became a major player in the movement that ousted a formidable dictator.

 

His political skill, his gift of the gab and his vision which had a permanent role for the masses to play, had singled him out as the arch enemy in the eyes of the forces of status quo. As such, throughout his later career we see him pitched against the Establishment which was opposed to his politics of change, empowering the people, giving them self-respect and a full-throated voice. And this tug-of-war, besides factors other than internal including his total commitment to a nationalistic nuclear programme, led him onto the gallows-- unbending and uncompromising on his principles.

 

There are many facets to his life, each outshining the other in brilliance. Yet he was a human being and infallible too. Many of his actions annoyed his opponents and he was also accused of stepping on their toes. His adversaries described it as arrogance or the wadera in his blood. This view is rather uncharitable for the man who changed the shape and form of Pakistani society in the shortest possible time by declassing himself, by his genuine commitment to the cause of the upliftment of the downtrodden, voiceless and exploited masses.

 

Bhutto’s most outstanding contribution to Pakistan’s politics has been the establishment of the PPP. Not that it took him to power but the fact that it stood by him as his legacy when his chips were down, when he was being persecuted and later executed on a four-three judgement of the Supreme Court (considered questionable by reputable international jurists). It was not the PPP or the people of Pakistan who did not support him in his hour of trial. While Begum Nusrat Bhutto and “his dearest daughter” Benazir had been incarcerated, it were the conglomerate of pygmies masquerading themselves as leaders in the party, who let him down so that they could cash his legacy after he was gone.

 

Indeed, historically speaking, there has been no phenomenon like PPP in the entire sub-continental politics of a century where a party has withstood, for years after years, the whip and the hangings and unending persecution and prosecution at the hands of the Establishment. Resilience of its supporters lies in the fact that they are there all through-- without any compulsion-- out of their sheer commitment to Bhuttoism-- a phenomenon meaning different things to different people. Some of its weak-willed leaders who had sought their pound of flesh by breaking away from the party, got destroyed invariably. And today most of them are resting in the dustbin of history totally dishonoured.

 

There is an oft-repeated charge levelled by the academics that Bhutto failed to organise PPP as a political party and to this day it continues to be a horde notwithstanding the fact that PPP’s vote bank of almost 38 per cent has remained uneroded when the forces of status quo have used various oppressive methods to reduce it in order to make it ineffective in Pakistan’s politics.

 

This question needs to be answered by the party itself. However, as a student of politics, I would like to point out here that the fault lied not with Bhutto but with those who considered themselves as the contemporary brains behind the party. When Bhutto assumed power in 1971, none of his colleagues opted for the party office without a ministerial assignment. They could not reconcile to be in party without power--a stigma of a nascent democratic culture which takes time to resolve itself. The credit of creating a soul and a spirit that lives to this day must go to Shaheed Bhutto. And to keep it going unabated rests with Benazir Bhutto and the toiling masses.

 

The malaise continues to be hereditary. The poor masses did not let down Bhutto. It were leaders within his party with different class vocations that betrayed him in the final hour. The situation worsened in Nawaz days. Instead of a headlong confrontation with the populist PPP politics and the lingering hope in Bhuttoism of the poor and the shirtless, character-assassination of the leadership has been used as a weapon by the Establishment to harm the party and the Bhutto leadership and eliminate its role as a permanent threat to the forces of status quo.

 

In this operation we have seen spurious election results to throw up a two/third majority government, castration of the powers of the president, desecration of the judiciary, showing of the door to the former Army chief , attack on the freedom of the press/undeclared censorship and, of course, Ehtesab Bureau entirely devoted to one-sided

accountability.

 

In order to survive the foul weather, company of summer soldiers and sunshine leaders, the PPP must get down to learning lessons from the failure of its past efforts at reforming the society and evolving a new, more relevant and effective contraption of social change and self-survival not only for itself but for the country as well. The need of the hour is to diagnose the malaise that afflict our society, our people and our body- politic. On the basis of the diagnosis, PPP should come up with a remedy. It needs to understand the obstacles that have been created within and outside and it is required of it to have a strategy that could eliminate them. Bhutto’s life was cut short and he did not live to see the burial of the status quo but he had put the last nail in its coffin. And it is beholden upon the PPP under the leadership of Benazir Bhutto to lead the masses as the pall-bearer to bury it deep so that the obscruntists forces--whatever their shape or form—are never able to rise their head in what the Quaid’s had dreamed to be liberal and tolerant Pakistan. It is now or never. If the forces of status quo continue to have an upperhand, it would not even be too easy for the PPP to put a stop to the disintegration of the federal structure.

 

Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. That was the process engined and engineered by Nawaz Sharif and his cronies to derail Pakistan’s democracy and civil society. And as we were to enter the new millennium Nawaz Sharif had made change inevitable. His case is a manifestation of the adage ‘as you sow so shall you reap’. He was time and again warned that he should not do unto others what he cannot take unto himself.

 

Democracy today stands derailed. In Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, PPP and Pakistan have a leader with an international standing and a vision capable of taking initiatives to meet the newer challenges. The party has the leadership to offer a believable, practicable and feasible alternative to the status quo that would represent the future rather than the past and would empower the people to make our institutions effectively broad-based and functional.

 

It needs to be underscored here that the problems facing the country have become insurmountable. Most of them are related to the mismanaged economy and total mal- administration. Notwithstanding the pious hopes of the present rulers, they cannot be resolved by adhoc leadership or staff solutions. Nawaz Sharif tried to find the easy way out of his inefficient and incompetent administration by surrendering civilian authority to the military to save the regime’s own skin and hide its own failings. Take WAPDA’s example. It is a mini manifestation of what Pakistan has come to be. Army was inducted by Nawaz for its efficient operation and recovery of arrears. There is hardly any body in the Punjab worth the name who has not been charged with power theft or non-payment of bills. This does not mean that the entire province is a power thief.

 

The army operation in WAPDA has brought out forcefully the failure of the iniquitous system which has compelled people--high and mighty, poor and the needy-- to indulge in stealing and corruption because the rates are beyond them. The roots of national malaise including all permeating corruption, does not lie with individuals but in the system itself.

 

Pakistan Peoples Party, which had recognised all that the masses needed in its commitment to ‘rot, kapra and makan’, would do well to set experts to the task of evolving a strategy for handling the situation flowing from an oppressive free market economy in Pakistan presently without a provision for bringing about an economically judicious relationship between wages and prices. Unless it has a plan that could restore balance between prices and wages-- no socio-economic ills can be addressed or redressed effectively. The growing economic imbalances--the gap between the rich and the poor--is drawing the country nearer to a class war as is reflected in growing ethnicity, sectarianism, crime and terrorism and increasing incidence in the number of suicides-- a phenomenon given birth by hopelessness and erosion of the will power in a society to fight back.

 

Last but not the least. The civil and uniformed establishment must realise that it has one day to make room for a genuine government of the people, by the people and for the people. It can not continue its hold on the destiny of the nation by proxy or through a civilian face. It must reconcile itself to productive existence with Pakistan People’s Party so that both could play a role complimentary to each other for the greatest good of the largest number. Any other course would be fatal for the country.

 

 

FOREIGN POLICY

 

Pakistan’s foreign policy was an area in which Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s contribution was par excellence. In the context of Pakistan’s ‘bey-bus’ diplomacy, he becomes all the more relevant. In the last decade of this millennium we have seen the collapse of the Soviet empire. Its spillovers continue to traumatize nations and societies. In our part , the Afghan war has been responsible for consequences that continue to be beyond our control . Surely, we cannot envision normalcy in our region in the near future. The most convulsive development, however, has been the Indian nuclear test followed by Pakistan and a sudden change thereof in the world view of the region.

 

No doubt, the nuclear glow in the region has brought the core issue of Kashmir into international focus and there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity following the Kargil . Even President Clinton’s recent visit to the sub-continent had it on top of his agenda.

 

In the period of Nawaz’s ‘bey-bus’ diplomacy when our Foreign Office had resigned to the fact that it had not much to do with the foreign policy since the major decisions related to our vital interests were not made in Islamabad, the need of the hour, therefore, now is to relate it to Bhutto’s deft handling of foreign affairs. With my experience as a journalist spread over a period of 36 years (with of course stint as a diplomat), I have no hesitation to say that no Pakistani leader had such a grasp of foreign affairs and diplomacy as him. He gave a shape, a form and direction to Pakistan’s foreign relations. And glory and glitter too. It was he who sought friends and not masters for Pakistan.

 

Therefore, in order to understand where we stand today in the global context, I would refer to a remarkable treatise penned by him in 1967 “Myth of Independence”. In 1958 the perception was that every decision--whether big or small- was ‘influenced by the United States’. These were the days of our ‘special relationship’ with the Americans who used to describe us as most special allies. The pendulum swung from one extreme to the other, ‘from association to estrangement’ despite President Ayub’s assertion that Pakistan was the only country in the continent where the United States Armed Forces could land at any moment for the defence of the ‘free world’. Whatever the surface impression, it must be stressed here that this ‘estrangement’ continues to this day despite Islamabad’s role in the decade of Afghan jehad. Now the impression is that Washington wants us to settle with India on its terms and conditions.

 

Bhutto refers to the shift in India’s foreign policy following Delhi’s debacle in its war with China in 1962 when Americans had succeeded in compelling Ayub to offer joint defence to Jawahar Lal Nehru while Premier Zhao en-lai had offered Pakistan the life-time opportunity to take Kashmir on a platter. Bhutto had the vision to see what was around the corner. As the 1971 events subsequently unfolded, his prophecy that ‘Force enters when diplomacy is exhausted’ came true. As a matter of fact, when Americans resorted, to what they described as ‘even-handed treatment’ vis-a-vis termination of arms supplies to the sub-continent, the step was more hurtful to Islamabad than Delhi. He had also forewarned of a war on the eastern front and an attack on Azad Kashmir.

 

In view of the inevitable threats to Pakistan’s survival, Bhutto had emphasized on the need for strengthening of the nation’s defence capability supplemented by self-sufficiency and economic development. His answer to such a situation was to develop ‘a local industrial potential for equipping its armed forces with more sophisticated weapons’ including the nuclear capability ‘even if the nation had to eat to grass’. He had believed that ‘the effect of a nation’s diplomatic activities is often related to the weight of its fighting capacity’.

 

According to Bhutto, the principal objective of Indian foreign policy has been persistent in seeking Pakistan’s isolation. It managed to convert to neutrality many in the Arab world if not make them anti-Pakistan. It monopolized its relations with the erstwhile Soviet Union and used them against Pakistan in 1971. It lukewarmed other European states and exploited NAM countries to the hilt. As a result of the triumph of its diplomacy the Kashmir issue remains unresolved to this day despite the UN resolutions.

 

The mutual confidence building exercises between India and Pakistan are nothing but old wine in a new bottle. Bhutto mentions how the United States wanted ‘Pakistan should become realistic and seek rapprochement with India without the settlement of outstanding disputes’. In his words what was desired was nothing but ‘capitulation by installment and eventual liquidation’.

 

There was definitely a method behind the urgency in Nawaz days to develop trade ties with India. In this context I do not know whether it is relevant to mention about the alleged sugar deals that were the sole outcome of Mr Vajpayee’s Lahore bus- yatra. Whatever the case, at the end of the day, in the real terms, it came to be a strong dose of sugar-coated bitter pills for the people of Pakistan and the brave freedom fighters of Kashmir.

 

Bhutto had warned of the moves to make Pakistan subservient to India to carry on ‘an aggressive confrontation with China’. Although there are no signs of such an eventuality in the near future but then super powers think not for now but ten, twenty and fifty years hence. India, too, has developed ties with Beijing but its has reservations. It claims that it tested its nuclear weapons for its defence against China and not Pakistan--a ploy similar to the one mentioned by Bhutto. We should read what Bhutto had to say vis-a-vis American desire that both Delhi and Islamabad reduce their armed forces. ‘India could always circumvent such an agreement by exaggerating the threat of China, in connivance with the United States’.

 

The people of Pakistan want relations with India ‘without entanglement’ on the basis of equality and without sacrificing the interest of the Kashmiris. Benazir Bhutto’s proposal that Delhi should withdraw its occupationary forces from the Indian-held Kashmir and stop violation of human rights as a precondition to subsequent confidence building measures including opening of borders on the two sides of the LOC leaving the final choice to decide about their fate with the Kashmiris, needs to be debated and given a fair trial.

 

Shaheed Bhutto’s has left lot of food for thought in the following historic conclusion: ‘The struggle for Independence was against an alien racial domination; today it is for preserving independence. The wheel of change has come full circle, bringing us face to face with the same ancient menace. We are no more a subject people; we have the attributes of an independent nation and the will to remain free; though peace is our ideal, the defence of our rights continues to be the supreme objective of the people of Pakistan’.