A mention of a man who played such a major role in Pakistan’s history..
If I am murdered…the ZAB saga!
The story of the murdered Prime Minister of Pakistan
Who among the thirty odd students gathered in a small conference room at Hotel Orient in Hyderabad in 1967 to listen to Bhutto, would have believed that he would reach the top within four years. After the speech, Bhutto told the three students who organized the meeting that he would not forget the favor. All three of them spent time in jail in the Bhutto era. In the same year, Bhutto and Mustafa Khar were climbing walls in the back alleys of Clifton, Karachi to see Bhutto’s Bengali mistress. They dared not use the front doors for fear of being caught. Once Bhutto was in his mistress’s house, Khar would guard the house. Subsequently, Mustafa Khar too spent time in the doghouse.
For some reason, Bhutto never liked people who helped him to the top. His mentor JA Rahim was the first to go to jail, followed by Mairaj Mohammed Khan and many others after him, once Bhutto became the PM of Pakistan.
What Made Bhutto Tick?
He was somewhat of an intriguer and to some a reincarnation of Machiavelli’s Prince. Bhutto had very little experience and understanding of how democracy worked. His unwavering ambition was to get to the top. Anything that came in the way was a hurdle to climb. He showed scant regard for any moral, ethical, or political values. Still, he touched a tender nerve in poor Pakistanis. He went to the poor and spoke about their plight with such passion that they believed every word of it. He traveled to desolate villages and sat down with poor farmers. Those farmers, and now their second and the third generations, still vote in his name.
He never had any close friends. He liked to drink but had difficulty holding his drinks. Often witty, but after a couple of drinks, he was abusive to his friends and colleagues. His party leaders were afraid of his temper and loose lips in his drunken state and he humiliated most of them. When the Zia government was getting ready to hang him, most of them had already deserted him. Bhutto later claimed in his book that even his lawyer, Yayha Bukhtiar, who owed a lot to him, would come unprepared for the cases in both the High Court and the Supreme Court. Often it seemed that everyone within the Zia government or even in his own party wanted him dead. Some wished it secretly, and some like Ch. Zahoor Elahi and the High Court Judge Molvi Mushtaque, openly did everything they could to send him to the gallows. He and his wife Nusrat were on the verge of divorce throughout his tenure as prime minister; she would often spend months in friends’ homes because Bhutto wanted to be with his mistress, a woman who later claimed that they were married. Nusrat, in the end, was the only warrior in the failed campaign to save his life.
The Pakistani elite, the army, and the bureaucracy wanted him dead. Only the poor and the peasants stood with him but in an hierarchical society, the poor cannot change decisions made by the elite.
Bhutto and the Army - The First Round
The only son of a prominent Sindhi politician, Mir Shahnawaz Bhutto, who died before Bhutto came of age, Zulfiqar Bhutto was introduced to the upper echelon of the Pakistani elite by the Pir of Pagara and his wife Nusrat. Bhutto owed his political training to the army generals. He never lifted a finger for democracy or even for the basic civil rights as long as he served the army generals. He left the Ayub Government over his alleged disputes after the 1965 war and over negotiations with India. He presumably was opposed to all negotiations and later vowed a 1000 years of war with India. The same Bhutto also asserted that his first political dream was to become the prime minister of India and he admired Nehru more than he admired any other politician. Some accused him of retaining his Indian citizenship until he was sure of some footings in Pakistan.
Throughout the fifties, Bhutto worked his way up in the powerful sections of the elite; he had begun to understand the power of the army in Pakistani politics. This was a time when many politicians were confused as to what the army wanted. Some thought they could continue to use the army to support them to remain in power. Bhutto had no such qualms. He first got closer to Iskandar Mirza through his Iranian wife who was a cousin of Nusrat Bhutto, and in turn, Iskander introduced him to Gen Ayub’s inner circle. He would invite Gen Ayub and the other generals to his agriculture farms in Larkana, and entertain them in a grand lavishlystyle with procured imported liquor for the army officers.
He never joined any political party and his relationship with the army generals was his only asset in moving up the social and political ladder in Pakistan. His unflinching faith in the army paid off when he took over as a minister on the morning of the October 1958 coup. Later that month while Ayub Khan sent Iskander Mirza packing, Bhutto retained his position.
From 1958 to until the 1965 war with India, his star was rising. He was the most visible person of the Ayub regime. From a minister of an obscure department, he made it to the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. The high point of his career was a speech accepting the ceasefire resolution in the UNSC in September 1965. On return from New York, he found out that he was a pariah in the Ayub cabinet. There was a bitter rivalry between him, Altaf Guahar, a high level bureaucrat and Mohd Shoaib, Ayub’s finance minister. The 1965 war, despite tall claims by the Ayub regime, almost turned into a major embarrassment when the Indian army began to knock on the doors of Lahore. The palace power struggle made Bhutto the scapegoat of events in 1965. There were speculations that he was the architect of the Pakistani policy to send armed intruders in Kashmir and later on, he fully supported the war.
Sidelined during the January 1966 Tashkent negotiations, Bhutto knew which way the wind was blowing. He got an extended vacation before his resignation and ended up in Paris where JA Rahim was Pak Consular. They embarked on writing a new history for Pakistan.
Pakistan Peoples Party
There is no documented record on Bhutto’s strategy in dealing with an adverse army and his picking up of a new career in the opposition. People like JA Rahim or Dr. Mubasshir Hassan of Lahore, who could have provided clues to his strategy, were so bitter in the end that they never wanted to talk about him. They had scratched any goodwill they ever had about him from their hearts and never wrote any account of that period.
Bhutto had three immediate concerns:
- He had to deal with the army. Bhutto never wanted to go up against the army but he wanted to oppose Ayub Khan. That required a deft handling of the situation.
- He needed to create alliances that would propel him in the feudal political structure but would still keep him distinguished from the run-of-the-mill feudal politicians of the Muslim League.
- He was not interested in East Pakistan but the quandary was that without East Pakistan, chances of his getting to the top were zero.
He went around the first two issues by launching a campaign against anybody related to Ayub except Ayub or the army. He lashed out against the capitalists, the feudal structure, the bureaucracy, and the other supporting cast of Ayub Khan. He told the poor to drag the rich out of their homes and to exact the revenge of the centuries. He asked political novices, the vagabonds, and the anarchists to work for him in changing society. In feudal Sindh and in the southern Punjab, he was talking to prominent feudal families to support him. The Peoples Party was such a mishmash of unlikely alliances that nobody but Bhutto knew what the party actually stood for. Before the elections in 1970, Bhutto had created enough alliances to cause sufficient mayhem in society to alarm the establishment and to cause the elitist to hate him profoundly and without any reservation.
East Pakistan was a sticky situation. He probably had not visited East Pakistan more than twice in his entire political life. Neither did he have any sense of how to communicate with Bengalis. Despite his limited knowledge of East Pakistan, Bhutto correctly defined his political strategy after assessing the trends and the leadership that was emerging from East Pakistan at that time, and set up his game plan accordingly.
Around the time when Bhutto’s role in the Ayub regime was coming to an end, a thousand miles away Sheikh Mujib in East Pakistan was putting together his Six Points agenda for the future of Pakistan. The 1965 war had changed many perceptions, paradigms, and equilibria in Pak politics. What Sheikh Mujib came up with was a clear-cut agenda for East Pakistan’s secession from Pakistan. His Six Points called for two currencies, two capitals, and two central banks. In essence, he was asking for two prime ministers, two presidents, and two armies. Astute political analysts, the army, and Bhutto correctly assessed Mujib’s ultimate goal. But having a program and implementing it are two different things. There were still strong pro Pakistan currents among Bengalis. The Bengali middle class was disgusted with the West Pakistan elite, but it was not apparent then that they were ready to break off. In the most likely scenario, Bhutto must have concluded that if Mujib did not succeed the first time, he would eventually get an independent East Pakistan in the next round. Bhutto was willing to wait it out so he concentrated on West Pakistan for his future political strategy.
1970 saw a volatile and feverish election campaign. Bhutto toiled hard for his votes in the deserts and plains of Sindh and Punjab. Sheikh Mujib, helped by nationalistic slogans and a natural disaster, swept the polls in East Pakistan. With two different parties claiming a majority in two separate parts of the country, the stage was set for a brutal contest for the ultimate prize of controlling Pakistan between the three players: the army, Sheikh Mujib, and Bhutto.
Bhutto, after having been ousted from the power in a palace power struggle just four years earlier, was knocking back with a mandate from two important provinces. It was time for him to play his cards diligently and with utmost shrewdness. Bhutto was ready for the game that would eventually make him the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Bhutto and the Army - The Second Round
Gen. Yahya Khan and his government, behind the scenes had worked carefully to defeat Bhutto in the elections. Many right-wing Islamic parties along with the various factions of the Muslim League were flush with monetary support from the army. Bhutto had very few sources for money. The rumors had him getting lots of money from a foreign government that controlled funds in Pak currency for the food grains sold to Pakistan. The PPP was not the only recipient of that money.
A few days after the elections, Gen. Yahya Khan along with some senior military generals huddled up with Bhutto in his hometown Larkana. Soon after those meetings, Bhutto took a belligerent stand against Mujib and eventually went on to tell National Assembly members to not to show up for the assembly meeting in Dacca or their legs would be broken. Then in a speech in Lahore, he came out with his famous declaration “Idhar hum, Udhar tum.” Within days, Gen. Yahya Khan postponed the assembly session in Dacca causing a violent reaction there. It became clear to all that Bengalis would have a huge struggle ahead of them to control their destiny.
Bhutto’s declaration of “Idhar hum, Udhar tum” was not some burst of emotions but a signal to the army that he would put his neck out for the army. It was also a signal to Mujib about what was to come next. Mujib got his cue and there never were any serious negotiations with the army. The Awami league leadership began to slip out to India and when finally the military action began, most of the Awami league leaders escaped arrest. Mujib was the only leader arrested by the army.
Within a few months, both the army and Mujib gave way for Bhutto to become the undisputed leader of Pakistan. He knew he had inherited a new Pakistan. It was not Mr. Jinnah’s Pakistan any more. It was within his grasp to build the country anew and Bhutto thought he could. When he spoke to Pakistanis for the first time in Dec 1971, he stressed that he would lead the new Pakistan on a different path.
Hur Kamaale Raa Zawale
Sher Baz Mazari reached for Mufti Mehmood’s beard. Nasim Wali Khan, an articulate person and a fine orator, kept screaming - she was calling the Mufti a traitor! Asghar Khan threatened to kill him. Sher Baz, a mild mannered Baloch, was all keyed up. Some feared that he might actually pull Mufti Mehmood’s beard. Mufti, along with Noorani and Nasarullah Khan wanted to sign an agreement with Bhutto but Asghar Khan, Nasim Wali Khan, Sher Baz Mazari and Ghafoor of JI were dead set against any agreement. The opposition coalition PNA, in June 1977, smelled victory and did not want to give Bhutto any opening to wrest the initiative from them. Some in the coalition felt that the continued confrontation would encourage the army to take over. Nasim Wali Khan was looking to get her husband released from the jail and feared that as long as Bhutto was the PM, Wali Khan could not be a free person. The PNA, a hastily put together coalition, was close to bringing the mighty Bhutto down after a violent movement and many forces were watching with delight the drama that played out in the Sihala rest house.
Just two years before the PNA movement, the Bhutto government looked so much like a civilian imitation of the Ayub regime that many thought Bhutto only lacked a uniform. Interestingly, he did have a funny uniform, a Bandmaster’s outfit. It was a cross between a Mao jacket made of brocade with embroidery work on a Sherwani color.
He was at the top of the world. The press had been gagged; opposition political activities were banned. Intimidating Baloch Sardars were in the Hyderabad jail, and the imposing Wali Khan was so frustrated in prison that he had begun to take it out on police officers. For Bhutto, there was no opposition left to boot and the COAS, Gen. Tikka Khan, was a strong Bhutto supporter. Bhutto could not have dreamed of a better scenario. On the downside, life for political opponents had become difficult, as minor transgressions would bring government wrath. Jails in Karachi, Sindh, and the Punjab packed with mostly minor political workers increased the bitterness. As the hatred against Bhutto and his party began to take roots, the resilience and determination of his political foes and the opponents grew stronger.
Bhutto was enjoying his position. He began to move away from his political party and relied more on the bureaucracy for political decisions. The District Commissioners and the IG Police were his eyes and ears, and his government would often encourage civil servants to appraise the local political situation for the central government.
Gen. Tikka Khan completed his term in 1974, he had completely shut out the opposition politicians, and his successor Gen. Zia, hand picked by Bhutto, was considered a sycophant. Jamaat Islami, a religious fundamentalist party that had always enjoyed an excellent relationship with the army, worked to revive its relations. It found some generals sympathetic to the opposition politicians. In 1976, the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Pakistan. While he praised Bhutto’s skills at the English language in public reception; behind the closed doors, he gave Bhutto a thorough dressing down for initiating a nuclear program.
Kissinger’s mission is known as a browbeating mission with a well-known warning to make a horrible example of Pakistan in the aftermath of, what was termed in the West, the threat of an Islamic bomb.(1)
On the morning of July 4 1977, the English daily Dawn published an article by Selig Harrison(2) spelling out the US displeasure with Bhutto. At midnight, the Army struck and took Bhutto into custody.
Epilogue
Bhutto had an opportunity to leave the country in August/September 1977. He thought that he could work it out with the army. Right after his nemesis, the Punjab high court Judge Molvi Mushtaque, ordered his arrest, Bhutto’s chances of leaving the prison alive began to diminish steadily. From his jail cell in Rawalpindi, Bhutto wrote a book prophesying dire consequences for the country, if he was murdered. The army would have none of it. His last prophecy also died with him.
Ref:
1)Daily Jang: Urdu News - Latest Breaking News update Pakistan - jang.com.pk
2) Selig Harrison at that time was known as an expert on Pakistan. He is now known as N. Korean expert. See his bio:
http://www.uscc.gov/bios/2005bios/05_03_10bios/harrison_seig.htm
Footnote: Some events and stories have no references. However, they were commonly known in Pak political circles. Only the most authentic ones have ben used here.
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